Backlinks fuel the growth of your business site and help you rank higher on Google and be cited in answers by LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, etc.
However, not all backlinks are treated the same by search engines and LLMs. One wrong move can hurt your rankings and online visibility.
So how would you define good backlinks, and what is the difference between good and toxic/bad backlinks? Also, what makes a backlink great for your business site and not good for another business operating in a different niche?
I have spent the last five years analyzing link quality, and will be answering all of your questions in this blog.
What are Good Backlinks?
Before answering the question, let me tell you what a backlink is. When a website links to your website from its content, images, elements, etc., this is called a backlink. Google counts this as a vote and considers your business website more valuable than others.
Now, the definition of a good backlink can vary by business, industry, and services you offer. In a nutshell, a good backlink can be described as a backlink from a high authority website, contextually placed in the content, from a relevant topic or page, dofollow/nofollow, and relevant anchor text.
| Factor | Good Backlink | Poor Backlink |
|---|---|---|
| Website Relevance | Same industry or niche | Unrelated website |
| Content Relevance | Placed in relevant content | Random or unrelated article |
| Authority | Trusted, established website | Spam or low-quality site |
| Anchor Text | Natural or branded | Over-optimized exact match |
| Placement | Editorially placed within content | Footer, sidebar, or author bio only |
| Traffic | Real organic visitors | Little or no traffic |
| Trust | Earned naturally | Manipulative or paid spam |
From my experience, brands with backlinks on branded anchors rank higher and have more authority than those with backlinks on multiple anchors. However, we have to build links to service and product pages using product/service names, but the homepage should have a majority of branded backlinks.
Backlinks to Avoid
| Backlink Type | Recommendation | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Private Blog Networks (PBNs) | ❌ Avoid | High risk of penalties |
| Link Farms | ❌ Avoid | Built solely to manipulate rankings |
| Automated Blog Comments | ❌ Avoid | Low-quality and easily detected |
| Forum Spam | ❌ Avoid | Rarely provides SEO value |
| Irrelevant Directory Links | ❌ Avoid | Little topical relevance |
| Paid Links from Spam Websites | ❌ Avoid | Poor trust and authority |
| Editorial Backlinks | ✅ Recommended | Natural and trusted |
| HARO & Qwoted Links | ✅ Recommended | Earned through expertise |
| Relevant Guest Posts | ✅ Recommended | Builds topical authority |
| Digital PR Mentions | ✅ Recommended | Excellent for authority and brand recognition |
The safest link-building strategy is simple: earn backlinks because your content, expertise, or business deserves to be referenced. If a backlink exists only to manipulate rankings, it’s probably not worth pursuing.
Case study
Before moving forward with how to get good backlinks, I want to discuss more about how you can define good backlinks from a client case study.
The client offers luxury custom design sofas, and had one problem. They were unable to get backlinks and mentions from industry-relevant websites and publications.
They have hired an SEO agency that has provided decent guest posts and niche edits, but they want to get their names in premium publications in the home decor niche.
They hired us via Upwork with only one goal in mind: mentions and backlinks from respected websites in the home decor industry. We took up the challenge and created their profile on Qwoted, Featured, and HARO.
In the first three months, we were able to get them what they wanted. We got them links and mentions from some of the best publications in the home decor niche, Homes & Gardens, Family Handyman, ElleDecor, MSN, YAHOO, AOL, and still counting.
Backlinks from these publications are an example of high-authority backlinks. The websites are in their niche, the topic was on sofas, chairs, or furniture, and the links were mostly dofollow with branded anchors.
If you are a brand struggling to get links from top publications in your niche, contact us and schedule a free call.
How to Get Good Quality Backlinks?
There are a few ways to get genuinely great backlinks for your business websites. I have already discussed the case study of our client in the custom sofa niche to give you an idea of what good backlinks look like.
Here are a few techniques to earn and acquire good-quality backlinks.
1- Editorial Backlinks and Media Mentions
Editorial links and media mentions can not be bought but can only be earned. These links are usually from a highly authoritative website with millions of visitors and a high domain rating. Additionally, the publication has an established reputation in the industry that adds additional value to the link equity.
These links are very hard to acquire, and can not be replicated by competitors. I have used three major techniques to gain editorial mentions from publications and news sites.
- Digital PR
- Qwoted/HARO Link Building
- Digital Assets
These three techniques are the best to get your brand cited by journalists and editors on top news websites and niche relevant publications. Let’s first discuss digital PR.
A) Digital PR
Digital PR or reactive PR enables your brand to get cited and mentioned on national and local media websites, mostly news websites.
You or your team have to conduct research around your business or services, compile all the data, and send your findings to a number of journalist who writes for news websites and media about your industry. For example, if you are in the real estate business, you will have to find a quotable topic that journalist can include in their upcoming blogs.
You can conduct research on the cost of paying more rent after a rent increase vs changing houses in different cities. The research should be backed with data and based on real surveys.
Outreach the journalists with your findings and see if it gets featured on national or local news websites. As per my experience, the probability of getting cited is low, but the backlinks are great if you succeed.
Similarly, reactive PR is when you gather data related to a trend. Like the recent wedding of Dua Lipa, how can you look like her? We did a reactive PR for a client in the cosmetic niche and landed some great media mentions.
B) Qwoted/HARO Link Building
HAROlinked was made because we specialize in this type of backlink. You can do it too, if you have time. The process is simple: you sign up on HARO, which is now connectively, and Qwoted if you can pay a monthly subscription fee.
Journalists and editors are looking for expert opinions on multiple things. You can answer all the questions on real estate, house loans, etc using HARO/ Qwoted/ Featured, etc and get quoted with a backlink from high DR sites and publications.
We have successfully landed 300+ good backlinks for our clients in multiple niches. Our client in the real estate niche got backlinks from the best industry-relevant websites and publications like Realtor, Money.com, GoBankingRates, Forbes, etc.
Another client of ours who deals in the CCTV niche is cited by US News, CyberNews, Homes & Garden, etc. We have a process to get these links and branded mentions, which has been adjusted with trial and error.
C) Digital Assets
Digital assets are typically pieces of content published on your website related to your industry. These can be in the form of an infographic, image, video, or simply a blog post.
Journalists, writers, and editors are looking for industry-relevant data for citation. If they find your research relevant, they will definitely include it in their blog and backlink to your domain.
However, but lets be honest. No journalist or editor will be linking to a website or business without established footprints in their respective industry. For example, if I am writing about hosting or the best WordPress hosting to avoid login attacks, I will backlink to GoDaddy or Hostinger as a reference, and won’t link to a cheap and new hosting brand because GoDaddy and others have built trust over time and with years of marketing.
Similarly, if you are a newly launched business, this technique won’t be as useful as HARO link building or digital PR in landing high-authority backlinks. The best website to find American stats for your business is census.gov, followed by others.
2- Guest Posts, Niche Edits, and Sponsored Posts
People often mistake guest posts for spam link building. That is because guest posting was abused in the past, and getting links from irrelevant websites and from any topic was considered link building back when I started my SEO career in 2009.
However, things started to change after Google released the Penguin update against spam. But guest posting still adds value and, in my experience, can help in ranking your business website on Google and ChatGPT.
You need to understand what guest posts are and how to do them correctly. Guest posting in 2026 is effective when you publish content on industry-relevant websites, on business-relevant topics, and add an author byline.
A backlink from an industry-relevant website, written by an industry expert, is highly valued by Google and other search engines. Don’t just hire an agency to publish a few guest posts on high DR but irrelevant websites, because you are wasting your money.
Similarly, niche edits and sponsored posts should also be placed on highly relevant websites. A generic website with DR 70 will give less link equity and ranking power than a DR 40 website that is super relevant to your business and niche. On top of that, if an industry expert writes the post, this will be called a good backlink.
Why Relevance Matters More Than Domain Rating
One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make is chasing high DR websites without considering relevance. In most cases, a backlink from a niche-relevant website will provide more long-term SEO value than a link from a generic website with a much higher Domain Rating.
| Website | DR | Relevance | Better Choice? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industry Relevant Magazine | 42 | Excellent | ✅ Yes |
| Relevant Blog | 38 | Excellent | ✅ Yes |
| Generic Marketing Blog | 72 | Low | ❌ No |
| Crypto Website | 81 | None | ❌ No |
| Local & Relevant Site | 35 | Excellent | ✅ Yes |
The goal isn’t to get the highest DR backlink. The goal is to earn backlinks from websites that Google already associates with your industry. That’s one of the easiest ways to get good backlinks for SEO and build long-term topical authority.
One of our clients operates in the e-commerce supply chain niche. A direct-to-consumer business service mainly for e-commerce stores, so they don’t have to worry about deliveries. We discussed the project and finalized 5 guest posts and 5 listicles for them.
The guest posts were done on industry-leading websites and magazines in the supply chain and e-commerce niche. For listicles, we targeted pages already cited by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews for relevant keywords and queries like “Best fulfilment companies in USA, fulfilment companies for global orders, etc.”
In less than three weeks, they were cited by ChatGPT and in Google AI overviews, and homepage traffic increased by 10% each week. Also, the traffic was super relevant and targeted because now they are getting leads from AI overviews and LLMs.
How to find relevant websites for guest posts and niche edits?
You can find relevant websites with Ahrefs. Note down two or three established competitors and find their backlinks via Ahrefs Link Explorer.
Scan through the list and shortlist websites with a higher DR score and decent organic traffic. Next, open every website manually to check the relevance and content they publish.
Shortlist only the best websites and start the outreach process. Try to do it yourself, with your business email address.
You will need to sell yourself. Tell them the years of experience and expertise you have in your field and their benefit of accepting a guest post from you.
You can use Hunter.io to find the email address of the relevant person or check their LinkedIn page. Use similar tactics to find relevant websites for listicle niche edits and link insertions.
3- Broken Link Building
Broken link building is a simple technique of finding your competitor’s broken backlinks from high authority websites and outreaching those websites to replace the broken link with your page.
I have used this technique for a very few of my clients, because the result is nearly 1-2%. This means if I find 100 broken competitor backlinks on 100 different domains. I will get only one or two backlinks, the rest will update thier page with another option or won’t update it.
How to find competitors’ broken backlinks?
To have a deeper look, you will need an Ahrefs subscription and a few competitor or industry-relevant websites/blogs.
I have used WSJ.com to check inbound broken links via Ahrefs’ free broken link checker. The broken inbound section tells me 404 pages of WSJ and websites backlinking those pages.
You can see that WSJ has nearly 4.4 million broken links to their website. You can check your competitor’s website here to find a limited number of relevant and high-DR broken links in the free version. And make a list of these webpages and websites, linking them.
How to find the content of a 404 competitor page?
Very easy with WaybackMachine/Archive.org. With the launch of this service, our lives become much easier to find deleted or 404 content. Here are the steps to find what was published on the page.
- Go to https://web.archive.org/
- Select the URL from the list you made earlier with Ahrefs backlink explorer
- Paste the URL in the search bar
- Select an appropriate timeline; if the link was published/added in July 2022, then you should see what was on the page in the same month and year.
- Done, now you can create much better content and ask the webmaster to replace that broken link with your page.
How to reach out to websites for link replacement?
You can find the relevant contact person via LinkedIn. Or find the email address of their marketing/SEO staff via Hunter.io.
Keep the outreach email as simple as possible. Remember, you are providing value. You have found a broken backlink on thier website and are providing a better alternative. Here is an example of an email template you can use.
Subject: Broken link on [Website Name] / Quick fix for your [Topic] page
Hi [Name],
I was reading your article about [Topic/Article Title] and noticed that one of the resources you linked to is no longer working.
The link for “[Anchor Text/Old Resource Name]” currently leads to a dead page (404 error).
If you’re looking for a quick replacement to keep the post helpful for your readers, I actually published an updated guide on the exact same topic:
👉 [Your URL]
No worries if you’re busy, but figured I’d reach out and pass it along!
Best,
[Your Name]
[Your Company/Website]
4- Develop Linkable Assets
Linkable assets can attract industry-related backlinks from journalists and editors. These links are usually from authoritative websites and publications pointing to a case study, research paper, infographic, image, explainer video, etc.
To create linkable assets, you need to conduct an in-depth industry study, find data, and present it in the form of a case study or infographic.
We created a list of the most desirable Pokémon cards among users for a client. The client sells Pokémon card binders and wanted us to develop linkable assets for backlink generation. These will later be used for digital PR and journalist outreach.
We conducted research with the existing customers, Reddit threads, Facebook, and card collecting communities and forums.
Our research found that the most desirable card was 1999 Base Set 1st Edition Charizard, followed by 1998 Japanese Pikachu Illustrator and Umbreon VMAX Alt Art. We created a list of the ten most desirable Pokémon cards and published it on the client’s website. The blog had an image collage of the top three as the hero image, and every image of the card from ten to one.
We also created an infographic with minor details added about the cards. This article earned us more than 24 backlinks from an average DR 45 website, all in the Pokémon and anime niches. The best link we got was from CBR.com with DR 80.
You can do the same by finding the pain points of your industry and the facts people want to know.
5- Unlinked Brand Mentions
An unlinked brand mention is when someone has mentioned your brand on thier website without linking it. This is one of the easiest link-building opportunities, often ignored by businesses. However, there are reasons brands and business owners don’t chase unlinked branded mentions.
The first reason is that they don’t know their brand got a mention on a website. And second is they don’t know how to reach out to them and ask for a backlink. Before answering these, let me tell you that we got a client 5 backlinks out of 26 unlinked branded mentions. That is a 20% success rate, which is great when asking for a free link.
Out of 26 mentions, more than 15 were asking for a fee, and 6 didn’t reply. Here is how you can do it.
How to find unlinked branded mentions?
We use Ahrefs, Google Alerts, and Semrush to find unlinked branded mentions for clients. Here is how to do it.
- Ahrefs: Go to content explorer, type your brand name -site: your website. For our agency, it will be “Harolinked” -site:harolinked.com.
- Semrush: Tracks mentions across the web and automatically flags whether the mention includes a backlink or is just plain text.
- Google Alerts: Free, but misses a lot. Set up quotes around your brand name: HAROlinked
You can also use an advanced Google search operator to find branded mentions.
“Your Brand Name” -site:yourwebsite.com -site:twitter.com -site:facebook.com -site:linkedin.com -site:instagram.com. The “-site” will remove unwanted search results from the page, and you will see websites that have mentioned your brand. Here are more advanced techniques to exclude words from Google search.
Reach out to websites and webmasters who have mentioned your brand but have not linked to your website.
Final Thoughts: Quality Trumps Quantity Every Time
The days of mass-producing low-grade backlinks to trick search engines are long gone. Whether you are optimizing for Google’s search algorithms or trying to ensure your brand is cited by generative AI engines like ChatGPT and Claude, the strategy remains the exact same: authority, relevance, and trust.
Building a moat of high-quality digital PR mentions and editorial backlinks takes time, effort, and a systematic outreach process, but the long-term payoff in organic traffic and brand credibility is unmatched.
FAQs
Are nofollow backlinks good?
Nofollow backlinks won’t pass as much SEO value as dofollow links, but they can drive targeted traffic, build brand authority, and create a natural backlink profile. They should be part of any strategy for getting good backlinks.
Can bad backlinks hurt SEO?
A few low-quality links usually won’t hurt your rankings because Google often ignores them. The real risk comes from spammy or manipulative links, which is why learning how to get good quality backlinks is far more important than building lots of links.
Does ChatGPT use backlinks?
Backlinks are still a strong trust signal. While ChatGPT doesn’t rank websites like Google, brands with quality backlinks and mentions from trusted publications are more likely to be cited in AI-generated answers.
How many backlinks do I need?
There’s no fixed number. The goal isn’t to get the most backlinks but to get better ones than your competitors. That’s the foundation of getting good backlinks for SEO.
How long before backlinks work?
Most quality backlinks start showing results within one to three months after they’re indexed. The better the website and the more relevant the link, the greater the long-term impact.
Should I buy backlinks?
Paying for links from trusted, relevant websites can be worthwhile. Buying cheap backlinks in bulk usually isn’t. If you’re wondering how to get good backlinks to my website, quality should always come before quantity.
What is topical authority?
Topical authority is the trust your website earns by consistently publishing helpful content and getting backlinks from relevant websites in your niche.
Are homepage backlinks better?
Homepage backlinks are great for building brand authority, while links to service pages and blog posts often help individual keywords rank better. The best backlink profiles include both, especially if you’re learning how to get good backlinks for your website.