How to get backlinks in 2026 comes down to one idea: give other site owners a real reason to link to you, then make sure the right people see it. Every method that still works fits into one of five approaches: creating linkable assets, outreach, relationships and communities, reclaiming links you've already earned, and local, PR and brand work. The 25 strategies below are sorted into those five groups.
If you only remember one rule, make it this: a good backlink is a link a real editor would add even if search engines didn't exist. That means a relevant site, a real page, a sensible anchor, and a placement in the content because it helps the reader. Tactics that produce links like that keep paying off. Tactics that fake them get ignored by Google at best and cost you rankings at worst.
This guide gives you all 25 strategies in one comparison table, step-by-step instructions for each, copy-paste outreach emails, a way to pick the right three for your type of site, and the link schemes to stay away from. If you're new to the topic, start with what backlinks are and why they matter, then come back here.
What makes a backlink worth getting
Before you spend an hour on any tactic, know what you're trying to get. Links are not all equal. One link from a respected site in your niche can do more than fifty from unrelated blogs. Judge every opportunity on five things:
- Relevance. Is the linking site about your topic, or close to it? Is the page itself relevant? Relevance is the hardest signal to fake and the one most worth having.
- Trust and authority. Does the site rank for anything, get real traffic and link out carefully? Third-party scores like DR and DA are rough estimates of this, not Google metrics. Our guide to domain authority explains how to read them.
- Editorial placement. A link inside the body of an article, surrounded by related text, is worth more than one in a footer, sidebar, author box or sitewide blogroll.
- Followed and indexable. A link marked
nofollow,sponsoredorugcis only a hint to Google, and a link on a noindexed page probably doesn't count at all. See dofollow vs nofollow links for the details. - A natural anchor. Your brand name, the URL or a descriptive phrase. A profile full of exact-match keyword anchors is a classic sign of manipulation. Our anchor text guide covers what a healthy mix looks like.
The one-question test
All 25 link building strategies compared
Use this table to shortlist. "Cost" assumes you do the work yourself, so for most tactics the real cost is your time. "Speed" is how long it usually takes to land the first link, not how long it takes to affect rankings.
| Strategy | Effort | Cost | Speed | Scalability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Original data and research | High | Low–Medium | Slow | Medium |
| 2. Free tools and calculators | High | Medium–High | Slow | High (links keep coming) |
| 3. Definitive guides | Medium–High | Low | Slow | Medium |
| 4. Visual assets | Medium | Low–Medium | Medium | Medium |
| 5. Templates and checklists | Low–Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 6. Curated statistics pages | Medium | Low | Slow | High (links keep coming) |
| 7. Guest posting | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 8. Broken link building | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 9. Content-upgrade (skyscraper) outreach | High | Low | Medium | Low–Medium |
| 10. Resource page outreach | Low–Medium | Low | Fast | Medium |
| 11. Link insertion requests | Low–Medium | Low | Fast | Medium |
| 12. Journalist and expert-source requests | Medium | Low | Fast–Medium | Medium |
| 13. Podcast guesting | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 14. Competitor link gap | Medium | Low–Medium (tool) | Medium | High |
| 15. Link-building community | Low | Subscription | Fast | High |
| 16. Partner, supplier and integration links | Low | Free | Fast | Low |
| 17. Testimonials and case studies | Low | Free | Fast | Low |
| 18. Forums, Q&A and communities | Medium (ongoing) | Free | Medium | Low (mostly nofollow) |
| 19. Collaborations with peers | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 20. Unlinked brand mentions | Low | Free | Fast | Grows with your brand |
| 21. Lost and broken link reclamation | Low | Free | Fast | Low (one-off, then upkeep) |
| 22. Image attribution requests | Low | Free | Fast | Low–Medium |
| 23. Digital PR campaigns | High | Medium–High | Medium | Medium |
| 24. Local links (chambers, sponsors, press) | Low–Medium | Low–Medium | Medium | Low |
| 25. Business profiles and quality directories | Low | Free–Low | Fast | Low (foundation only) |
Group 1: Create linkable assets (strategies 1–6)
Outreach is far easier when you have something worth linking to. A linkable asset is a page that solves a problem for other writers: a number they need to cite, a tool they want to recommend, or an explanation they'd rather link to than rewrite. These assets also earn links passively once they rank, which is the closest thing link building has to compound interest.
1. Publish original data and research
Writers link to sources. If you're the source of a number, a finding or a benchmark, every article that cites it links to you. You don't need a massive survey. Your own aggregated and anonymized product data, a well-designed survey of your customers, an analysis of a public dataset, or a hands-on test ("we tested 12 standing desks for wobble") can all work.
- Find the statistic your industry keeps quoting without a good source. Search "[topic] statistics" and look for outdated or dead citations.
- Choose a method you can defend, and publish it on the page: sample size, dates, how you collected and cleaned the data.
- Lead with one headline finding a journalist could drop into a sentence. Add charts and a short downloadable summary.
- Pitch it to writers who covered the topic recently (template below), then refresh it every year. A new edition gets relinked.
Effort: High · Impact: High, and long-lived · Best for: SaaS, B2B and any business sitting on useful data.
2. Build a free tool or calculator
Calculators, checkers, generators and graders earn links from resource pages, "best tools" lists and how-to articles for years. They also tend to rank for their own keywords, which brings in more links on their own. Keep it simple: a single-purpose tool that does one job well beats a bloated app. A freelance rate calculator, a dog food portion calculator or a GPA converter are all linkable if they're accurate and fast.
- Search your niche for "[task] calculator", "[task] generator" and "[task] checker" queries where the current results are clunky or ad-heavy.
- Build the smallest version that's genuinely useful. No-code builders are fine for many calculators.
- Put a clear explanation under the tool: how it works, what the inputs mean, and when not to trust the result.
- Pitch it to resource pages and to writers of tool roundups in your niche.
Effort: High (lower if you can code) · Impact: High · Best for: SaaS, technical content sites, e-commerce with a hands-on audience.
3. Write the definitive guide on a narrow topic
Not "the ultimate guide to marketing," but "how to stop an 8-week-old puppy biting." Narrow, complete, well structured and kept up to date. Other writers link to a guide like this instead of explaining the topic themselves. Add things competitors don't have: original diagrams, worked examples, a decision table, real photos. These are also the pages you'll point most of your outreach at.
Effort: Medium–High · Impact: Medium on its own, High with outreach · Best for: Content sites, blogs, SaaS.
4. Make visual assets people want to reuse
Diagrams that explain a process, charts of your data, maps and comparison graphics get embedded in other people's articles, and bloggers usually credit the source. Make the visual easy to reuse: offer a downloadable file and a short embed snippet with a plain, branded credit link.
Keep embed links clean
Effort: Medium · Impact: Medium · Best for: Niches with complex processes, data or geography.
5. Offer templates, checklists and swipe files
A contract template, a moving checklist, a content calendar spreadsheet, a packing list. Practical downloads get linked from resource pages, newsletters and "tools we use" posts. Keep them ungated, or at most lightly gated. Every extra form field costs you links, because writers don't like sending readers to a wall.
Effort: Low–Medium · Impact: Medium · Best for: B2B, service businesses, education, productivity niches.
6. Maintain a curated statistics page
"[Topic] statistics" pages get cited constantly by writers who need a number to support a point. Collect statistics from primary sources, link each one to its origin, date everything, and update the page on a schedule. The update date is part of the appeal.
One honesty rule: never invent, round up or "estimate" a statistic you can't source. A stats page with broken or fake sources destroys trust the first time a journalist checks it.
Effort: Medium · Impact: Medium–High over time · Best for: Content sites and SaaS in niches journalists cover.
Group 2: Outreach-based strategies (strategies 7–14)
Outreach is simply asking. Expect most emails to go unanswered. That's normal, and it isn't a sign the tactic is broken. Results depend on two things: how relevant your target list is and how specific your pitch is. As a rule of thumb, 20 well-researched emails beat 200 templated ones, and they don't burn your domain's reputation with spam filters.
7. Write guest posts for relevant sites
Writing for another site in your niche gets you in front of its audience and usually earns a link in your author bio or in the article itself. The link is the side effect; the audience and the credibility are the point. Our full guest posting guide covers finding sites, pitching and writing.
- 1
Build a list of sites your customers actually read
Search "[topic] write for us" or "[topic] guest post guidelines", but also check sites that don't advertise it. The best hosts often don't. - 2
Study what they publish
Read five recent posts. Note the length, tone and what's missing. Your pitch should fill a gap, not repeat their archive. - 3
Pitch two or three specific titles
Include a one-line angle for each and links to one or two things you've written. Keep the email under 150 words. - 4
Write your best work, not your leftovers
Link out to helpful sources, including the host's own articles. Keep any link to your site natural and descriptive, not an exact-match keyword.
Where guest posting goes wrong
Effort: Medium · Impact: Medium–High · Best for: Anyone with real expertise: founders, consultants, SaaS, B2B.
8. Broken link building
Find dead outbound links on relevant pages, then offer your page as a replacement. You're doing the site owner a favor, which makes this one of the friendliest forms of outreach. The broken link building guide goes deeper on tools and scale.
- Find pages in your niche that link out a lot: resource lists, "best of" roundups, older in-depth guides.
- Check their outbound links for 404s and dead domains with a crawler or a link-checker browser extension.
- Confirm you have a page that genuinely replaces the dead resource. If not, consider creating one when the same dead link appears on many pages.
- Email the owner with the exact page, the dead link, and your suggested replacement.
Effort: Medium · Impact: Medium · Best for: Content sites and anyone with in-depth resources.
9. Content-upgrade outreach (the "skyscraper" approach)
Find a page in your niche that has earned lots of links but has gone stale: outdated numbers, missing topics, broken examples. Create something clearly better, then contact the people linking to the old version and show them what changed. This only works if your version is better in ways a linker cares about (newer data, a working tool, clearer steps). "Longer" is not better.
Effort: High · Impact: Medium · Best for: Content sites and SaaS with strong writers.
10. Get listed on resource pages
Many sites keep curated lists of useful links: libraries, universities, associations, hobby sites and industry blogs. Find them with searches like intitle:resources "[topic]", inurl:links "[topic]" or "[topic]" "helpful resources". Before pitching, check that the page is maintained (recent additions, few dead links) and already lists things like yours. Then pitch the exact page and the exact section your resource belongs in.
Effort: Low–Medium · Impact: Medium · Best for: Education, nonprofits, tools, local businesses, how-to content.
11. Ask for link insertions in existing articles
Sometimes an existing article mentions a concept your page explains better. A short, specific suggestion ("in the section on X, this guide might help readers who want the full walkthrough") can earn a link without a new article. Our guide to niche edits and link insertions covers this in detail.
The line is payment. An unpaid editorial suggestion is ordinary outreach. Paying for a link to be inserted into an existing post is buying a link, which Google's spam policies treat as link spam unless it's marked sponsored.
Effort: Low–Medium · Impact: Medium · Best for: Everyone, especially sites with strong reference content.
12. Answer journalist and expert-source requests
Journalists and bloggers regularly post requests for expert sources, both on dedicated request services and on social media under tags such as #journorequest. Reply quickly, answer the actual question in a few quotable sentences, and include one line about why you're qualified. Links from news sites are hard to fake and carry weight. Some will be nofollow, and some publications don't link at all, but the brand exposure still helps.
Effort: Medium (speed matters) · Impact: Medium–High, unpredictable · Best for: Founders, specialists, anyone with genuine expertise.
13. Appear as a podcast guest
Most podcasts publish show notes that link to their guests. Pitch shows your audience listens to with two or three specific episode ideas, not a generic bio. One good appearance often leads to invitations from other hosts, so this tactic tends to snowball once it starts.
Effort: Medium · Impact: Medium · Best for: Founders, consultants, coaches, SaaS.
14. Replicate your competitors' best links (link gap analysis)
Use a backlink tool to list the sites linking to two or three competitors but not to you. Sort the results into links you could realistically get (resource pages, roundups, directories, podcasts, guest posts) and links that were earned by circumstance (news coverage, a viral post). Start with sites that link to several of your competitors. They clearly link out in your niche, and they may just not know you exist.
Effort: Medium · Impact: High, because it shows what's possible in your niche · Best for: Any site in a competitive niche.
Group 3: Relationship and community strategies (strategies 15–19)
Links follow relationships. The people most likely to link to you are the ones who already know you: partners, vendors, peers, customers and communities you contribute to. These tactics are slower to scale but usually produce the most relevant links you'll get.
15. Join a link-building community
Link-building communities are groups of site owners who place relevant links for each other. Done badly, they're just link exchanges with extra steps: direct A-to-B swaps, off-topic sites and "partner" pages that Google can spot easily. Our guides to link exchanges and three-way link exchanges explain why those patterns are risky.
Be clear-eyed about the rules. Google's spam policies list excessive link exchanges and links exchanged for value as link spam when the goal is to manipulate rankings, and no community can make that risk zero. What a well-run community can do is make every placement look and work like an editorial link: relevant, in real content, without reciprocal patterns, and on sites that are real publications rather than link farms.
That's how HrefClub is designed. Members get monthly credits and request links to their own pages, choosing the target URL and anchor. A matching algorithm assigns, at random, which member site in a matching niche places each link, so there are no direct swaps. Links must sit in real page content (no footers or sidebars), only one member link is allowed per page, keyword-heavy anchors are limited, and each site has monthly caps. Every link is checked on submission and re-checked automatically. If a link fails three checks, it's marked lost and the requester's credits are refunded. Sites that sell links or look like link farms can't host. And you always decide what goes on your own site.
Effort: Low · Impact: Medium–High, depending on the community's quality controls · Best for: New sites, SaaS, content sites, agencies managing several domains.
16. Get links from partners, suppliers and integrations
The companies you already work with often have pages that link out: "our customers," "where to buy," dealer locators, partner directories and, for software, integration marketplaces. These links are relevant by definition and usually just need an ask. Send your account manager or partner contact a short email: "Do you have a partners or customers page? We'd love to be listed."
Effort: Low · Impact: Medium (very relevant) · Best for: SaaS, e-commerce, B2B, local businesses, agencies.
17. Give testimonials and case studies
Tools and service providers you genuinely use often publish customer testimonials and case studies with a link back. Offer a specific, honest testimonial ("cut our invoice follow-ups from two hours a week to twenty minutes") and ask whether they credit customers with a link. Only do this for products you actually use. Testimonials written just for the link are easy to spot and reflect badly on you.
Effort: Low · Impact: Low–Medium · Best for: Businesses that use a lot of software or services.
18. Contribute to forums, Q&A sites and online communities
Links from forums, Reddit-style communities and Q&A sites are almost always nofollow or ugc, so their direct ranking value is limited. Their indirect value is real: referral traffic, brand searches, and discovery by writers who later link to you editorially. Answer questions fully in the thread, link only when your page genuinely goes further than your answer, and follow each community's self-promotion rules.
Effort: Medium, ongoing · Impact: Low direct, Medium indirect · Best for: Niche experts, SaaS, hobby and enthusiast sites.
19. Collaborate with peers on content
Co-authored research, joint webinars, expert roundups you contribute to, and interviews with other people in your niche all create content that several sites have a reason to share and link to. Interviewing someone is one of the simplest versions: most people are happy to link to a well-produced interview with them.
Effort: Medium · Impact: Medium · Best for: Content sites, B2B, newsletters, communities.
Group 4: Reclaim and fix links you've already earned (strategies 20–22)
The easiest links to get are the ones you've already earned but aren't receiving. If your site has been around for a while, start here: these tactics are fast, free and have the friendliest outreach of anything in this guide.
20. Turn unlinked brand mentions into links
Set up alerts for your brand name, product names and founder's name. When a page mentions you without linking, send a short, friendly note thanking them and asking if they'd add a link so readers can find you. They already chose to write about you, so you're asking for a small favor, not a big one.
Effort: Low · Impact: Medium · Best for: Brands with some existing awareness, SaaS, products people review.
21. Reclaim lost and broken backlinks
Two kinds of links quietly go missing:
- Links to URLs that no longer work. After a redesign or migration, old URLs often return 404 while other sites still link to them. Find them in Google Search Console (the Links report's top linked pages, cross-checked with the Pages report's "Not found (404)" list) or in a backlink tool's broken backlinks report. Then 301-redirect each one to the closest equivalent page.
- Links that were removed or changed. If a site removed your link or switched it to nofollow, a polite note asking why sometimes gets it restored, especially if the page was simply updated and your link was dropped by accident.
Effort: Low · Impact: Medium, and fast · Best for: Any site more than a year old, or any site that has migrated.
22. Request credit for your images
Run a reverse image search on your original photos, charts and diagrams. You'll often find sites using them without credit. Ask for an attribution link rather than a takedown: most people are happy to credit the source once asked, and you end up with a link instead of a dispute.
Effort: Low · Impact: Low–Medium · Best for: Photographers, data publishers, e-commerce with original product photos.
Group 5: Local, PR and brand strategies (strategies 23–25)
23. Run digital PR campaigns
Digital PR means creating stories journalists want to cover: a data study, timely expert commentary on industry news, a well-researched ranking or a genuinely surprising finding. Pitch reporters who cover your beat, not every journalist you can find. News links are some of the most valuable and hardest to fake. Some publications use nofollow or cite sources without linking, so when your data is used, it's fine to ask politely for a source link.
Effort: High · Impact: High · Best for: Brands with PR skills or budget: SaaS, e-commerce, consumer brands.
24. Earn local links
If you serve a geographic area, local links help you show up in local results. Chambers of commerce, business associations, local news, event calendars, community organizations and nearby suppliers are all natural sources. Sponsorships of local teams and events often come with a link too. Because those links are given in exchange for money, they should be marked sponsored or nofollow, but they still bring local relevance, visibility and referral traffic. The local link building guide covers every tactic with templates.
Effort: Low–Medium · Impact: High for local rankings · Best for: Local businesses, service-area businesses, multi-location brands.
25. Set up business profiles and quality directories
Social profiles, your Google Business Profile, industry associations, reputable niche directories, review sites and app marketplaces. Most of these links are nofollow and carry little ranking weight on their own. They still matter: they confirm your business is real, give you branded anchors and help people and search engines find you. Do them once, do them properly, and move on.
Skip mass directory submissions
Effort: Low · Impact: Low direct, but foundational · Best for: Every site, as a first step.
For a longer list of no-cost options, see free backlinks that are actually worth getting.
Outreach email templates you can copy
Templates are starting points, not scripts. The rules that matter more than any wording:
- Personalize the first line with something specific about their site or that page. If you can't, you haven't researched enough.
- Point to the exact page and the exact spot. Make saying yes take less than a minute.
- Keep it short. Under 120 words is a good target for most first emails.
- Send one follow-up after about a week (a rule of thumb), then stop.
- Never suggest the anchor text unless asked. Let them write the link the way they'd naturally write it.
Subject: Broken link on your [topic] resources page
Hi [Name],
I was reading your [page title] page while researching [topic] and
noticed the link to [dead resource name] in the "[section]" section
now goes to a 404.
If you're looking for a replacement, we published [your page title],
which covers [the same thing, plus what's better]:
[URL]
Either way, thought you'd want to know about the dead link.
Thanks,
[Your name]
[Role, Company]Subject: A resource for your [page title] list
Hi [Name],
Your list of [topic] resources is one of the few I've found that's
still maintained. [Specific thing you liked] was especially useful.
We recently put together [resource name], a free [tool / guide /
template] that helps [audience] [do specific thing]. It might fit
under your "[section]" heading:
[URL]
No worries if it's not a fit. Thanks for keeping the list going.
[Your name]Subject: Article idea for [site name]: [working title]
Hi [Name],
I've been reading [site name] for a while. Your post on [recent post]
made me rethink how I [specific takeaway].
I'd like to write something for your readers. A few ideas:
1. [Title 1] — [one-line angle]
2. [Title 2] — [one-line angle]
3. [Title 3] — [one-line angle]
I run [role] at [company], where we [relevant experience]. Recent
writing: [link 1], [link 2].
Happy to adjust any of these to fit your editorial calendar.
[Your name]Subject: Thanks for mentioning [brand]
Hi [Name],
Thanks for including [brand] in [article title]. Really appreciated
the way you described [specific detail].
Would you be open to linking our name to [URL] so readers can find us
easily? Completely understand if your policy is not to link.
Thanks again,
[Your name]Subject: New data: [headline finding in under 10 words]
Hi [Name],
You covered [related topic] in [article] last month, so I thought this
might be useful.
We [method in one sentence: surveyed X people / analyzed X records /
tested X products]. The headline finding: [finding].
Full methodology and charts (free to use with credit): [URL]
Happy to send the raw numbers or answer questions.
[Your name], [role]Subject: Re: [original subject]
Hi [Name],
Just bringing this back to the top of your inbox in case it got
buried. If it's not a fit, no reply needed.
[Your name]Subject lines: specific beats clever
How to prioritize: which strategies to start with
Trying all 25 strategies at once is the most common way link building fails. You spread your time thin, nothing gets enough attention to work, and you quit after a month. Pick three and run them well. Here's a simple way to choose.
- 1
Shortlist 6–8 strategies from the table above
Cross out anything that clearly doesn't fit, such as local links if you sell nationally online, or a free tool if you have no way to build one. - 2
Score each from 1 to 3 on fit, impact and repeatability
Fit: do you already have the asset, expertise or relationships it needs? Impact: how relevant and trusted are the sites it would get you links from? Repeatability: can you do it every month without heroics? - 3
Start with the top three scores
If two strategies tie, choose the one that produces a result sooner. Early wins keep you going. - 4
Run them for 90 days, then review
Count the links landed, their quality, and the hours spent. Drop the weakest strategy and try the next one on your list.
This scoring is a rule of thumb, not a formula. Its job is to stop you from picking tactics because a blog post said they work, when your site has nothing to make them work with. Here's a worked example for a hypothetical invoicing app for freelancers:
| Strategy | Fit | Impact | Repeatability | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tool (freelance rate calculator) | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
| Integration and partner listings | 3 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| Guest posts on freelancing blogs | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
| Original data (anonymized payment-time trends) | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| Local links | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
And here's where different types of site usually get the most from their first few months:
| Site type | Start with | Add next | Leave for later |
|---|---|---|---|
| New website | Business profiles, partner links, resource pages, a link-building community | Guest posts, broken links, one definitive guide | Digital PR, skyscraper outreach |
| SaaS | Integration listings, free tool, guest posts, podcasts | Original data, competitor link gap, digital PR | Local links |
| Local business | Business profiles, chamber and associations, suppliers, local sponsorships | Local press, journalist requests, community events | Free tools, skyscraper outreach |
| E-commerce | Manufacturer and "where to buy" pages, unlinked mentions, image credits | Product-led digital PR, guides around your products | Forum link-dropping |
| Content site or blog | Definitive guides, statistics pages, broken link building | Content upgrades, guest posts, collaborations | Directories beyond the basics |
If you're launching from zero, our guide to link building for new websites turns the first row into a week-by-week 90-day plan.
What to avoid: link schemes and shortcuts
Google's spam policies describe link spam as links intended to manipulate rankings. The policies specifically list, among other things:
- Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, including paying for "guest posts" or link insertions that aren't marked sponsored.
- Excessive link exchanges ("link to me and I'll link to you") and partner pages built only for cross-linking.
- Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links.
- Private blog networks (PBNs) and using automated programs or services to create links.
- Low-quality directory or bookmark site links, and keyword-rich links hidden in widgets or spread across site footers and templates.
Google says its systems, including its AI-based spam detection (SpamBrain), neutralize many spammy links automatically. In practice that means the most common outcome of a bad link is that you paid for nothing. Clear, large-scale patterns can still lead to a manual action, which shows up in Search Console and has to be cleaned up before rankings recover.
Worth your time
- Links you earned with useful content and specific outreach
- Sponsorships and ads marked rel="sponsored"
- A steady pace that matches what you publish and promote
- Mostly branded, URL and descriptive anchors
- Placements on real sites with real readers
Not worth the risk
- Packages of "100 high-DA backlinks" for a flat fee
- Sites that list a price for a followed link
- Direct A↔B swaps and link pages
- Exact-match anchors on most of your new links
- Sudden spikes of links with no news or launch behind them
Related reading if you're weighing a shortcut or cleaning up an old one:
- The real risks of buying backlinks and what backlinks typically cost.
- Link velocity: how fast is too fast, and why the cause of a spike matters more than its size.
- How to find and handle toxic backlinks. Google says most sites never need the disavow tool. If you do have a manual action or a clear history of paid links, our disavow file generator builds a valid file.
How to track your link building results
If you don't track links, you can't tell which strategies work, and you won't notice when links disappear. Keep a simple sheet with one row per link you pursue:
date_pitched, strategy, target_site, contact, page_you_pitched,
status (pitched / replied / live / declined), live_url, anchor,
rel (followed / nofollow / sponsored / ugc), date_live, last_checkedThen check these on a schedule:
- Every new link, as soon as it goes live. Confirm it's on the page, followed, has the expected anchor and isn't on a noindexed page. Our backlink checker does this in one step.
- Monthly: referring domains. Google Search Console's Links report shows top linking sites and top linked pages. Third-party tools show more detail, but each one sees only part of the web, so trends matter more than exact counts.
- Quarterly: your anchor mix. Paste your anchors into the anchor text analyzer to spot over-optimization before it becomes a pattern.
- Outcomes, not just links. Rankings and organic traffic for the pages you built links to, plus referral traffic from the links themselves. A link that sends real visitors is rarely a bad link.
- Cost per link. Divide hours (and any spend) by links landed for each strategy. The link building cost calculator compares that against guest posts, niche edits and agencies.
The short version: build one or two things worth linking to, pick three strategies that fit your site, run them steadily, and check every link you get. That plan beats any shortcut over a year, and it's the one you won't have to undo later.