Link building that actually works

A link is a recommendation. Google counts it as a vote that someone found your page useful enough to point at. Link building is the work of earning those, and the problem is that much of the market sells an imitation of them instead.

How a PBN looks from the inside

I do not need to explain this in theory, because it is happening to my domain as I write.

The entire backlink profile of dimitarseo.com currently consists of eight links. All eight come from the same network. Every source page is titled 'Boost your Google rankings with Premium PBN & Link Building' and carries about 3,000 outbound links. The anchor pointing at me is identical on all eight: a long keyword string no human would ever write.

I did not buy them. The network scrapes domain names into its own promotional pages to make its inventory look large. They appeared on 31 July and one more arrives every three days or so.

Their value is zero. Google has recognised this pattern for years. But if someone sold you the same thing as a service, your report would show a rising link count and you would assume something was happening.

What actually works

In a small market the number of real opportunities is limited, but that is also why competition is low. A few things that work:

• Your own data. Research nobody else has done is the cheapest way to earn links in a market where almost nobody publishes original numbers.
• Clients and partners. If you built a site or supply a business, ask for a credit link. The most underused source there is.
• Industry directories and partner ecosystems. Boring, but it works and it lasts.
• Guest posts in real publications that already rank for your topics.
• A tool or calculator useful to your niche. One BTU calculator earned links for years.

A rule of thumb: if you can buy the link with a credit card for under €50 and nobody reads the content, Google will assign it roughly as much value as the effort behind it.

How many links you need

Fewer than are sold to you. For most niches here, 10 to 20 genuine referring domains make you competitive. Your competitors usually have a decade of accumulated links, but a large share of them are weak and old.

Far more important is how many of your pages have at least one link. A domain with 40 links all pointing at the homepage is weaker than one with 15 spread across the pages that need to rank.

Should you disavow

Usually not. Google ignores spam links on its own, and a badly built disavow file can do more damage than the spam.

Two cases justify it: a manual action in Search Console, or spam making up so much of your profile that it worries prospects who check you in Ahrefs. Mine is the second, which is exactly why I am filing one.