Link building
Link building is the work of getting other websites to link to your pages, through content, digital PR, outreach and partnerships that publishers choose to reference. Google uses links to discover pages and as a signal of relevance, so links from relevant, trusted sites can help pages rank and be found.
Why do links matter to Google?
Google says it uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl. Its guide to ranking systems lists link analysis systems, including PageRank, which was one of the core ranking systems when Google launched. Google says PageRank has evolved a lot since then and is still part of its core ranking systems.
In March 2016 Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, named content and links pointing to a site as two of Google's top three ranking signals, alongside RankBrain.
What counts as link building, and what doesn't?
Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links primarily to manipulate rankings. That covers buying links that pass ranking credit, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation and keyword-rich links in guest posts or press releases. Paid placements are allowed when the link is marked sponsored or nofollow. Legitimate link building gives a publisher a reason to link that would exist without any SEO benefit.
- Digital PR campaigns built on original data, research or expert comment
- Tools, calculators and reference pages that other sites cite
- Link reclamation: restoring lost links and linking unlinked mentions
- Broken link building on relevant resource pages
- Guest articles written for the host site's own readers
How to measure it
Count referring domains rather than total backlinks, because one site linking 100 times is still one site. Check that the linking sites are relevant and get organic traffic of their own, then track rankings and organic traffic for the pages that received links. The Links report in Google Search Console shows the sites that link to you most.
Example
A UK rota software company publishes an annual survey of hospitality workers on shift patterns and pay. Trade titles and regional newspapers that report the findings link to the survey page, and the survey page links internally to the product pages it relates to, passing some of that value on.
Related terms
Further reading
Our SaaS Link-Building Agency service puts this into practice for brands in the UK and US.
