Link Building
Guide

Why backlinks still matter

Despite years of predictions that links would lose their importance, backlinks still matter - but be careful how that claim is framed. Google's own position has shifted: in 2024 Gary Illyes said he would not put links in the top three ranking factors, and Google removed the word "important" from its links documentation. What remains true is correlation, not Google's ranking: Backlinko's analysis of 11.8 million Google search results (using Ahrefs data) found the number of referring domains is one of the strongest correlates with higher rankings. Correlation from third-party data and a stated ranking factor are different claims, and anyone telling you links are definitively a top-three factor is quoting a position Google walked back.

The catch: the type of links that matter has changed dramatically. A single editorial link from a DR 70+ industry publication is worth far more than a pile of low-quality links from PBNs or link farms. Quality has overwhelmed quantity.

Strategies that work

1. Digital PR

Creating newsworthy content - original research, data studies, provocative opinions from named experts - and pitching it to journalists. When done well, digital PR secures links from major publications (DR 80+) at a rate traditional outreach can't match. The asset does the heavy lifting; the outreach just gets it in front of the right people.

2. Linkable asset creation

Creating genuinely useful free tools, comprehensive guides, or original datasets that naturally attract links because other content wants to reference them. Examples: a salary calculator, an industry benchmark report, a free template library. These take time to create but generate links passively for years.

3. Strategic content outreach

Finding pages that already link to similar content and reaching out with a genuinely better or more comprehensive resource. The key is personalisation at scale - a template-blasted email gets a 1% response rate; a genuinely personalised email referencing specific content on the target site gets 10-15%.

4. Broken link building

Identifying pages that link out to broken (404) resources relevant to your content, then reaching out to suggest your page as a replacement. Editors want to fix broken links - you're doing them a favour.

5. Supplier and partner links

Often overlooked: existing business relationships (technology partners, suppliers, clients who are happy to reference you) can provide legitimate, high-relevance links with minimal outreach friction.

What to avoid

• Private Blog Networks (PBNs) - Google actively targets these. Short-term gains, long-term penalty risk.
• Paid links without nofollow - a direct violation of Google's guidelines.
• Link exchanges ("I'll link to you if you link to me") - Google's spam updates specifically target these patterns.
• Low-quality guest posts on irrelevant sites - mass-produced guest posting for links (not for genuine audiences) has been devalued significantly.
• Exact-match anchor text manipulation - a natural backlink profile has varied anchor text; over-optimisation triggers filters.

What Google has changed since 2024

Two enforcement shifts matter more to link builders than any tactic on this page.

Site reputation abuse is now algorithmic

"Parasite SEO" - renting a subfolder or subdomain on an authoritative domain to rank third-party content - moved from manual-action-only enforcement in March 2024 to algorithmic enforcement. Google can now treat an independent section of a site as a separate entity that does not inherit the parent domain's authority. The business model of buying placement on a big domain to borrow its rankings is substantially dead.

Worth knowing the ground is not entirely settled: the European Commission opened a Digital Markets Act investigation into this policy and its application to publishers in November 2025.

Back-button hijacking is now a spam policy

Announced 13 April 2026 and enforced from 15 June 2026, under Malicious practices. Google's reasoning is simple: "When a user clicks the back button in the browser, they have a clear expectation: they want to return to the previous page." Breaking that is now a policy violation carrying manual actions and algorithmic demotion.

The part that catches people out: you are liable even when the offending code comes from a third-party ad network or engagement library. If you monetise with affiliate or PR-driven traffic, audit what your ad stack injects - "we did not write that script" is not a defence. Reconsideration requests go through Search Console.

The recent update timeline

Since the March 2024 core and spam updates, Google has confirmed: the June 2024, December 2024, August 2025, March 2026 and June 2026 spam updates, and the June 2025, December 2025, March 2026 and May 2026 core updates, plus a Discover-only core update in February 2026. Google told Search Engine Roundtable that the June 2026 spam update targeted neither link spam nor site reputation abuse.

One reframe that changes how you should respond to all of it: in December 2025 Google documented that it runs smaller core updates continuously, without announcing them. The old advice to "wait for the next core update to recover" assumes a discrete event that may never be announced. Fix the underlying problem and stop watching the calendar. Our full algorithm update history tracks every confirmed rollout with dates.

Measuring link building success

Track these metrics monthly:

• Referring domains (not raw backlinks) - unique domains count, repeat links from one domain count once
• DR/DA trend - your site's authority score should trend upward over 6+ months
• Link quality - average DR of new linking domains
• Ranking movement - target keywords should move as authority increases