Link Building When Links Are Not a Top Three Factor

Google's own position, stated publicly by Gary Illyes at Pubcon in September 2023: "I think they are important, but I think people overestimate the importance of links. I don't agree it's in the top three. It hasn't been for some time."

That sentence should have ended a whole industry of tactics, and it did not. Most link building advice still assumes the 2015 model, where more links meant more rankings and the only question was how to get them cheaply.

Here is what the current position actually implies. Links still matter. They matter less than the effort spent acquiring them usually assumes, they matter mostly as one signal among many, and the methods that reliably produce them at volume are the methods Google's spam policy names explicitly.

So the useful question is not "how do I get more links". It is: what is worth doing, given that the payoff is smaller than advertised and half the tactics carry risk?

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What Google says, precisely

Three statements, all from Google, all worth reading in full before spending money on links.

On importance: links are "not in the top three" ranking factors, and "hasn't been for some time." Illyes also noted "it is possible to rank without links", citing a page that reached the top position with none.

On what counts as spam: Google defines link spam as "the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings", and the examples are specific:

• "Buying or selling links for ranking purposes", including exchanging money for links or posts containing links
• "Exchanging goods or services for links"
• "Sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link"
• "Excessive link exchanges" and partner pages existing only to cross-link
• "Using automated programs or services to create links to your site"
• Requiring a link in a contract or terms of service without letting the other party qualify it
• "Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass ranking credit"
• "Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature"

On the escape hatch: none of the above is a violation "as long as they are qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute value."

Read that list against any agency proposal you have been sent. Paid placements, product-for-review arrangements, and "we have relationships with 400 publishers" are all on it, and the qualification requirement is the part that gets quietly omitted.

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What changed, and what did not

What changed: the return on a link. Google has spent a decade getting better at ignoring links it does not trust, and better at ranking pages without them. The disavow documentation says so plainly: "In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most sites will not need to use this tool."

What did not change: links still carry discovery value, referral traffic, and — the part that matters more each year — evidence that other people cite you. That evidence feeds entity understanding, which is increasingly how you get surfaced in AI-generated answers as well as in ten blue links. The mechanics of that are in entity SEO.

So the model shifts from acquisition to citation. You are not accumulating a score. You are becoming the source people reference when they write about your subject — which produces links as a by-product and produces other things that matter as well.

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The three honest categories

Everything in link building falls into one of these, and being clear about which you are doing prevents most of the damage.

Category	What it is	Risk	Realistic yield
Earned	Someone links because your page was useful	None	Slow, compounding
Asked for	You made something worth linking to and told relevant people	None, if the ask is honest	Modest, controllable
Bought	Money, goods, or services changed hands	Named in Google's spam policy	Fast, and qualified links pass nothing

The third row is where the industry lives, and it is worth being precise about why it is a poor deal now rather than merely risky. A paid link qualified with rel="sponsored" passes no ranking credit — that is the entire point of the attribute. A paid link not qualified is a spam policy violation. There is no version of the transaction that is both effective and compliant.

That is the argument, and it does not depend on ethics. It is that the product being sold does not work as described.

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What is worth doing

Six steps, in the order they pay off.

Step 1 — Fix what already points at you

Before earning a single new link, check the ones you have.

• Broken internal links waste the authority you already have — and they are the cheapest fix on any site
• Redirect chains from old URLs, which dilute and slow everything
• Existing mentions without links. Someone named your company or your tool and did not link it. That is the single highest-conversion outreach you will ever do

The unlinked mention is the best-value ask in link building and almost nobody systematically does it. The person already decided you were worth mentioning; you are asking for a formatting change.

Step 2 — Make the thing that gets cited

A link is a citation, and citations require something to cite.

Original data, a tool, a definitive reference, a genuinely better explanation of something confusing. The formats that earn links, and how to tell in advance whether an idea will, are in linkable assets: what actually earns links.

The test: would a writer covering this topic need to reference you to make their point? If not, no amount of outreach fixes it.

Step 3 — Tell the specific people who would want it

Not a list. People.

Outreach works in inverse proportion to its volume, and the reason is structural: a message that could have been sent to a thousand people reads like it was, and gets deleted. The templates, the timing, and the deliverability problem underneath cold outreach are in link outreach emails that get replies.

Step 4 — Be the source journalists can reach

Digital PR produces the links that matter most — from publications with genuine editorial standards — and it does not require an agency.

It does require knowing that the landscape changed. HARO, which was the default entry route into this for fifteen years, was permanently discontinued on 9 December 2024. Guides still recommending it are recommending a service that does not exist. What replaced it is in digital PR for small businesses.

Step 5 — Build the internal structure that distributes what you earn

A link to one page can lift a whole cluster, or it can lift one page. Which one depends on your internal linking.

This is the most neglected step in the whole discipline, because it is unglamorous and it happens on your own site. The method is in internal linking and topic clusters.

Step 6 — Measure the right thing, rarely

Not a domain metric. Those are third-party estimates, useful for comparison and meaningless as targets.

Measure instead: referring domains that send actual visitors, mentions of your name in your subject area, and whether the pages you want cited are the ones being cited. Quarterly is often enough. Link building on a weekly reporting cadence produces weekly-cadence behaviour, which is how sites end up buying.

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What to refuse, and what to say

You will be offered these. The refusals are short.

The offer	The problem
Guest posts on a network of sites	Advertorials and paid placements, named in the spam policy
"We'll send you a product to review"	Named explicitly: exchanging goods for links
Link exchanges, "we'll link to you"	Named: excessive link exchanges and cross-linking partner pages
A tool that builds links automatically	Named: automated programs or services
A contract requiring a link back	Named, where the other party cannot qualify it
PBNs, "private blog networks"	Buying links, wearing a hat
Comment or forum links "for traffic"	Named: optimized links in posts or signatures

The correct response to a supplier who cannot explain how their method avoids that list is to stop reading. Not because Google will necessarily catch it, but because you are buying something whose value proposition depends on not being caught.

And on receiving links you did not ask for: mostly, do nothing. Google's guidance on the disavow tool is that it should be used "only if" you have a considerable number of spammy links and they have caused or will likely cause a manual action. It adds: "This is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution. If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site's performance in Google Search results."

Reflexive disavowing does more harm than negative SEO does.

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The uncomfortable conclusion

If links are not in the top three, and the reliable ways to get them at volume are the ways Google names as spam, then for most small sites link building is not the highest-value activity available.

Better content, better internal structure, and better technical foundations usually are — and they compound rather than depreciating. The ordering is in on-page SEO and technical SEO.

Do the earned and asked-for work, consistently, at a scale you can sustain. Then spend the rest of the time on the things that make the earning easier — which is the same work, arriving from the other direction.

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Frequently asked questions

Are backlinks still important for SEO in 2026?
They matter, but less than commonly assumed. Google's Gary Illyes said publicly that links are not in the top three ranking factors and have not been for some time, and that it is possible to rank without them. They still carry discovery value, referral traffic and citation evidence.

Is buying backlinks against Google's policy?
Yes. Google's spam policy names buying or selling links for ranking purposes, exchanging goods or services for links, and paid advertorials that pass ranking credit. Such links are only compliant when qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" — which means they pass no ranking credit.

Does guest posting still work for link building?
Genuine contributions to publications your audience reads are fine. Paid placements and networks of sites that exist to host guest posts fall under advertorials and paid links in Google's spam policy, and the payment must be disclosed with a qualifying rel attribute.

Should I disavow bad backlinks?
Usually not. Google says most sites will not need the tool, because it can generally assess which links to trust without guidance. It calls disavow an advanced feature that can harm your site's performance if used incorrectly, and advises using it only when spammy links have caused or will likely cause a manual action.

What is the best link building strategy for a small business?
Fix broken internal links and chase unlinked mentions first, then build something genuinely worth citing and tell the specific people who would want it. Digital PR follows. Buying links is not a strategy — the compliant version passes no credit and the non-compliant version is a policy violation.

Is HARO still available for getting backlinks?
No. HARO, later renamed Connectively, was permanently discontinued by Cision on 9 December 2024. Any guide still recommending it predates that. Several alternative journalist-source platforms exist.

How many backlinks do I need to rank?
There is no number. Google has said it is possible to rank without links at all, and quality and relevance matter more than count. Chasing a target number is what leads sites toward the tactics Google's spam policy names.

Do nofollow links have any value?
Not as ranking credit — that is what the attribute signals. They can still deliver referral traffic, brand visibility and discovery, which is why a nofollowed link from a publication your audience actually reads can be worth more to a business than a followed link from somewhere nobody visits.

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What to do next

Search for your business name, your product name and your author name, and find every mention that is not a link. That list is your best outreach opportunity and it costs nothing to compile.

Then check your own site for broken internal links. Both jobs use authority you have already earned and neither requires anyone's permission.

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Related guides

• Linkable assets: what actually earns links — building the thing worth citing
• Digital PR for small businesses — after HARO
• Link outreach emails that get replies — the ask, and why most never arrive
• Ahrefs vs Semrush vs free alternatives — choosing a tool without a ranking
• Internal linking and topic clusters — distributing what you earn
• Entity SEO — why citation matters more than count now
• On-page SEO — usually the better use of the same hour