Link Building & E-E-A-T
Links from other sites remain among the strongest ranking signals: each one is an independent endorsement that your page is worth referencing. Link building is the practice of earning those endorsements; E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) is the broader quality framework links feed into.
What makes a link valuable#
Not all links are equal. Value scales with:
- Authority of the linking site and page - one link from a respected industry publication outweighs hundreds from obscure blogs
- Topical relevance - a coffee blog linking your espresso guide says more than a casino site doing so
- Anchor text - descriptive anchors transfer topical meaning (same mechanics as internal links)
- Placement - editorial links inside content beat footers, sidebars and author bios
- Uniqueness - your hundredth link from the same domain adds little; the first from a new authoritative domain adds a lot
Links carrying rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc" pass little or no equity - though engines treat these as hints now, and nofollow links from major publications still correlate with visibility (and feed GEO brand-mention signals).
Tactics that work#
In rough order of return on effort:
1. Linkable assets#
Most pages don't deserve links; some formats attract them naturally. Original data and research (annual surveys, benchmarks - journalists cite data), free tools and calculators, definitive reference pages (the glossary/statistics page everyone cites), original diagrams that explain a concept better than prose.
2. Digital PR#
Package something genuinely newsworthy (your data, an expert take on a breaking change) and pitch the journalists and newsletters covering your space. Highest ceiling of any tactic; also the most work per attempt.
3. Guest content & expert commentary#
Writing for established industry publications, podcast appearances, expert-quote roundups. The byline link is fine; the authority and audience transfer is the real prize.
4. Reclamation & housekeeping#
- Unlinked mentions - someone named your brand/product without linking; ask for the link (high success rate)
- Broken link building - find dead resources competitors link to; offer your live equivalent
- Competitor gap analysis - domains linking to two or more competitors but not you are pre-qualified prospects
What not to do#
If you inherit a toxic link profile (spammy anchors at scale, link networks), document it; Google's disavow tool exists for genuinely manipulative profiles under manual action, but for normal sites the right answer is almost always "ignore the spam, engines already do."
E-E-A-T: the bigger picture#
Links are one input into a broader trust evaluation. The signals you control:
| Signal | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Experience | First-hand evidence in content: original photos, test results, "we measured" |
| Expertise | Real author pages with credentials, linked via Person schema |
| Authoritativeness | Links, mentions, citations - earned via the tactics above |
| Trust | HTTPS, contact/about pages, editorial policy, accurate claims with sources |
E-E-A-T weighs heaviest for YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) topics - health, finance, safety - where Google demonstrably suppresses content lacking credible authorship.
Measuring link building#
Track: referring domains over time (the growth curve matters more than totals), links to priority pages vs. homepage, and ranking movement on target queries ~1–3 months after link acquisition. Ahrefs/Semrush for the link graph; Search Console "Links" report for Google's own (partial) view.
Next: Local SEO - the off-page game for physical businesses.