How to Get Backlinks (Earn, Ask or Pay)
How to get backlinks in 2026. The methods that still work, how to choose between earning, asking and paying, and a simple plan for your first links.
You get backlinks in one of three ways: you earn them by publishing something people want to cite, you ask for them through outreach, or you pay someone for the placement or the work. Almost every link building tactic is a version of one of those three.
Which one suits you depends mostly on budget and timeline. Earning is the cheapest and safest but the slowest. Asking takes time and a thick skin. Paying is fastest but carries the most risk if you buy the wrong thing.
This guide covers the methods that still work, how to pick between them and the order to do them in.
Earn, ask or pay: which route fits you?
The routes aren't exclusive. A business paying an agency still benefits from reclaiming its own brand mentions, and a bootstrapped site doing outreach still needs something worth linking to.
The methods compared
| Method | Route | Effort | Typical speed | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linkable assets (data, tools, guides) | Earn | High upfront | Slow | Low |
| Link reclamation | Earn | Low | Fast | Low |
| Business profiles and directory links | Earn | Low | Fast | Low on curated directories |
| Guest posting | Ask | Medium | Medium | Medium at scale |
| Blogger outreach | Ask | Medium | Medium | Low to medium |
| Broken link building | Ask | Medium | Medium | Low |
| Resource page links | Ask | Low to medium | Medium | Low |
| HARO and journalist requests | Ask | Medium | Unpredictable | Low |
| Podcast appearances | Ask | Medium | Medium | Low |
| Digital PR | Pay or earn | High | Campaign based | Low |
| Niche edits | Pay | Low for you | Fast | Medium |
| Outsourced link building | Pay | Low for you | Fast | Depends on the provider |
Speed and risk are relative judgements, not measurements. The strategies hub covers each tactic in depth.
How to earn backlinks
Earned links are the ones a site gives you because it wants to, without being asked. They're the safest links you can get and the hardest to plan for.
The reliable way to earn links is to publish things other writers need to reference:
- Original data. Surveys, industry benchmarks and analysis of public data get cited by journalists and bloggers who need a statistic
- Definitive explainers. Clear guides to a topic in your niche become the page people link when they mention it
- Free tools and calculators. Useful tools attract links from resource lists for years
- Strong opinions with evidence. Pieces that challenge a common belief get linked by people agreeing and disagreeing
Earning also covers the links you're already owed. Search for mentions of your brand, products and staff that don't link to you, then ask the author to add one. These requests tend to convert well because the writer already chose to mention you.
How to ask for backlinks
Most link building is asking. You find a site that plausibly links to pages like yours and give them a reason to link to yours.
- Pick the page you want links to and make sure it deserves them
- Build a prospect list of relevant sites using link building tools, competitor backlink reports and search operators
- Qualify each prospect. Check it gets real organic traffic, covers your topic and doesn't look like it publishes anything for anyone
- Find the right contact, usually an editor or the author of the relevant article
- Write a short, specific pitch. Say what you're offering and why it helps their readers. The outreach email templates show what each line should do
- Follow up once, then move on
Expect most emails to go unanswered. That's normal for cold outreach, which is why prospect quality matters more than volume.
Should you pay for backlinks?
Many businesses do, and the honest answer has two parts.
Google's spam policies say that buying or selling links for ranking purposes is link spam, including exchanging money for links or for posts that contain links. Paid links are meant to carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" so they don't pass ranking credit. That's the rule.
In practice, a large part of the industry sells link building as a service: the outreach, the writing and the relationships, rather than a fee to a publisher for a followed link. Where the line sits isn't always obvious, and the risk depends heavily on what you buy. Cheap links on sites that publish anything for anyone are the ones most likely to be ignored by Google's systems.
If you go this route, read the guide to buying backlinks, check what link building costs so you can spot prices that are too good to be true, and compare providers in the link building service reviews.
Methods to avoid
| Method | Why to skip it |
|---|---|
| PBN links | Networks built to sell links, a named target of Google's spam systems |
| Automated link building software | Google's spam policies name automated link creation directly |
| Blog comment and forum signature links | Mostly ugc or nofollow, and optimised signature links are named as spam |
| Large-scale link swaps | Excessive "link to me and I'll link to you" exchanges are named in the policies |
| Sitewide footer links on unrelated sites | Widely distributed footer and template links are named in the policies |
| Bulk "1,000 backlinks" packages | Volume with no vetting usually means links Google ignores |
The page on link schemes covers how Google detects these and what happens when it does.
A simple plan for your first 90 days
This is a sensible order for a site starting from a small or empty profile. The timings are a rule of thumb.
| Weeks | Focus | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Fix internal linking, claim profiles and relevant listings | Cheap foundations that make the profile look like a real business |
| 3 to 4 | Reclaim unlinked mentions and partner links | Usually the best hit rate of any tactic |
| 5 to 8 | Publish one linkable asset and start outreach | Gives every future pitch something to point at |
| 9 to 12 | Add one scalable tactic, such as guest posts or digital PR | Builds steady referring domain growth |
Before you scale, work out how many backlinks you need by comparing yourself with the pages that rank. That number tells you whether you need a few good links or a long campaign.
The short version
- Every backlink is earned, asked for or paid for, and most campaigns mix all three
- Earning is safest but slowest, asking is the bulk of the work, paying is fastest and riskiest
- Prospect from your competitors' backlinks and qualify every site on real traffic and relevance
- Google's policies treat paid links that pass ranking credit as spam, so understand the line before you buy
- Skip PBNs, automated tools and bulk packages, they're wasted money at best
Start with the links you're already owed. They're quicker than any outreach campaign and nobody can call them manipulative.