To get backlinks, publish something relevant publishers can genuinely use, make it easy to find, and contact a small number of editors with a specific reason it would help their readers. The aim is an independent editorial citation—not a promised ranking boost. Google treats links created primarily to manipulate search rankings as link spam.
What makes a page worth linking to?
A backlink is most useful when it points readers to a source, explanation, tool, or piece of evidence that adds value to the page linking to it. Before asking anyone to cite your site, choose one target page and make its usefulness clear.
Create a cite-worthy resource
Good candidates include original research or data, a practical tool or calculator, a clear guide, a helpful visual, or a concise explanation that fills a gap in relevant coverage. These are ways to give an editor a reason to reference your page, not guarantees of links or rankings. Ahrefs’ beginner guide to link building discusses linkable resources and approaches to earning links.
Make the value obvious
State what the page helps someone understand or do. Keep its structure clear, support claims with evidence where possible, and make any tool or visual easy to use. If a prospect’s readers would not benefit from it, outreach is unlikely to fix that mismatch.
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How to find relevant backlink opportunities
Look for publishers that cover your subject or serve the audience your page is meant for. A useful prospect is not simply a site with a high third-party authority score: assess the actual referring page, its context, and whether your resource would help its readers.
- Topical fit: Does the publisher cover the subject, and would your page belong in that coverage?
- Reader usefulness: Would the link help readers understand something, verify a claim, or complete a task?
- Editorial independence: Could an editor choose to cite the page on its merits, without being required to use a particular anchor or exchange a link?
- Page and site context: Does the referring page appear legitimate, relevant, and likely to remain available?
- Effort and risk: Is the likely editorial fit worth the time, and does the arrangement raise policy concerns?
SEO tools can help identify sites that link to related pages or organize prospects, but a proprietary score is an estimate, not Google’s disclosed measure of link quality. Ahrefs explains the limits of measuring backlink quality; no one outside a search engine can state exactly how it evaluates every link.
Rank #2
How to do backlink outreach
- Choose one target page. Confirm that it is useful, accessible, and relevant to the publisher you plan to contact.
- Find the right person and page. Identify a publisher or editor whose existing coverage and audience make the resource a plausible fit.
- Write a specific note. Explain why you are contacting them, what the resource offers, and where it could help their coverage. Keep the request brief and personal rather than sending a generic bulk pitch.
- Leave the editorial decision to the publisher. Ask them to consider the resource; do not demand an exact-match anchor, a ranking-credit-passing paid link, or a reciprocal link.
- Follow up sparingly. If there is no reply, do not keep sending repeated messages. Ahrefs’ outreach guide describes link outreach and advises restraint with follow-ups.
- Track what happens. Record prospects, messages, replies, placements, and whether links remain live. Compare efforts by relevance, editorial fit, effort, and risk rather than by raw link count alone.
A concise outreach example
Subject: Resource for your guide to [specific topic]
Hi [Name], I read your page on [specific subject]. Our [guide, research, or tool] covers [specific detail that may help its readers]. If it is useful for your coverage, here is the link: [URL]. Thanks for considering it.
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Rank #3
Personalize the reason for writing and the detail about the resource. Do not imply the editor owes you a citation.
How to recognize link schemes and qualify links
Google defines link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate search rankings. Its examples include buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation, and paid editorial placements whose links pass ranking credit. The central issue is the purpose and nature of the arrangement, not whether a tactic is described as outreach or promotion. See Google’s spam policies.
If payment or another consideration is involved, qualify the link with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Links in user-generated content may use rel="ugc" or rel="nofollow". Google recommends natural, descriptive anchor text and crawlable links using an anchor element with an href. Its guidance says, “Google uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl.” Read Google’s link best practices.
What results should you expect?
There is no established universal backlink count, outreach reply rate, or timeline that guarantees better rankings. The available sources do not provide an original, dated benchmark for how many links a campaign should earn. Track your own activity and outcomes, but do not present a particular link count or ranking change as a predictable result of a specific campaign.
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Evaluate placements for relevance, reader usefulness, editorial independence, and whether the link remains live. A count by itself cannot show whether the links help readers or reflect a sound editorial citation.
What to do if Google reports a link-related manual action
Review the notice and affected pages in the Search Console Manual Actions report, then address the problematic links in line with Google’s policy. In a reconsideration context, Google says to make a good-faith effort to remove links before disavowing them; it also warns against blindly adding all backlinks to a disavow file. Start with the Google Search Console manual actions report and follow the linked guidance for your specific case.
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