Do affiliate sites still need backlinks?

Yes, but links are no longer enough. Sitewide quality classifiers mean a site judged unhelpful does not recover by adding links, so links only pay off on a site that already has original content and a brand people search for.

How much do links cost for an affiliate site?

Mainstream niches sit around the market medians, which were $570 for a sponsored article and $270 for a link insertion in ESBO's September 2026 dataset. Restricted niches such as gambling or CBD cost more and far fewer publishers accept them.

Are PBNs and expired domains still worth it for affiliates?

They still exist, mostly on sites the owner treats as disposable. Repurposing an expired domain for unrelated affiliate content is what Google's expired domain abuse policy describes, so it is a poor fit for a site you want to keep.

What anchor text should an affiliate site use?

Mostly brand. The working rule of thumb is to keep "best X" commercial anchors to a small share of the profile, then check that against the sites ranking in your niche.

Affiliate site link building (review and comparison sites)

Affiliate and review sites are the core buyers of links, and the group hit hardest by Google’s changes since 2023. The helpful content system, the product reviews updates and the rise of forum and publisher results took traffic from independent sites that had relied on bought links and commercial anchors.

The sites that survived have a different profile: brand searches, real authorship, and links from manufacturers and media that cite their testing. That is the model to copy. More links on top of thin content is the model that failed.

What makes this market different

Links cannot rescue the site. Google’s quality classifiers work sitewide. If the site as a whole is judged unhelpful, a stronger link profile does not lift it. Google has said recovery after a spam update “can take many months”.

The old playbook is now named in policy. The typical affiliate profile used to be private networks, niche edits and guest posts with commercial anchors. Three of the common shortcuts now match Google spam policies by name: scaled content abuse, expired domain abuse and site reputation abuse.

Publishers were your competitors, and may be again. Independent affiliates compete with the commerce sections of large publishers. In November 2024 Google issued manual actions for site reputation abuse against Forbes Advisor, CNN Underscored and WSJ Buy Side. Since late August 2026 Google no longer applies those manual actions for searchers in the European Economic Area, though algorithmic handling remains. The effect of that change is still unproven. Details are in the site reputation abuse explainer.

You probably run more than one site. Portfolio thinking is normal for affiliates, and it creates a risk that single-site owners do not have: shared footprints.

What works

Original testing data. Numbers from your own tests give other sites a reason to cite you. This is the main asset of the survivors.
Digital PR from that data. A test database or an annual ranking is a story a journalist can use. See digital PR.
Journalist-request commentary. Reviewers with real hands-on experience are useful sources.
Brand building. A YouTube channel or newsletter produces branded search, which is the signal bought links cannot fake.
Manufacturer links. “As reviewed by” mentions from the brands you cover are relevant and hard for a competitor to copy.
Aged domain acquisitions used for real rebuilds. Buying an established site in your topic and continuing it is different from repurposing a dropped domain for something unrelated.

What does not work

Scaled AI content plus bought links. This is the pattern Google’s scaled content abuse policy describes.
Expired domain repurposing for unrelated affiliate content. Covered by the expired domain abuse policy. See expired domains for where the line sits.
Parasite subfolders on publishers. For searchers outside the EEA these are still exposed to manual action. One analysis by SEO Kreativ in 2026 notes that networks built on repurposed established domains remain algorithmically exposed everywhere. See parasite SEO.

Prices and publisher acceptance

Affiliates in mainstream niches pay the general market rate. The benchmarks:

Benchmark	Figure	Source
Median sponsored article	$570	ESBO, September 2026
Median link insertion	$270	Same dataset
Guest post bought direct from the site	$295 average	BuzzStream, June 2026
Guest post bought through a vendor	$461 average	Same dataset
Link insertion, marketplace list price	$179 average	BuzzStream, August 2026
Public PBN links	$1 to $5 each in bundles	Respona, July 2026

Two facts matter more than the averages.

Most of the supply is junk. In BuzzStream’s June 2026 analysis of roughly 257,000 guest post sellers, only 1.37% met a basic quality bar of DR 65 or higher with 10,000 or more monthly organic visits. It classed 96.2% as low quality, and 39.6% had no organic traffic at all. An affiliate buying on price alone is buying from that pool. Use how to vet a publisher before every order.

List price is not paid price. Adsy’s analysis of 37,542 sites, using 2024 data, found an average asking price of $406 against an average actual purchase price of $59 at DR 41 to 50. Buyers concentrate on the cheap end.

If your affiliate site is in a restricted niche, acceptance drops sharply. In ESBO’s September 2026 data, 45.1% of publishers accept crypto and forex, 41.5% gambling, 35.4% CBD and cannabis, and 15.9% adult. Median surcharges run from 19% to 32%. The iGaming hub and the high-risk markets playbook cover those cases.

Risk

Algorithmic risk is high in this sector, and it comes in two forms. The first is quiet: bought links are ignored, and the budget is wasted without any warning. The second is a demotion in a spam update. There were three in 2026, in March, June and August.

Before choosing tactics, decide whether each site in your portfolio is one you intend to keep. A site you want to own in five years should not carry links you would only put on a throwaway. That framework is set out in the high-risk markets playbook, and the recovery process is in Google link penalties and recovery.

Anchors and pace

The direction is towards brand anchors, with “best X” commercial anchors kept to a small share of the profile. That is practitioner guidance, not a published ratio. Check it against the sites ranking in your niche using the method in the anchor text guide.

A moderate pace tied to content output is the norm. New links arriving when new tests and comparisons are published looks like what it is.

Which pages need the links

Homepage and brand. This is where brand anchors and PR coverage land.
Category hubs. They pass authority down to individual reviews.
Flagship comparison pages. The few “best X” pages that carry the revenue.
Original data pages. These are what other people cite.

Individual product reviews rarely attract links. Support them with internal links from the hubs and data pages. More in which pages need links.

Assets worth building: test databases, lab methodology pages, price history trackers and annual awards. The process is in linkable assets.

Common mistakes

Portfolio footprints. The same theme, the same links and the same hosting across every site make a network easy to connect.
Relying on one traffic source. A site that lives only on Google has no cushion when an update lands.
Buying from the cheapest marketplace tier. See the supply figures above.
Adding links to fix a content problem. If the site was hit by a quality classifier, links are not the repair.

Where to go next

Niche edits and paid guest posts for the two most common paid formats, with their risks.
Private blog networks for an honest account of what they cost and how they get caught.
Link marketplaces and our reviews before choosing where to buy.
Link building cost and budget for planning.