Quick answer: You get high-quality backlinks by publishing something worth citing, such as original data, a useful resource, expert commentary or real news, and putting it in front of the editors and writers who cover your topic. Digital PR and news coverage (including press release distribution through a service like BrandPush), broken link building and genuine partnerships all work, while bought links, private blog networks and large-scale link swaps break Google’s spam policies and are usually neutralized. Judge every link by relevance, editorial placement and whether real readers would click it.
What are the best backlinks for SEO?
The best backlinks are editorial: a writer chose to link to you because it helped their readers. They come from sites relevant to your topic, sit in the body of an article and point to the page that best supports the point being made.
If you want the fundamentals first, including how Google uses links and what nofollow means, start with our explainer on what SEO backlinks are and which ones help rankings. This guide is about getting them.
Quality backlinks come from a short list of tactics. This table compares the main ones by where the link comes from, the effort involved and the quality you can expect.
| Tactic | Typical link source | Effort | Link quality potential |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital PR and news coverage | News sites and trade publications | Medium to high | High, though many news links are nofollow |
| Expert commentary | Reporters’ stories, roundups, podcasts | Medium | High |
| Original data and studies | Articles that cite your numbers | High | High |
| Useful resources and tools | Resource pages, guides, communities | Medium | High over time |
| Broken link building | Pages in your niche with dead links | Medium | Medium to high |
| Partnerships | Partners, suppliers, associations | Low to medium | Medium |
| Guest posts on real publications | Contributor articles | Medium | Mixed |
Notice what’s missing: anything sold by the hundred. A handful of relevant editorial links will do more for you than a spreadsheet full of placements nobody reads.
How do you get backlinks from high PR sites and reporters?
“High PR” originally meant a high Google PageRank score, which Google stopped showing publicly years ago. Today people use it to mean authoritative publications: national news sites, respected trade titles and big industry blogs. The way in hasn’t changed: give reporters something they need.
Three routes work:
- Answer journalist requests. Reporters post source requests on query services and social media every day. Reply fast with a short, quotable answer, one specific data point and the credential that makes you worth quoting.
- Comment on news in your field. When a regulation, trend or big announcement hits your industry, send the reporters who cover it a sharp two-line reaction. Timely beats perfect.
- Make your own news. Funding, launches, partnerships, milestones and new data give publishers a reason to write about you. A press release puts that news in front of many outlets at once.
Be clear about what news coverage delivers. Many news links are nofollow or sponsored, and Google’s spam policies say keyword-rich links in press releases distributed on other sites shouldn’t pass ranking credit. Treat distributed releases as a way to earn authoritative brand mentions and visibility, not followed links on demand.
Those mentions still pay off. They build recognition with readers and AI answer engines, show up when prospects search your name, and put your story in front of writers who may cover it independently and link editorially.
BrandPush is one route for the “make your own news” step. It publishes your release across a 400+ outlet network, with 200+ outlets per release, including affiliates of Yahoo Finance and Business Insider, and 185M+ potential readers. Publishing takes about 5 days, packages start at $195 with no monthly fees, and articles are written to publisher standards.
Every order includes a report with live links (see a sample report), and there’s a money-back guarantee if your article isn’t published. What no honest service can promise is rankings or a journalist picking up the story. For pitching reporters directly, see how to get featured in publications without pitching 500 journalists.
How do original data and linkable resources earn backlinks?
Writers need evidence. A page with fresh numbers, a clear definition or a tool that saves time gets cited again and again, often for years, which is why linkable assets keep earning links long after the first push.
Assets that tend to attract links:
- Original data: a customer survey, anonymized usage trends, pricing benchmarks or a state-of-the-industry report. A modest dataset works if the method is clear.
- Statistics pages: a well-sourced, regularly updated roundup for your niche.
- Free tools and templates: calculators, checklists, glossaries and templates that solve one annoying problem.
- Definitive guides: a page that answers a question more clearly and completely than what currently ranks.
Make the asset easy to cite. Put the headline finding at the top in one sentence, explain your method, add a simple chart or table, and publish it on a stable URL you won’t change.
Then promote it. Email the writers who’ve covered the topic recently, pitch the data as a news story if the finding is surprising, and link to it from your own related pages.
No obvious news? Mine what you already have. Support tickets, sales calls and product data often hold a trend nobody else can report, so turn it into a short finding with one number, one implication and a quote from someone senior.
How does broken link building work?
Broken link building means finding links on other sites that point to pages that no longer exist, then offering your page as a replacement. It works because you’re fixing a problem for the site owner rather than asking for a favor.
There’s no shortage of dead links. Ahrefs’ link rot study found that 66.5% of the links pointing to the roughly 2 million websites it sampled, going back to 2013, had rotted.
The process takes four steps:
- Find resource pages in your niche. Search for your topic plus “resources” or “useful links,” and list the guides that cover your subject.
- Find the dead links. Run those pages through a broken link checker, or use the broken backlinks reports in Ahrefs or Semrush to find dead pages in your niche that still have links pointing at them.
- Check the fit. Look up what the dead page covered (the Wayback Machine helps) and make sure your page is a genuine replacement, not a loose match.
- Send a short, helpful email. Name the broken link and where it sits, then suggest your page in two or three sentences.
Two related wins are faster. Link reclamation means finding pages that mention your brand without linking and politely asking for the link. And fix your own rot: if you’ve deleted or moved pages that had backlinks, 301-redirect them to the closest live page so that value isn’t wasted.
Do partnerships, guest posts and podcasts still earn quality backlinks?
Yes, when the relationship is real. Links from partners, suppliers, integration directories, industry associations you belong to and events where you speak are natural because the connection exists offline.
Podcasts are an underused source. Hosts need guests, and show notes usually link to the guest’s site, so pick shows your customers listen to and pitch a specific topic rather than your bio.
Guest posting still works on publications with a real audience and editorial review. Write for readers, link to your site only where it helps, and use your brand name or a plain description as anchor text. What Google’s spam policies flag is guest posts and articles carrying keyword-rich links that pass ranking credit, so the line is scale and intent.
The same goes for reciprocal links. Real partners linking to each other is normal. Trading links with strangers purely for SEO is the “link to me and I’ll link to you” exchange that Google’s link spam policy calls out.
Which backlink tactics should you avoid?
Avoid anything that creates links without an editor choosing to add them. The link spam section of Google’s spam policies covers these tactics explicitly.
Since its December 2022 link spam update, Google has used SpamBrain, its AI spam-prevention system, to detect sites that buy links or exist to pass them, and to cancel the credit those links carry. Rankings built on that credit fall when it disappears, and deliberate schemes can lead to a manual action.
The table below lists the common shortcuts, why they fail and what to do instead.
| Tactic to avoid | Why it fails | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Buying links that pass ranking credit | Breaks Google’s link spam policy, and SpamBrain looks for link sellers | Spend the budget on an asset or a news story |
| Private blog networks (PBNs) | Sites built only to link out leave patterns Google detects | Earn links from sites with real readers |
| Link exchanges at scale | Named as link spam in Google’s policies | Link to partners only when it helps readers |
| Paid guest posts on link farms | No real audience, keyword-stuffed anchors | Contribute to publications your customers read |
| Low-quality directories and bookmark sites | Named in Google’s policies, no editorial value | Use a few legitimate industry and local listings |
| Footer, widget and template links | Named in Google’s policies | Earn in-content editorial mentions |
| Exact-match anchors everywhere | An unnatural pattern that signals manipulation | Let editors choose anchors, usually your brand name |
One warning sign covers most of these: an offer of guaranteed high-authority dofollow links at a fixed price per link. If a site sells followed links to anyone who pays, Google already has a view of it, and it should be yours too.
How do you judge whether a backlink is worth getting?
Before you pitch, pay for a campaign or accept a placement, run a two-minute check. Scores like Ahrefs’ Domain Rating, Semrush’s Authority Score and Moz’s Domain Authority help you compare sites, but none of them is a Google metric, so look at the page itself too.
Use this checklist to separate a worthwhile link from a vanity placement.
| Check | Good sign | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Topical relevance | Covers your industry or audience | Publishes anything for anyone |
| Real audience | Steady organic traffic, comments, shares | No traffic, or sudden spikes and crashes |
| Editorial standards | Named authors, edited articles | Spun or thin posts, “write for us” banners everywhere |
| Placement | Inside the article body | Footer, sidebar or author box only |
| Outbound links | Selective and relevant | Dozens of unrelated commercial links per post |
| Indexing | The page appears in Google | Pages that aren’t indexed |
| Link attribute | Followed editorial link, or nofollow on a site worth being seen on | A followed link that was clearly paid for |
Then ask the plain question: would you want this link if Google didn’t exist? If it would send customers, impress a prospect or put your name in front of journalists, it’s worth having even as nofollow. If its only value is a metric, skip it.
After the link goes live, track what it does: new referring domains from relevant sites, rankings and traffic for the linked page, referral visits, and growth in searches for your brand name.
What to do next
Pick one page that deserves links this month, give it one thing worth citing (a statistic, a tool or a real announcement), and pitch it to ten writers who’ve covered the topic recently. If your hook is company news, our guide to press releases for SEO explains how to point that coverage at the right page.
Frequently asked questions
What are high-quality backlinks?
They’re links from relevant, trusted websites that an editor chose to include in the body of useful content. They point to a page that genuinely supports the article and could send real visitors.
How do I get backlinks from high PR sites?
Give authoritative publications a reason to cite you: answer journalist requests quickly, comment on news in your field, publish original data and distribute real announcements. Expect many news links to be nofollow, because the brand mention and the follow-on coverage are the real payoff.
Can I buy high-quality backlinks?
Not safely. Buying links that pass ranking credit breaks Google’s spam policies, and SpamBrain is designed to find link sellers. You can pay for work that earns links, such as research, design, PR or distribution, as long as any paid placement uses nofollow or sponsored.
What makes one press release service better than another for building authority?
Look at where releases actually appear: real news and industry sites that people read and Google indexes, not thin pages nobody visits. Check that you get a report with live links, that pricing is clear, and that the provider is honest that most release links are nofollow. Our guide to choosing a press release distribution service covers what to compare.
Are nofollow links from news sites worth getting?
Yes. They bring referral traffic, visibility and credibility, and they put your story in front of writers who may link to you editorially later. Just don’t count on them to move rankings directly.
How many high-quality backlinks do I need?
Enough to match the pages already ranking for your target search. Check their referring domains in a tool such as Ahrefs or Semrush; in many niches, a handful of relevant editorial links makes a visible difference.
How long does it take to earn high-quality backlinks?
Journalist requests and news can earn links within days. Data studies, resources and broken link building usually build momentum over weeks or months, and any ranking effect follows once Google recrawls the linking pages.
