c/backlink-building

Pro tip: I spent $500 on a guest post service versus doing my own outreach for a month...

The service got me 15 links but they were all on low authority sites that barely moved the needle, while my own outreach landed just 3 links but on actual industry blogs with real traffic. I'm never paying for links again... what's the point if they don't actually help your site rank? Has anyone else found that paying for links is just a waste of cash?

Spent $300 on a 'premium' guest post that got deindexed in a week

I paid a service for a guest post on what looked like a solid tech blog, but Google's March update hit the site and my link is gone. The whole thing feels like a total scam now, and I'm out the cash. Has anyone else had a guest post placement go bad this fast after an update?

I tried that 'broken link building' trick everyone talks about and it actually worked

I was stuck trying to get links for a local bakery site for weeks. The owner wanted links from food blogs, but cold emails got no replies. I remembered reading about broken link building, so I picked a big food blog in my city. I used a free tool called Check My Links to scan their 'Best Coffee Shops' guide and found three dead links. I found similar, working pages on other sites for two of them, but for the third, I made a new page on my client's site with a better list. I emailed the blog editor, pointed out the broken link, and offered my new page as a free fix. She wrote back in two days, said thanks, and swapped the link. One solid, relevant link from a site with real traffic, just by helping them fix a problem. Has anyone else had luck with this, or found a better way to find broken links without spending hours?

I hit 50 backlinks from .edu sites and it didn't move my ranking at all

I spent six months doing guest posts and resource page outreach, focusing only on getting links from college websites. I tracked everything in a spreadsheet and finally hit 50 links last week. My traffic from those pages is okay, but my main keyword rankings haven't budged an inch. Everyone says these links are gold, but maybe they're not the magic fix people think. Has anyone else seen this happen with niche backlinks?

Finally got a link from a local news site after six months of outreach

The editor from our city's business journal replied to my fourth email and agreed to feature our tool in a roundup piece. It went live this morning and already sent some decent referral traffic. Has anyone else had luck with local press after a long wait?

Update: A guy at a Denver SEO meetup told me to stop chasing links and start fixing my site

His name was Mark. He said my backlink outreach was pointless because my site speed was over 4 seconds. Told me to fix that first, then ask for links. He was right. Has anyone else had a basic site issue kill their link building efforts?

Shoutout to the guy who told me guest posting outreach was a 'quick afternoon project'...

I spent 3 weeks just trying to find the right contact email for a single niche blog, only to get an auto-reply saying they weren't accepting pitches.

Just realized I've been building backlinks to the wrong pages for years

I was looking at my site's traffic and saw that a page I got a big link to last month was getting no clicks. I checked the link and it was perfect, but the page itself was just a basic service list. The tip-off was when a client in Tampa asked me why I was linking to his 'About Us' instead of his case studies. I had been so focused on getting any link to the domain that I never thought about where it should go. For three years, I just sent links to the homepage or whatever page was easiest. Now I only build links to pages that answer a real question or show off our best work. The difference in leads has been huge. How do you guys pick which page gets a new backlink?

Just realized I was going about guest posts all wrong after a chat with my friend

Honestly, I was talking to my friend who runs a local hiking blog in Asheville last week. She said, 'I only link to gear reviews from people who actually own the stuff, not just anyone who asks.' Tbh, it hit different because I'd been blasting out generic pitches for months. It made me stop and actually read the blogs I want a link from first. Has anyone else shifted their approach like that after a simple conversation?

I used to think guest posts were just for big sites until I swapped tactics last month.

I spent a year only pitching my main site to huge blogs and got maybe two links, but then I started writing for smaller local business blogs in my niche, like a plumbing supply shop in Tacoma. After sending out five of these, I got three solid links in two weeks because they were just happy to have the content. Has anyone else found that going for smaller, more grateful sites works better than chasing the big ones?

So I tried to get a backlink from a local news site in Spokane

I emailed the editor about a story idea for months with no reply. On a whim, I checked their site's old 'community events' page from 2018 and found a broken link to a closed business. I emailed them saying their link to 'Bob's Bike Shop' was dead and my client's cycling blog could be a good replacement. They fixed it the next day and linked to us. Has anyone else had luck with the broken link trick on smaller news sites?

I just blew $500 on a backlink service that promised 'guaranteed placements' and got nothing but spam.

Shoutout to the old-school directory link building we used to do

I tried reviving that tactic for a local bakery site last month and got zero traction, but one solid guest post on a relevant food blog brought in 5 strong links. Has anyone else seen a total flip like that on a recent project?

I thought broken link building was a quick win until I spent 3 months on one site

Found a perfect .edu site with a dead resource page linking to a defunct local business directory. Contacting the right department, getting the right person, and finally getting the link placed took from January to April. Has anyone else had a simple outreach project turn into a massive time sink?

Shoutout to the guy who told me guest posts are just about volume

I saw a competitor's site ranking for a term I wanted, so I checked their backlinks and found they had maybe 20 guest posts... but each one was on a site that actually talked to their exact customer. My own agency was pushing for 100 links from 'general business' blogs. The quality of the referral traffic from those 20 links was way higher. Anyone else find their link builder was just chasing a number?

I was sure those 'link roundup' emails were a waste of time

For months I ignored every email asking to include my content in a weekly roundup, thinking they were just spammy templates. Then a site called 'SEO Weekly Digest' actually published a link to my guide on local SEO for small businesses. That single link brought in 12 referral visits and the page jumped 4 spots in the SERPs for a mid-range keyword within a week. Has anyone else had a specific roundup site actually deliver a solid backlink?

My old boss in Austin told me to just buy links from Fiverr, but after my site got flagged, I had to rebuild from scratch.

Has anyone else had a similar disaster and found a legit way to fix their link profile?

Rant: I spent $500 on a 'premium' guest post and it got my site a manual penalty

The service promised a placement on a 'finance blog' with 50k monthly visitors, but the site was clearly a PBN with spun content. Google caught it within a month, and I'm still trying to clean up the mess six weeks later. Has anyone else recovered from a penalty after a bad link buy, or is the site basically toast now?

I hit 100 backlinks from real news sites in 6 months

I started tracking my links more closely at the start of the year, and just hit 100 links from actual local news outlets and industry blogs. I thought it would take years. The key was making a list of 30 reporters who cover my niche and sending them a short, helpful email with data they could use. It wasn't about asking for a link, just giving them a story idea. Has anyone else had luck with this reporter outreach method, or did you find a better way?

Unpopular opinion: I had a client in Austin who said backlinks were a total waste of time.

We were in a coffee shop on South Congress, and he flat out told me he'd rather spend his whole $5k monthly budget on social ads instead. He said links were just for old school SEO guys who didn't get modern marketing. Has anyone else had a client who just refused to see the value in link building at all?

I finally figured out why my outreach emails were getting ignored

For about six months, I was sending the same basic email to bloggers asking for links, and my reply rate was maybe 2%. I thought my subject lines were fine. Then I saw a post from someone I actually emailed, and they joked about getting 'another boring SEO pitch'. It hit me that my emails sounded like a robot wrote them. I switched to writing two sentences about their actual content before asking for anything. My reply rate jumped to over 15% in a week. Has anyone else had a specific thing that made their outreach feel less spammy?

Got a backlink from a Boston news site by just asking

I mean, I was just cleaning up some old outreach emails from like 2 years ago and saw one I sent to a reporter at boston.com. Totally forgot about it. Then last Tuesday, I got a reply out of the blue saying they used my quote in a new article and linked to my site. It was a DR 88 link, idk why they even answered. Has anyone else had a super old pitch suddenly work?

Am I the only one who thought guest posts were the main way to get links?

I was looking at a case study from a big agency last month. They said for a client in the home services niche, over 60% of their quality backlinks came from unlinked brand mentions. They just did outreach asking for a link where the client's company name was already mentioned in an article. I always thought you had to write a whole new guest post to get a link. This was on the agency's own blog, not some shady forum. It makes me wonder if I've been wasting time pitching new content when I could just search for mentions. Has anyone else had success with this link reclamation method?

PSA: My guest post pitch totally backfired last week

I reached out to a tech blog I've followed for years, offering a detailed article on local SEO. They replied asking for $500 to publish it, which was a huge shock. I checked their site again and realized all their recent 'guest' posts were actually sponsored content. I had to politely decline and start my search over from scratch. Has anyone else run into blogs that charge for what they call guest posting?

Heard a guy at the coffee shop say 'links are just digital handshakes'

He was telling his friend that a good backlink is like a real introduction, not just a name drop. It made me stop focusing on just getting my link on any site and start looking for places that actually fit my content. How do you figure out if a site is a good 'handshake' for yours?