What is link building?

Short answer

Link building is the work of getting other websites to link to yours, because links are still one of the main ways Google discovers pages and judges how much to trust them. The useful version is slow: fewer links, from sites that have a real reason to point at you. The fast version is mostly links Google has learned to ignore.

Link building has a bad reputation, and some of it is deserved. A large part of the market sells links by the month from wherever they can be found. But links themselves still matter a great deal, and earning them properly is one of the most valuable things a site can do once its pages are worth linking to.

What links do

Links do two things for a site. They help Google find pages: its explanation of how search works says many pages are discovered when Google extracts a link from a known page to a new page. And they act as a signal of importance and trust. A page that many respected sites point at is more likely to be a good answer than one nobody references.

That second role is why links became something people try to manufacture, and why Google has spent two decades getting better at telling earned links from manufactured ones.

Which links help

Not all links are equal, and the number is the wrong thing to count. Ahrefs looked at 44,589 keywords and found that the total traffic of the pages linking to you correlated with rankings better than the number of links. A link on a page real people read beats many links on pages nobody visits.

The order I work in is relevance first, then authority, then volume. A modest link from a site your customers actually read, in your industry or your area, usually does more than a stack of high-metric links from sites with no connection to what you do.

Which links get ignored, or worse

Google’s spam policies describe link spam as links intended to manipulate rankings. They name buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation, and large-scale guest posting or article campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text. Those can bring a manual action. More often, they are simply discounted, which means the money spent on them returned nothing.

In practice I see three groups. Links that help. Links that are ignored: directories, profiles, comment links, most bought links. And a smaller group that actively holds a site back, usually from a history of paid links. Historic link damage is one of the more common reasons I find for a technically clean site that cannot move.

How links are earned

Start with what you have. Suppliers, partners, associations and local organisations you already work with. Many have a page you belong on.
Find the gaps. Sites that link to your competitors and not to you, and why. Some have a real reason to link to you too.
Make something worth citing. Original data, a useful tool, a genuinely better guide, or expertise a journalist needs.
Tell the right people. Content does not earn links on its own. Someone has to know it exists.
Reclaim what you are owed. Unlinked mentions and broken links pointing at pages you have moved.

Do not forget internal links

External links are wasted if the authority cannot reach the pages that need it. On most sites I audit, the service pages, categories and location pages have the fewest internal links while the blog links to itself. Fixing that is the cheapest part of link building and the most neglected, and it often moves rankings faster than new links do.

How long it takes

Months, typically, and rarely because of a single link. Links accumulate, and their effect builds. Anyone promising movement within weeks is either selling something that will not last or taking credit for something else that changed at the same time.

Is link building for everyone?

No. If your pages do not yet answer what people are searching for, fix that first, because links will not make an unsuitable page relevant. If your competitors have similar link profiles to yours, the gap is probably on-page or technical. And if you need results within a month, link building is the wrong tool.

It is the right tool when your pages are as good as the competition’s and the sites above you are clearly better linked. Compare your profile with theirs and the gap is usually obvious.

A simple test for any link

If the link appeared on a public list of everything pointing at your site, would it embarrass you in front of a customer? A local paper, a supplier, an industry body: no. A network of thin blogs on unrelated topics, a paid placement on a site that sells to anyone: yes. That test sorts most links correctly in a few seconds, and it is the one I apply to every placement I build. I wrote more about it in what a link you would be embarrassed by looks like.

If you want links you would be comfortable showing a client, my link building service starts with an honest read of your current profile and builds fewer, better links from places with a reason to link to you. No PBNs, no packages priced per link.