Guides · Content and authority
Published · 12 min
Link building, explained
Links from other websites help Google find your pages and judge whether to trust them. This guide explains which links count, how they are honestly earned through digital PR, local relationships and content, what buying them costs you under Google’s policies and UK advertising rules, and how to read the link report an agency sends you.
Link building is the part of SEO with the widest gap between what is sold and what works. It is sold as a monthly quantity: ten links, Domain Rating 30 and above, delivered by the 28th. It works as something closer to reputation: being the business other people have a reason to mention. This guide explains the mechanism, the honest ways to earn links, the dishonest ways and their consequences, and how to tell which you are being sold.
We do not buy links for clients and our code of ethics says so. That is a position, not a neutral fact, so everything below about Google’s behaviour links to Google’s own documentation, and the one competitor example is quoted from a verified profile with the date it was checked.
What a link actually does
Two things. First, discovery. Google’s SEO starter guide says "the vast majority of the new pages Google finds every day are through links" and that Google "primarily finds pages through links from other pages it already crawled". A page nobody links to, internally or externally, may never be found.
Second, trust. Google’s explanation of how it ranks results says that one of the factors used to judge quality is "understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content", which is "generally a good sign that the information is trustworthy". Its guide to ranking systems still lists "link analysis systems and PageRank" among the core systems, describing PageRank as having evolved since Google’s launch. Links are not the whole of ranking, but they remain part of it, and that is why a market exists for faking them.
The phrase "refer to" matters. Google speaks of websites that "link or refer to" content. Mentions without links, in the press, in directories, in AI answers, contribute to being a recognisable entity. Link building that forgets this chases the wrong number.
Which links count
Not all links are equal, and the differences are mostly common sense once stated.
- Relevance. A link from a London food writer to a Peckham restaurant means something. A link from a Vietnamese crypto blog to the same restaurant means the restaurant bought a package.
- Editorial choice. The link exists because someone decided your page was worth sending readers to. That is what Google’s systems are trying to measure, and it is what paid placements imitate.
- Placement. A link in the body of an article, in context, is worth more than one in a footer, a sidebar or an author bio on a page about something else.
- The linking page itself. Is it indexed? Does anyone read it? Does it link out to forty other businesses in forty other industries? A link from a page Google does not index passes nothing.
- Anchor text, in moderation. Descriptive anchors help Google understand the target. Dozens of external links all using the same commercial phrase look manufactured because they are.
- The rel attribute. See below. A link marked sponsored or nofollow is a different thing from an editorial one.
Google asks publishers to label links that are not editorial. Its guidance on qualifying outbound links defines three attributes: rel="sponsored" for "advertisements or paid placements", rel="ugc" for user-generated content such as comments and forum posts, and rel="nofollow" when the other values do not apply and the publisher does not want to vouch for the target. Google says links marked with these attributes "will generally not be followed". A correctly labelled paid link therefore does what an advert does, send readers, and does not do what a link seller promises, pass ranking value. This is the quiet fact under the entire paid-link market: a paid link is either labelled and inert, or unlabelled and in breach.
Link building versus digital PR
The two terms are often used interchangeably in proposals. They are different activities with different costs, timescales and risks, and most businesses should do some of both.
| Link building (outreach-led) | Digital PR (story-led) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Finding pages that should link to yours and asking, or earning the link with a resource they need | Creating something newsworthy (data, a study, an expert view, a stunt) and pitching it to journalists |
| What you get | A steady trickle of relevant links from directories, suppliers, partners, local sites, resource pages | Fewer, larger bursts of coverage, some with links, much of it mentions only |
| What drives the cost | Hours of research and outreach per link; the quality of what you have to offer | The idea, the data work, the design and the journalist relationships; a campaign is a project |
| Timescale | Weeks to first links; continuous | Months to plan and land a campaign; results arrive in a burst |
| Main risk | Drifting into buying placements when outreach is slow | A campaign that lands no coverage; or coverage with no links and no business relevance |
| Suits | Local and service businesses; anyone with real relationships and useful content | Businesses with a story or data, in sectors journalists cover; brands that benefit from mentions as well as links |
Get your free SEO auditThe review looks at who links to you, who links to the two sites outranking you, and where the realistic gaps are. Two working days, no call required.
How links are honestly earned
Content worth citing
The oldest method and still the most reliable. A page that answers a question better than anything else gets linked by people answering the same question. For a London business the opportunities are specific: a Hackney coffee roaster’s guide to brewing ratios, a Richmond letting agent’s plain-English explanation of the current licensing rules in the borough, an Islington architect’s page on what a planning application in a conservation area actually involves. None of these need a PR budget. They need expertise and the patience to write it down.
Digital PR with a London angle
Journalists need stories, numbers and quotable experts. London gives you a geography journalists already cover. Public data from the GLA London Datastore and the ONS can be turned into borough-level comparisons that local and national press will use if the analysis is sound and the methodology is published. An expert comment service, responding quickly to journalists’ requests in your sector, costs time rather than money. A survey of your own customers can be newsworthy if the sample is honest and described. The test of a digital PR idea is whether a journalist would run it if your name were not attached.
Local links
Local links are relevant by definition and most businesses already have the relationships. Business improvement districts and local chambers of commerce list their members. Borough and neighbourhood news sites cover local businesses and events. Sponsoring a junior football club in Bromley or a community garden in Lewisham usually comes with a link from a site that is genuinely local. Suppliers and trade bodies list stockists and members. Local colleges and universities link to placement providers. A Croydon electrician with twenty local links from organisations that actually know the business has a stronger profile than one with two hundred bought guest posts.
Partnerships and supplier pages
If you install a manufacturer’s product, you may be eligible for their approved-installer page. If you use a platform, there may be a directory of agencies or partners. These are editorial in the sense that matters: the linking organisation is vouching for you.
Unlinked mentions
When a site mentions your business without linking, a polite request often converts it. Set up alerts for your business name and the names of your senior people.
What bought links cost you
Google’s spam policies list link spam explicitly. The examples include "buying or selling links for ranking purposes", "excessive link exchanges" or partner pages that exist only for cross-linking, and "using automated programs or services to create links to your site". The same document defines expired domain abuse (buying a lapsed domain for its history) and site reputation abuse (third-party content published on a host mainly to exploit its ranking), which are the two mechanisms behind many "high authority guest post" placements.
The consequence, when Google acts by hand, is a manual action. Search Console’s Manual Actions report describes "unnatural links to your site" as a detected pattern of "unnatural, artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to your site", and the fix as removing the links and requesting reconsideration. There is a mirror action, "unnatural links from your site", for publishers who sell them. More often Google acts algorithmically and silently: the bought links are simply ignored, and the money is gone. The penalties and recovery guide covers how to tell which has happened.
The disavow tool is often sold as the remedy. Google describes it as "an advanced feature" to be used "only with caution", warns that "if used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site’s performance", and says you should disavow only if you have "a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links" and "the links have caused a manual action, or likely will cause a manual action", per its disavow documentation. Most sites never need it. A proposal that includes a monthly "toxic link clean-up" as standard is selling a cure for a condition you probably do not have.
There is also a UK advertising dimension that SEO discussions usually skip. The CAP Code, administered by the ASA, requires marketing communications to be clearly identifiable as such, and its rules cover advertorials. A paid article placed to carry a link is a marketing communication. Properly labelled, it must also carry rel="sponsored" to satisfy Google, which removes the ranking value that was the reason for buying it. Unlabelled, it is a problem under both regimes. Businesses in regulated sectors, from clinics to financial firms, should be especially careful about what is being published in their name on sites they have never read.
How links are sold
The market prices links by third-party authority scores. One example from the agencies we profiled for our comparison research: ClickSlice publishes a page of guest-post link packages priced at £1,200 for five links (three from sites rated DR 30 or above, one DR 45 or above, one DR 60 or above), £1,800 for seven and £2,400 for ten, per its link building packages page (profile checked 9 Oct 2026). We quote it not to single out one agency but because it is the clearest published example of the standard model: a fixed quantity, a Domain Rating floor, a monthly price. Domain Rating is an Ahrefs score; Google does not use it. Whether a given package is editorial placement or paid placement is a question to ask before buying any such package from anyone, and the answer determines whether the links are labelled, and therefore whether they can do what you are paying for.
How to read any agency’s link report
A link report should let you verify every link yourself. Ask for the following columns, and treat a report that cannot provide them as a report of something other than links.
| Column | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Linking URL and date live | You can open it. A list of domains without URLs is not verifiable. |
| Page topic and how it relates to you | Relevance is the first test. A link from an unrelated page was placed, not earned. |
| How the link was obtained | Earned by outreach, from a story, from a partnership, or paid. If paid, it should be marked sponsored, and the report should say so. |
| rel attribute (none, nofollow, sponsored, ugc) | Determines whether Google treats it as an endorsement. Agencies that omit this column usually have a reason. |
| Is the linking page indexed by Google | A link on a page Google has not indexed passes nothing. Test with a site: search for the URL. |
| Anchor text | Across the list, anchors should vary and read naturally. A column of identical commercial phrases is a pattern Google looks for. |
| Evidence anyone reads the page | Estimated traffic, comments, social shares. Pages built to hold links have none. |
Then cross-check against Google’s own data. Search Console’s Links report shows your top linked pages, top linking sites and top linking text as Google sees them. If an agency reports forty new links and none appear in Search Console after two months, ask why.
Red flags in link proposals
- A guaranteed number of links per month at a guaranteed authority score. Editorial links cannot be guaranteed; placements can, which tells you which these are.
- Reporting by Domain Rating or Domain Authority alone, with no URLs.
- "High DA guest posts" on sites that publish about everything from plumbing to forex to CBD.
- A monthly disavow or "toxic link audit" line item for a site with no manual action.
- Links from sites in languages your customers do not speak, in countries you do not serve.
- Refusal to say whether placements are paid, or to label them.
- Anchor text you did not choose that happens to be your most valuable commercial phrase, repeated.
How many links do you need?
There is no number, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. The useful question is relative: for the searches you want, who ranks, and what do their link profiles look like? For "emergency plumber Hackney" the pages in the local pack may have a handful of local links and a strong Business Profile; link building beyond local relevance would be wasted. For "commercial property solicitor London" the ranking firms have years of coverage in trade and national press; a handful of directory links will not close that gap, and the honest plan is content and digital PR over a long period, or a different set of searches.
Our digital PR and link building service starts with that comparison and reports every link with the columns above. It does not include bought placements, and if the realistic answer for your searches is "you do not need links yet, you need a better Business Profile and three good pages", the review says so. The local SEO guide covers that case.
Sources
10 sources · accessed 9 Oct 2026
Questions
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