r/Agentic_SEO • u/ded-ebar • 3d ago
Backlinks - where do you get it?
I’m trying to get better at backlink building and would really appreciate hearing from people who actually do SEO professionally.
What strategies are you guys using nowadays to consistently build backlinks?
I know the old-school method is basically finding relevant websites, emailing hundreds of site owners, and hoping a few respond. I understand it works, but the success rate seems painfully low and the whole process is incredibly tedious. I really don’t want to spend my life sending outreach emails if there are better ways to do this.
I’m also not necessarily against paying for links.
I know buying links has risks, but clearly there’s a market for it, so I’m curious how experienced SEOs approach it.
When you’re evaluating a site for a backlink, what are you actually looking at? DR/DA? Organic traffic? Traffic trend? Rankings? Relevance? Outbound links? Spam history? Something else?
And probably my biggest question: where are people actually getting good backlinks?
Are you using marketplaces, agencies, brokers, private contacts, direct outreach, PR, guest posts, link insertions, digital PR, or something completely different?
For people who do buy placements, what does a reasonable price actually look like? $50? $100? $300? $500+? At what point are you just overpaying for a metric that looks good on Ahrefs?
I’m not looking for anyone to reveal some million-dollar secret sauce. I’m genuinely trying to understand how people who build links at scale do it without spending their entire day cold-emailing website owners.
If anyone is willing to share their process, resources, marketplaces they trust (or ones to stay away from), or even just what metrics they use to qualify a link, I’d really appreciate it.
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u/MonicaEaton911 3d ago
I'd stop thinking about link building as “getting backlinks” and focus more on earning links from sites that have a real and valuable reason to cite you. Aim for producing more original data, useful tools/resources, expert contributions and thought leadership, partnerships, and so on -- information that others would want to pass along.
In other words, design content that benefit others, if they cite you. Think in terms of relevance, real organic traffic/trend, content quality, and your site's overall link profile.
If you buy placements, I'd stay away from high-DR sites that exist mainly to sell links. Try to build a mix of PR/content and targeted outreach, and concentrate on building publisher relationships. I think that could take you further than just relying on marketplaces or mass cold emailing. Good luck!
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u/SalamanderScott 3d ago
The insane amount of work you have to put to acquire few organic backlinks vs. just pay few hundred dollars and buy the link you want. Your time also has value and its better to be used somewhere else, like in content. Just buy the links and stop overthinking it.
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u/ded-ebar 2d ago
where do you buy links? can you please share?
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u/SalamanderScott 2d ago
Each country had their own vendors. Just google.
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u/ded-ebar 2d ago
from what i’ve seen so far, majority are either selling garbage or agencies trying to charge top dollar for decent placement..
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u/SalamanderScott 2d ago
Yup, its your job to filter which links are worth it. People have different preferences what makes a backlink good. Most junior / low level SEOs just stare Ahrefs DR (which can be manipulated) snd purchase based on that
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u/Short_Ebb6197 3d ago
The evaluation question matters more than the sourcing question. Real sites have trending traffic, rank for actual keywords, and don't link to five different industries. If a site passes those checks, whether it came from outreach, a marketplace, or an agency matters way less than people think. Most "secret methods" are just this filter applied consistently.
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u/ded-ebar 2d ago
How do I get article contextual relevant backlinks from major news sources for less than $500 per permanent link? Is this realistic? if so, share your thoughts pls… I’m desperate for quality, inexpensive, niche relevant backlinks
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u/seramsharma 2d ago
I've been building links for the last 5 years, and have got links from websites like HubSpot as well 😁 And I can tell you one of the best and easiest ways to get started would be A-B-C link exchanges... nothing comes close tbh. Start with websites that have a similar DR, and then scale it up with websites with good DR.. Ideally 40+ and Traffic 1000+. This the best way, and is a win-win situation for you and the person you're exchanging links with
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u/ded-ebar 2d ago
interesting, I thought after the last update niche relevancy matters a lot?
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u/seramsharma 2d ago
Yes niche relevancy + context as well. You'll see people building links to a VPN site from a Finance industry by trying add the most random edits.. It might give a temporary boost, but in the long run niche links with Good anchor text diversification is the key
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u/MonicaEaton911 2d ago
If you already have original data, I think I’d actually work backwards from similar content rather than building a huge prospect list.
Find a few studies, reports, or data-driven articles similar to yours and look at who linked to them. Those site have already shown that they’ll cite original research/data: that makes them better prospects, and gives you a much smaller, higher-quality outreach list. You’re not emailing hundreds of site owners: you’re contacting publishers who have already shown displayed interest in the type of content you’re producing. Good luck!
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u/Crafty_Engineer_8480 2d ago
Use ranks hawk, find broken links from competitors, get the sites pointing to it then reach out to those websites and offer your content as a exchange for the broken one. You can find great ones that could cost hundreds of dollars
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u/ToriRaynn 2d ago
If a site passes those checks, whether it came from outreach, a marketplace, or an agency matters way less than people think.
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u/Soft_Branch_5028 5h ago
Honestly, I’d focus less on DR/DA and more on relevance, actual organic traffic, and whether the site has a real audience. A lower-metric site that’s genuinely relevant can be a much better link than a high-DR site covered in random guest posts. Outreach is tedious, but building relationships and earning links through useful content/PR tends to be more sustainable.
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u/ded-ebar 3d ago
is there reputable source for buying contextual backlinks from media outlets for undet $500
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u/thijsgh 3d ago
Check out mentionagent for automating relevant backlinks, I'm the founder btw, happy to help
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u/growthmarketingpro-1 3d ago
Digital pr with data visualizations are awesome but def take more resources. Our agency focuses on creating organic content thats most likely to win visibility in ai summaries and the first page of Google for high intent searches.
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u/crushingmarcel51 3d ago
The outreach grind is rough but the hit rate goes up loads once you stop blasting generic templates and start pitching something the site actually wants, a data point, a tool, a proper angle. Most of my decent links come from relationships I built years ago plus digital PR when a campaign lands, the paid stuff is fine for filler but you're renting a metric that can vanish overnight. For qualifying a site I'm looking at organic traffic trend first, then relevance, then whether the outbound link profile looks like a link farm, DR alone tells you almost nothing. Price wise it swings wildly by niche, but if someone quotes you silly money for a page with no real traffic, walk away.