Link building: how to get backlinks that count

Google states both halves itself. It "uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl," and it defines link spam as "creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings." Ahrefs sorts every tactic into four buckets: adding links yourself, asking for them, buying them and earning them. Added links are nearly worthless and bought ones are risky, so a small site's real work is asking well and earning.

What makes a backlink worth getting

Nobody outside Google knows exactly how each link is weighed, as Ahrefs itself says, but practitioners agree on the criteria:

Criterion	Worth getting	Worth little
Relevance	A site and page about your subject	A site with no reason to mention you
Authority	A strong site that links out sparingly	A weak site, or one linking to thousands
Placement	In the body of an article, chosen by an editor	Footer, sidebar, comment or profile
Attribute	Followed	Marked nofollow, ugc or sponsored
Anchor text	Whatever the author chose	Your keyword, repeated across many links
Novelty	A site that has never linked to you	The tenth link from a site that already does

In Ahrefs' words, a nofollow link "most likely doesn't cast a 'vote'", though it can still send visitors. A new linking site beats another link from an old one because authority scores count sites, which is the whole difference between referring domains vs backlinks. And anchor text is best left to the author, since a pattern of keyword anchors is what manipulation looks like.

Types of backlinks

Backlinks can be typed by attribute (followed, or marked nofollow, sponsored or ugc, which mostly pass no ranking credit) or, more usefully, by how the link came to exist, ranked here by how much each tends to count:

1. Editorial links. Another site cites you, unprompted, because your page helps make its point.
2. Press coverage and digital PR. Journalists and newsletters link to data, stories and expert comment, once someone puts the story in front of them.
3. Guest contributions and expert quotes. You write for, or are quoted in, a relevant publication that credits you with a link. Google counts keyword-rich anchors in guest posts as link spam.
4. Resource and partner links. Curated resource pages, integration and partner listings: modest, but relevant by design.
5. Directory and profile links. Ahrefs suggests "a few dozen foundational links", such as business listings and social profiles, for a brand-new site; beyond that, they barely count.
6. Forum and comment links. Most sites that host user content "tend to nofollow those links anyway," Ahrefs notes, so they do nothing for authority.
7. Paid links. Link spam if bought to pass ranking credit; the paid placements Google accepts are marked sponsored or nofollow and pass none by design.

How to get backlinks

Every tactic below costs time, not money, and each gives the other site a better reason to link than a cold request, where Ahrefs' benchmark is that "if you manage to get five links out of a hundred outreach emails, you can be proud of yourself."

Publish a linkable asset. Ahrefs lists "online tools and calculators" and "definitions and coined terms" among the linkable asset types, alongside surveys and research, and says its own free tools attract "a ton of backlinks organically." Build one around a question your customers ask and your field needs answered.

Become the page that answers one question. Writers link to the clearest answer to the thing they are explaining. Pick a narrow question, answer it better than the pages ranking for it, and tie it into your other coverage with a content hub or pillar page so the citations it earns reach the pages around it.

Reclaim unlinked mentions. Where your brand, product or founders are mentioned without a link, a short note asking for one is among the easiest requests in link building: the writer already chose to mention you.

Contribute expert quotes. Journalists and newsletter writers collect quotes through request services and social posts; a specific answer with a number or example from your own work is the kind that gets used and credited, often with a link.

Replicate competitors' editorial links. "If someone is linking to your competitor, there's a good chance that they might be open to linking to you too," Ahrefs notes. Check a competitor's referring domains to see the gap, list who links to them with a backlink tool, and pitch the resource lists, roundups and reviews where you belong as much as they do.

Whatever you publish, tell the people most likely to care, because "people can't link to things that they don't know exist."

What to avoid

In the words of Google's spam policies, link spam includes:

• "Buying or selling links for ranking purposes", including payment in goods, services or free products
• "Excessive link exchanges" and partner pages that exist only to cross-link
• "Using automated programs or services to create links to your site"
• "Low-quality directory or bookmark site links"
• "Widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites"
• "Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature"
• "Creating low-value content primarily for the purposes of manipulating linking and ranking signals", the description that fits private blog networks and link farms

Google detects these with automated systems and human review, and sites that break the policies "may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all." Semrush adds one nuance: swaps "at scale or as a primary tactic" break the guidelines, but "occasional reciprocal links between genuinely related sites are generally fine." The test is whether the link would exist if search engines did not.

How Structura handles this

Structura does not do link building: no outreach, no bought or placed links, no contact with other sites on your behalf. Links from other sites come from you, your PR or a specialist you hire.

What it does is the half that happens on your own site. On paid plans, each post targets a keyword your site can realistically win at its current strength, is written after a read of the pages already ranking for it, and cites two to four sources from a list you approve, so the archive fills with specific, well-sourced answers. With internal linking switched on, each post links into what you have already published, so the authority any page earns reaches the rest. Winnable keywords also bring a young site search traffic before it has many links. The blog SEO software page shows how keywords are chosen and what each post includes.

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