Link building guides, organised by topic
Six topic hubs covering how to build, verify, price and report links — and how to get cited by AI search. Each starts with a pillar guide and branches into focused articles.
Directory submission
Directory links still help when the directory is real, relevant and indexed. Bulk submission to low-quality directories is what Google calls link spam. This guide shows the difference and how to run submissions properly.
Pillar guide- Best directories for SaaS in 2026planned
- Best directories to list an AI toolplanned
- Business directories by country (30+ countries)planned
- Free vs paid directories: which are worth it?planned
- Directory submission checklistplanned
- 7 directory submission mistakes that waste linksplanned
- Directory submission service
Link verification
"Submitted" isn't "live". A link only counts if the page loads, the link is in the HTML, it points where you expect, and the page can be indexed. Here's how to check all of it — once, and on a schedule.
Pillar guide- Link removal rate: how many links disappear?planned
- Lost backlinks: why they vanish and how to recover themplanned
- How to check if a backlink is indexedplanned
- Dofollow vs nofollow: how to check any linkplanned
- Backlink monitoring tools comparedplanned
- How to audit a client's linksplanned
- Submitted Is Not Live (build log)
Cost per link
From $40 marketplace posts to $550+ premium editorial links, prices vary 10x by model. The number that matters is cost per link still live at 90 days.
Pillar guide- Cost Per Link: how to calculate it
- Retainer vs cost-per-link
- The hidden cost of manual link submission
- Link building ROI calculatorplanned
- Link building packages comparedplanned
Agency operations
Agencies lose money on link building in three places: staff hours, vendor markups and clients who don't believe the report. This playbook fixes all three.
Pillar guide- White-label link building
- Link building report template for clientsplanned
- How to price link building for clientsplanned
- Scaling link building without hiringplanned
- Link building SOP for agenciesplanned
- Client onboarding checklist for link buildingplanned
Authority metrics
Domain Authority, Domain Rating and Authority Score are third-party estimates — useful for comparison, easy to game, and not used by Google. Here's how they differ and how to judge a site properly.
Pillar guide- DA vs DR vs Open PageRankplanned
- How to judge a publisher before you submitplanned
- Spam signals: 10 red flags on a link sourceplanned
- Why we stopped buying Domain Authority
- Free Domain Authority Checker
AI search visibility
AI assistants answer with a few cited sources. Getting into that shortlist takes crawl access, pages that are easy to quote, and a brand that shows up across the web. Here's the checklist.
Pillar guide- llms.txt: a practical guideplanned
- robots.txt for AI crawlersplanned
- AI citation tracking: how to measure itplanned
- Brand mentions and LLM visibilityplanned
- AI Search Readiness Checker
- llms.txt Validator
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