The Best Link Building Services: The Experts’ Opinions

Link building is probably the biggest hurdle for any site builder trying to acquire significant organic traffic.

When I first started my main affiliate site, I completely ignored link building.

Instead, I focused on streamlining a content publication process that targeted low difficulty, high buyer-intent keywords.

That worked really well for me and after 8 months I had replaced my salary with passive, affiliate income.

Over the years I’ve experimented with different link building strategies. I’ve never done outreach to get backlinks and I’ve never paid for backlinks, either.

I did eventually hone a link building strategy that works for me- you can read about the Backlink Breakthrough by clicking the link.

However, I’ve also done a lot of research into link building services.

Below, I curated the best link building service recommendations from several sources including AuthorityHacker, Gotch SEO, TOP SEOs, and some picks from different internet marketing Facebook Groups I’m a member of.

The reviews and recommendations below aren’t mine- they’re the subjective assessments from other internet marketers.

A Powerful Ranking Factor

While Google cautions webmasters against building links (Source), it’s a powerful ranking factor (Source) that seasoned SEOs obsess over.

At some point in every internet marketer’s journey, they’ve probably researched link building services.

These agencies essentially do all the legwork for you.

Link Building Services?

Whether they’re doing manual outreach on your behalf to get guest posts, niche edits inside of existing content, or something ‘grayer hat’, these done for you services are usually very expensive.

To be clear, I don’t pay for backlinks, but I thought I would share my own research with you.

These are some of the most recommended link building companies I’ve seen. Below the table, I dug up some link buying case studies and user reviews for these services.

The Link Building Services

What I’d Do

If I was going to use one of these services, I’d probably choose 3 to work with on a trial basis.

I’d order some sample links and assess their quality using Ahrefs or SEMRush.

Based on that, I’d consider working with them on a long-term basis.

Analyzing Purchase Options

They do offer different types of services.

For example, Done For You Links has an extensive range of services that includes guest posting, niche edits, PBN links, Local SEO packages and they offer one-time and recurring purchase models.

They’re also one of the few link building services that will work with ‘bad neighborhood’ sites that are in niches like adult and gambling.

Besides outreach and guest posting, ReachCreator will do Influencer Marketing– which they say will help you bring “influential creators into the fold, not just paying them to pay lip-service to your brand.”

Authority.Builders offers an a la carte option. Once you add your sites to the customer dashboard, you get a curated list of websites to purchase backlinks from.

Depending on your niche sites, the type of service option will also be a consideration.

More Purchase Considerations + Success Criteria

1. What metrics do they use to evaluate link quality? Personally, I would only want to use Ahrefs. A lot of link agencies use Moz and at this point, Ahrefs has a clearly superior backlink index.
2. Do the pages with the backlink get real traffic? According to Cognitive SEO, “If a link is not clicked, than the initial purpose of the link is voided.”
3. How relevant are the sites? Google wants to see backlinks from relevant websites.
4. How unique is the link? Again, Cognitive SEO writes that “A high quality link has even more power, if it’s hard for your competitors to get a natural link from the same source.”
5. Outbound links? How many outbound links do the pages have? If there are a ton of outbound links on the page, from my understanding the link equity is considerably diminished.
6. You’ll want to have some type of site tracking / keyword tracking set up prior to purchase. I use Ahrefs to monitor my sites’ keyword rankings and domain strength. Make sure you’re able to analyze the effect of the links after they’ve been acquired- obviously, Google Analytics and Google Search Console also provide valuable information.

Case Study Examples

I only found two sites that did actual case studies on link building services. The first comes from AuthorityHacker and the second from Gotch SEO:

AuthorityHacker Recommendations

We Field Tested 5 Popular Link Building Services: The Results Are Disturbing

We don’t buy links. We do turn money into links.But we don’t buy them outright. And we don’t recommend you do either, since our community tends to do link building much more efficiently than most agencies.However, there’s a middle ground many people are interested in: the idea of hiring link building…

I’m a big fan of Gael and Mark (the guys behind AuthorityHacker).

They did a pretty exhaustive test of some popular link building services.

What They Reviewed

• Fiverr: not recommended
• Love To Link: not a “great investment”
• SERP Logic: their verdict was “not terrible but not great”
• The Hoth: “steaming pile of crap”
• Fat Joe: “super disappointing”

Gotch SEO

Top 3 Best Link Building Services ($1 Million Total Spend)

Looking for the best link building services in 2019? I got you covered because Chris Dreyer (founder of Rankings.io) and I have spent well over $1,000,000 on different link building services. This case study will focus on $140,424 of that spend. Why not the entire spend?

Like AuthorityHacker, Nathan Gotch over at Gotch SEO purchased backlink services and did some robust testing on the results.

What They Reviewed

• Page One Power: “damn good at what they do”
• Fat Joe: “a solid link building service as long as you use it the right way”
• The Hoth: “pretty solid”

My Analysis

There’s some overlap here- while AuthorityHacker gave The Hoth an emphatic thumbs down (“steaming pile of crap”), Gotch SEO described them as “pretty solid”.

Again, Fat Joe received a “super disappointing” review from AuthorityHacker, while Gotch SEO was more temperate, saying that it’s “a solid link building service as long as you use it the right way”.

It’s understandable that customer experience will vary when it comes to link outreach services.

It’s difficult and perhaps unfair to assess overall effectiveness from small sample sizes.

Standardizing Analysis

To even attempt an accurate an overall assessment, I think you’d need to order a huge amount of links, on a rolling basis, from every service tier, and evaluate them using a standard backlink analysis tool like Ahrefs or SEMRush.

Subjective?

And, even then, the quality of a link is to some degree subjective, relative to expectation, and its ‘quality’ will vary depending on how you analyze it.

For example, if all you care about is Ahref’s Domain Rating (DR) or Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) or Majestic’s Trust or Citation Flow (TF/CF), a link might look really strong or really weak.

But, if you’re assessing it by the amount of traffic the backlinking page has, that’s an entirely different calculus.

Another factor- how relevant is the website to your niche? You could get a DR 50 link to your pet blog from a resume writing service.

How much ‘link equity’ are you really receiving if Google thinks that the backlink is irrelevant?

These are all important considerations. And, at the end of the day, no one knows Google’s algorithm. Even if we did, it’s subject to change when they roll out the next algorithm update.

Tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush help to clarify things- you can see metric evaluations of the domain, the page, traffic estimations and more.

But the overall quality of the link really depends on how the search engines (i.e. Google) appraise it.

Other Recommendations

I curated some recommendations below from different sources. These haven’t been publicly tested the way Gotch SEO and AuthorityHacker did.

Charles Floate

The Best SEO Vendors Reviewed For 2018 by Charles Floate

One of my most popular posts from last year was my Best SEO Vendors post. Last year I asked you guys to submit your votes for who you thought was the best SEO vendor..

Charles Floate compiled his own list. There aren’t any testing results here, just recommendations.

• The Link Service (Formerly Known as Diggity Links)
• Freedom Links
• ArchSEO Relentless Network
• Domains Highway
• MentionMe.io
• SERPNinja.io
• LoveTo.Link

TOP SEOs

Rankings and Reviews of Best Link Building Services

Rankings and ratings of best link building services, best link building company, best link building firms and best link building agencies

This site seems to scrape and aggregate SEO services- the testing isn’t really transparent, but I thought I’d include their top recommendations plus links to customer reviews just for some added context.

Their top picks are:

• DMA | Digital Marketing Agency (customer reviews)
• marketingagency.io (customer reviews)
• HigherVisibility (customer reviews)

Facebook Group Recommendations

I’m a member of several premium Facebook groups for established internet marketers.

I trust their recommendations- these are people who have 6 and 7 figure online businesses- most of them focusing on organic traffic.

I curated some comments below just to get a sense of customer experience. If you recognize your comment here and want it removed, just ping me at ryan@nichefacts.com- but this was the best way I found to get some honest feedback about link building services:

About Authority.Builders

Authority Builders Co. | White Hat Outreach Done Right

Gain access to real websites with real traffic that are accepting guest posts. Our free platform makes acquiring contextual links easier than ever before!

“Gain access to real websites with real traffic that are accepting guest posts. Our free platform makes acquiring contextual links easier than ever before!”

Authority.Builders Reviews

1. “you can choose the category of site you place the post on. You also get to choose the post title. Finally – pricing is all done by organic traffic.”
2. “I tried them out for a few links. They are legit sites with traffic, but you don’t get to see the site yourself until after the link goes live. Also a bit pricey.”

About ReachCreator

Reach Creator

Links, Press Coverage, and Influencer Outreach Whatever ‘hat’ you wear in the SEO world, working with our team on your campaigns delivers results. We can work to deliver natural outreach as well as paid or incentivized links. We can handle campaigns in the toughest niches such as gambling link building, pills and payday loans.

“Whatever ‘hat’ you wear in the SEO world, working with our team on your campaigns delivers results. We can work to deliver natural outreach as well as paid or incentivized links.”

ReachCreator Reviews

1. “I also use ReachCreator (just started with them at the first of the year) and they do great work with Vin’s linkbait content”
2. “It’s pretty much completely hands off, which is awesome. [They give] me a list of topics for the linkbait and I get to pick one, then they order the content from Vin’s team and send it to me once it’s done, I post it on my site and then they get to work. And the links they’ve been getting me have been very niche relevant and not the kind of links you’d get paying a cheaper service (at least in my experience). And they’re not links from places that I see my competition getting either. Overall, really happy with it.”

Fat Joe Reviews

1. “Been playing with FatJoe a lot. Their lowest-end guest posting package gives you links from sites that look like a blog network, but the DA 20+ and DA 30+ packages tend to be real sites with real traffic. We’ve seen slow but steady movement on the sites we’ve used their links on.”
2. “I tried FatJoe’s Blogger Outreach service once. Even though they promised “100% Real Blog Owners” and “Genuine Outreach”, I’m pretty sure the links I received were PBNs. I regretted my decision. I have nothing against agencies who use PBN to rank their client’s sites, but be honest about your services. Don’t promise genuine outreach if you’re going to use PBN.”

The Hoth Reviews

1. “Had good experience with Hoth but it was towards a YouTube video and quite a while ago”
2. “Yeah i cant say i had a bad experience with the hoth either. Did what i asked. Helped with rankings.”
3. “Hoth Blitz is really terrible. I tested it maybe a year ago and I got a PBN link on a pharma domain.”

Summing Up

While I don’t buy links, I’ve done a lot of research about these services. They are pricey, but link building is a time-consuming process. And it’s tremendously helpful if you’re trying to grow a niche site.

Last Updated on November 17, 2021 by Ryan Nelson