Link building tactics, by cost and risk

Earned links

Inside the guidelines. Slower, and the links tend to last.

• R1 · $0 to $50

  Link reclamation

  Link reclamation fixes links that point at dead pages, old domains or wrong URLs on your site, and wins back links that were removed. It is the cheapest tactic there is, and it should come before you spend money on new links.

• R1 · $0

  Testimonials and partner links

  Partner links come from organisations you already do business with, such as vendors you can give a testimonial to, suppliers and stockists, integration partners and trade associations. They cost nothing in cash and sit within Google's rules.

• R1 · $2 to $3.20 per citation

  Local citations

  A local citation is a listing of your business name, address and phone number on a directory, map or data aggregator. Citations cost a few dollars each, carry no risk, and support local pack visibility more than they pass ranking power.

• R1 · $20 to $80

  Unlinked mentions

  An unlinked mention is a page that names your brand without linking to it. Asking the author for a link is one of the cheapest tactics available, and in AI search the mention has value even if the link never comes.

• R1 · $100 to $300

  Broken links and resource pages

  Broken link building means finding dead links on relevant pages and offering your working page as the replacement. Resource page link building asks curators to list a useful, non-commercial page. Both are within Google's rules and limited by how many real opportunities exist.

• R1 · $150 to $400

  Linkable assets and outreach

  A linkable asset is a page other people have a reason to cite, such as a statistics page, a free tool or original research. It earns links within Google's rules, but only after outreach puts it in front of the people who link.

• R1 · $300 to $1,500

  Digital PR

  Digital PR earns editorial links by giving journalists a story worth covering. It is the tactic SEOs rate highest, it sits fully within Google's rules, and a unique followed link costs more than most surveys admit.

• R1 · About $400 with labour

  Journalist requests

  HARO is back. Featured relaunched it in April 2025 after Connectively closed, and Qwoted, Source of Sources, Featured and MentionMatch now sit beside it. Here is what each costs and how to win quotes.

Negotiated and paid links

Grey to guideline-breaking. Faster and scalable, and quality control decides the outcome.

• R2 · $50 to $5,000

  Sponsorships

  A sponsorship link comes from the sponsors page of an event, club, open source project or charity you fund. It is technically a paid link, but genuine sponsorship is normal business and rarely a problem. Buying sponsorships in bulk for the links is a pattern Google can see.

• R1 to R2 · $150 to $600 in labour

  Genuine guest posts

  A genuine guest post is an article you write for a publication with real editorial standards, in return for a byline and a link. The placement is free, the labour is not, and the risk only rises when you do it at scale with keyword anchors.

• R2 to R3 · $0 to $150

  Link exchanges

  A link exchange is two or more sites agreeing to link to each other. It is common, cheap and a mainstay of B2B SaaS. Google's policy names excessive link exchanges as spam, so the risk depends on volume, relevance and how obvious the pattern is.

• R3 · $60 to $500

  Link marketplaces

  A link building marketplace lists publishers with prices and handles the order, payment and monitoring. It is a fast way to pay for placements and a poor way to judge them.

• R3 · $179 average, $330 to $780 on quality sites

  Niche edits (link insertions)

  A niche edit is a link added to an article that already exists on someone else's site. It is faster and cheaper than a new guest post, and it carries the same risk as any paid link.

• R3 · $295 to $461 average, $1,100+ on quality sites

  Paid guest posts

  A paid guest post is an article you pay a publisher to run with your link in it. The average is $295 direct and $461 through a vendor, and most of the sites selling them are not worth buying from.

High-risk tactics

Explained so you can recognise them and weigh them honestly. These can cost you the site.

• R2 to R4 · $50 to $10,000 per domain

  Expired domains and 301s

  Buying a domain that already has backlinks can give a new site a head start or pass value through a redirect. It is low risk when the topic stays the same and a policy violation when it does not.

• R4 · $150 to $600 per site, plus upkeep

  Private blog networks

  A private blog network is a group of sites one operator controls and uses to link to their own money sites. It is expensive to run well, usually ends in the whole network being devalued, and only fits sites the owner can afford to lose.

• R3 to R4 · $200 to $5,000+ per placement

  Parasite pages

  Parasite SEO means publishing commercial pages on a high-authority site you do not own so they rank on the host's strength. Google calls it site reputation abuse, and since August 2026 it enforces the policy differently in Europe.

• R4 to R5 · Under $5

  Public PBNs and automation

  Automated and bulk links cost under $5 each and often a fraction of a cent. Google mostly ignores them, which is why operators only point them at second-tier pages or at sites built to be thrown away.

Compare every tactic

Typical cost per link on a log scale, coloured by risk.

How to read the risk rating

• R1Within guidelines. Inside Google's guidelines. Nothing to hide.
• R2Low. Technically a grey area, rarely a problem at sensible volume.
• R3Moderate. Against the guidelines. Links are often ignored rather than punished, so the usual loss is money.
• R4High. Can trigger a manual action or site-wide loss of trust.
• R5Severe. Expect deindexing. Only for sites you can afford to lose.

All tactics in one table