Opinions Matter

c/backlink-building

11

paigem45•1h ago

Threw $300 at a 'premium' link building service and got nothing back

I paid a service $300 to build links for my gardening blog and all I got were a bunch of spammy posts on sites that looked like they were made in 1998. Has anyone else fallen for one of these link building packages and actually managed to get a refund?

12

leelewis•10h ago

Saw my domain authority jump from 12 to 38 in 3 months, but here's the catch

I switched up my whole strategy back in March after watching a tutorial from Brian Dean at Backlinko. Instead of chasing 50 low quality blog comments a day, I focused on getting 3 solid placements per week on niche sites. But I got hit with a manual penalty last Tuesday from Google because 2 of those sites were flagged as PBNs. Has anyone else had to rebuild after a penalty like that and recover their rankings?

16

margaret_taylor42•2d ago

Picked up a backlink tip from a random convo at a coffee shop in Austin

Some guy at Sightseer Coffee in Austin told me to stop chasing .edu links and instead offer free data visualizations to niche blogs. I tried it with a local gardening site and got 3 backlinks in 2 weeks. Anyone else find a weird source like that?

8

the_rose•3d ago

Caught myself submitting 50 forum profiles a day with the SAME anchor text

I was grinding out backlinks for my pet blog last month and just copy pasted 'best dog beds' into every single forum signature. Then I saw a senior member reply to one of my posts calling me out for being a 'link spam bot' and it clicked that I looked exactly like one. Should I actually vary anchor text or just stop with the forum profiles altogether?

16

milestaylor•4d ago

Guest post on a .edu site got me zero traffic

I landed a guest post on a legit .edu blog back in March, spent like 4 hours writing it up. Checked my analytics after a month and I got maybe 12 visitors total from the link. Turns out that domain had a huge spam filter and most of their outgoing links were nofollow or blocked. Learned the hard way to check link juice before spending time on outreach. Anyone else burned by a high-DA site that gave nothing back?

22

claire_walker•6d ago

Found a weird trick using old blog comments that got me 15 backlinks in a month

I run a small home repair site and was stuck with like 30 DA. Then I started scrolling through old blog posts in my niche that hadn't been updated in years. I'd leave a thoughtful comment pointing out something missing or outdated, then link to my own relevant guide. Half the time the blogger would update their post and keep my link. Did this for maybe 20 sites and got 15 live links out of it. Anyone else tried this or got a better method?

20

patricialee•7d ago

Pro tip: that forum thread about niche edits made me rethink my whole approach

A guy in a Facebook group for small business owners said he got 50 backlinks just by writing guest posts for local blogs in his area, and it hit me that I'd been wasting months chasing high DA sites when the real gold was right in my own backyard in Cleveland.

21

king.andrew•10d ago

How I spent 6 months building backlinks to my 'About Us' page before someone finally called me out

I was grinding hard trading guest posts and forum links for months. Every backlink went straight to my About Us page because I thought the homepage was too obvious. Then a guy in a SEO facebook group asked why my site was getting zero organic traffic despite having 150 backlinks. I looked at my analytics and sure enough nobody clicks on About pages. Felt like a total idiot. Has anyone else aimed links at the wrong pages for way too long?

17

paul251•11d ago

I used to chase any backlink I could get, now I turn down 80% of them

A few years back I was grabbing links from random directories and spammy blogs just to build numbers. Then Google hit my site with a manual penalty in March 2022 after I got a link from some garbage furniture site. Now I only go after links from sites with real traffic and an actual audience, even if it means getting half as many. Anyone else clean up their link profile and see rankings jump after dumping the junk?

22

claire_walker•11d ago

Hot take: that guest post I bought actually hurt my rankings

I was sitting in my home office last month checking my site's analytics and noticed a big drop in traffic. It turned out a guest post I paid $150 for on a food blog had some real junk links in the sidebar. Google must have flagged the whole page because my site took a hit within a week. I had to email the owner and ask them to take down my post, which was awkward. They refunded half the money, but it still took me two more weeks to recover. Have any of you dealt with a paid placement that backfired like this?

10

paigep20•11d ago

Found a dirty trick to get old .edu links resurrected

I had a bunch of broken backlinks from expired .edu pages sitting in my ahrefs report for months. Emailed the old webmasters asking if they'd update the links to similar live pages and three of them actually did it. Have any of you tried digging through old site archives to find link opportunities that others might have missed?

30

the_joseph•12d ago

That time a guest post I paid for got pulled after 3 days

I paid a site $150 for a guest post back in February. Three days later it was gone. The site owner said Google flagged it as spam and he pulled it himself. No refund, no warning. Has anyone else had a paid placement disappear like that? I'm starting to think most of these link sellers are just taking our money and running.

5

fisher.adam•12d ago

Just got a brutal reality check on anchor text diversity

Last month a guy in the SEO Facebook group pulled apart my backlink profile. He said I had 40 links all with 'best coffee maker' as the anchor text. I thought that was good for ranking but he told me it looks totally unnatural now. So I went back and changed half of those to branded anchors and naked URLs. Has anyone else had to redo their whole anchor strategy after getting feedback like that?

8

blair_dixon•13d ago

Almost lost a 6 month guest posting gig because of one broken link

I was sitting at my desk in Duluth last Tuesday, checking my backlink profile like I always do, and I noticed this guest post I got on a solid gardening site had a 404 error on the anchor page. The whole point of the link was to drive traffic to that specific resource guide, and it was dead for probably three weeks before I caught it. Had to email the editor at Green Thumb Monthly with proof that the link was broken and ask them to fix it, which was awkward because it made me look like I didn't do my homework. Has anyone else had a similar issue where a site owner broke your link during a site update and you had to track it down yourself?

11

vera308•13d ago

Finally got my first backlink from a .edu site this week

I've been trying to get a backlink from a university website for about 6 months now. Last Tuesday, I got a reply from a professor at University of Michigan saying my blog post on local SEO tips was useful for their students. It's just one link but it feels like a real step forward for my site. Anyone else have luck landing .edu backlinks and how did you pitch them?

27

leelewis•16d ago

Heard a podcast guest say "content is cheap, context is expensive" and it clicked for me

I was listening to that SEO podcast last week and this guy from a marketing agency said that line. He was talking about how anyone can write a blog post but getting the right people to link to it takes actual strategy. I realized I was spending all my time cranking out articles nobody cared about instead of building relationships with sites that matter. Has anyone else found that focusing on fewer but better connections gets more backlinks than blasting out guest posts?

9

linda500•19d ago

I finally stopped begging for blogroll links and focused on resource pages instead

Back in 2020 I was spending hours emailing random bloggers asking them to add my site to their 'links' page. Almost never worked. Then last spring I noticed a site I liked had a 'recommended tools' page with actual descriptions. I pitched my guide as a resource for that specific page and got a link in 2 days. Made me realize I had the whole approach backwards for like 3 years. Anyone else switch up their outreach strategy after a few too many rejections?

26

grant_hart•19d ago

Got roasted by an SEO for chasing .gov links only

A guy on a Moz forum told me I was wasting time going after .gov links for my HVAC blog. He said those are hard to get and don't always pass juice. I switched to targeting local chamber of commerce sites and resource pages from community colleges. Now I get 3 to 4 solid links a month instead of maybe one every 6 months. Anyone else gotten feedback that made you totally pivot your link strategy?

3

sandrat24•19d ago

Traded 15 blog comments for a real .edu link and it worked better than I thought

I spent last month dropping genuine comments on 15 different university blog posts about accounting software. I figured it was a long shot but one professor actually linked back to my article on small business bookkeeping. Got a referral traffic bump of about 30 visits in the first week from that single link. Has anyone else had luck with a really specific niche like that?

22

uma_johnson•20d ago

Can we talk about old school directory submissions being dead

I spent a whole afternoon last Tuesday trying to submit my site to a local business directory in Austin that used to work great back in 2018. The form kept erroring out and then I found out they got bought by some bigger company that just ignores manual submissions now. Anyone else notice these old directories just rot away instead of actually helping with backlinks anymore?

20

kai_park•21d ago

The guest post vs. broken link building choice that surprised me

I had a site about dental care tips and needed to pick one method to focus on for backlinks. I went with broken link building because I figured finding dead pages would be easier than pitching guest posts. After 3 weeks of sending emails to webmasters, I got exactly 2 links back from it. Now I'm wondering if I should have just stuck with guest posting instead, has anyone else found one of these methods way more productive than the other?

4

dakota_nelson43•21d ago

Got a brutal comment on my guest post that actually fixed my strategy

I had this guest post on a decent marketing blog back in March, and someone in the comments said 'your links feel stuffed, not useful.' I was annoyed at first (obviously), but they were right. I was adding links just to get them there instead of making them part of the content. Now I only add a backlink if I can honestly say it helps the reader learn more about that specific point. Has anyone else had a tough comment change how you build links?

17

skyler43•22d ago

Found an old blog post from 2018 that still pulls in backlinks every month

I was digging through my site's old content last week and found a guide I wrote about fixing rusty fence posts. It was buried on page 3 of my blog. I updated the images and added some current stats, then shared it in a few homesteading forums. Got 4 new backlinks in 2 days from people who found it useful. The post has been sitting there for six years doing nothing. Anyone else have old content that's been collecting dust...

2

rose_cooper•22d ago

Hot take: domain authority numbers are becoming meaningless for link building

I keep seeing people in here obsessing over DA 40+ thresholds like it's the holy grail of backlinks. Meanwhile I had a client last month who built 8 links from obscure industry blogs with DA under 30 and saw their organic traffic jump 22% in 6 weeks. On the flip side I wasted $500 on a guest post placement with a site that had DA 55 but their content was auto generated garbage and Google never even indexed the page. So which matters more the number or the actual traffic and relevance of the site? I'm leaning toward the latter based on my experience. Has anyone else noticed DA being a poor predictor of link value lately?

6

the_kevin•22d ago

SEO guy told me my guest posts were garbage and he was right

I had this consultant look at my backlink profile last month. He said my guest posts were all on low tier sites with no authority. I was just going for easy placements. Changed my approach to only target sites with DR 40 plus and real traffic. Has anyone else had to kill most of their existing link building strategy?