When you ask five SEO people how many types of link building there are, you’ll get five answers. One says four. Another says twelve. The third starts talking about tiers, and you want to close the tab. Nobody is lying. There’s just no official list. Everyone groups links their own way, so the number keeps changing. What we can do here is show you the groups that actually matter, and which ones are worth your time. That’s all this blog is.
What is Link Building and Why Does Google Care?
Link building means getting other websites to link to yours. Each of those links is called a backlink. Why does it matter? Google treats links like votes. Say you run a small tailoring shop, and three shopkeepers nearby keep telling their customers, “Go to him, he’s good.” You’ll get more customers. Same thing online. When other sites point to your page, Google thinks maybe this page is worth showing.
Content still matters, but lots of good articles sit on page four for months just because nobody linked to them. A page with no backlinks is like a shop in a lane where nobody walks. One more thing before we go ahead. Ten links from weak, random sites won’t beat one link from a site people really trust. Quality first, always.
How Many Types of Link Building Are There?
There are two ways to count, and both are useful. By risk, which means how Google sees the method, there are three types. White hat SEO, Grey hat SEO, and black hat SEO. By method, you will most likely hear guest posting services, outreach link building, broken links, resource pages, digital PR, directory listings, social links, and natural links. That is around eight, give or take. So the honest answer is three or about eight, depending on what you are counting. Let us do risk first, because it saves you from big mistakes.
- White Hat Link Building
- Grey Hat Link Building
- Black Hat Link Building
- Guest Post Link Building
- Outreach Link Building
- High Authority Backlinks
What is White Hat Link Building?
White hat link building means you follow Google’s rules. You make something useful, and then you earn the link. Nothing sneaky. It is slow. We won’t pretend otherwise. One link may come in a week, and the next may take two months. But white hat link building services focus on links that don’t vanish after an update, and you can sleep peacefully at night. If you want a website to last for years, this is the way.
What is Grey Hat Link Building?
Grey Hat Link Building is the in-between zone. Paying a blogger for a post and not marking the link as sponsored is one example. Swapping links again and again with the same few sites is another. Some websites do this for years, and nothing happens. Some get hit in a single update. We would not gamble like this on a website that brings me income.
What is Black Hat Link Building?
Here we are talking about buying hundreds of links in one go, link farms, private blog networks (PBNs), spammy comments, and software that makes links on its own. Yes, rankings can jump for a few weeks. Then Google catches on, and the fall can be very ugly. Getting out of a penalty takes months, sometimes longer. Not worth it; please stay away.
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What is Guest Post Link Building?
Guest post link building is simple. You write an article for someone else’s website, and they let you add a link back to yours, usually in the author bio or somewhere inside the article. It works because everybody gets something. The other site gets free content, you get a backlink, and their readers get to know you.
Do one thing before you pitch: read five of their recent posts. You will understand what they like. Then send two or three topic ideas, not a full article. Editors are busy and they don’t enjoy long emails from strangers.
Once an idea is accepted, write the best article you can and put your link only where it fits. Forced links are easy to spot, and editors remove them. The biggest mistake beginners make is sending the same copy-paste email to hundreds of blogs. Editors know it in two seconds. Take ten minutes and write something real for each site.
What is Outreach Link Building?
In outreach link building, you contact people such as website owners, bloggers, and journalists, and request a link. Guest posting is just one way of outreach, but outreach is a broader concept. You may write to someone because you made a new guide their readers might like. Or because you noticed a broken link on their page and you have a replacement. Or because they have a “best tools” list and your tool should be on it. A few things that make an email work:
- Keep it short.
- Use the person’s name, not Dear Sir/Madam.
- Tell them in it for their readers
- If there is no reply, follow up once after four or five days.
Be ready for silence. Most emails will get no reply, and that is normal. It is a numbers game, but a good email will move the numbers a little in your favour.
What Are the High Authority Backlinks?
High authority backlinks come from websites that Google trusts a lot. Think big news sites, popular blogs, universities, government sites, and well-known names in your industry. Tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush give each site a score (Domain Rating, Domain Authority, Authority Score). These scores are not from Google, so treat them as a rough guide, not the truth.
Before asking for a link, check three things. Does the site get real traffic? Is its topic close to yours? Does it link to lots of spammy sites? Relevance beats size. For example, suppose you sell running shoes. A link from a small fitness blog is more valuable than a link from a large finance site (that has nothing to do with your running shoes, even though the finance site looks more impressive in a tool.
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What Are the Other Types of Link Building?
Some more methods you will hear about:
Broken link building
You find a broken backlink on someone’s page, tell them about it, and offer your page as the replacement. They fix a problem, you get a link. Everybody is happy.
Skyscraper technique
Find a popular article that has plenty of backlinks. Write a better one, then ask the sites linking to the old article to look at yours. This works only if yours is really better, not just longer.
Resource page links
Many sites keep a page called not-for-you useful links or best resources. If your content fits, ask to be added.
Digital PR
Here you make something newsworthy, like a survey or some fresh data, and journalists write about it. It costs time and money, but it can bring high-authority backlinks that are very hard to get in other ways.
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Directory listings
Google Business Profile, Justdial, Sulekha, IndiaMART, and similar places, depending on your business. Easy and good for local SEO. Just avoid the cheap directories that accept anything.
Social and community links
Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn. Most of these links are nofollow, which means they pass very little ranking power. But they can still send visitors.
Natural links
People link to you without being asked, because your content is useful. This is the best kind, but you can’t sit and wait for it, especially in the first year.
What is the Best Link Building Strategy for Beginners?
A successful link building strategy doesn’t need to be difficult or time-consuming. Here is a basic outline that you can use to build links to your site: First, clean up your own site. If your site is slow or your content is thin, having links will not help your site much. Additionally, having links to unhelpful or low-quality content makes you look even worse. Next, make some link-worthy pages. These can be how-to guides or tutorials, tools, or templates.
After that, start guest posts. Two to four a month on decent sites is enough. Do some outreach every week on the side. Then keep an eye on your progress in Google Search Console or any backlink tool. Keep your links mixed. If every link you have comes from guest posts, it looks odd. Real websites get links in many different ways, so be patient. Link building is not a one-week job.
Conclusion
By risk, there are three. By method, about eight. You don’t need all of them. If you are starting today, go white hat link builiding. Make a few good pages, take the easy links, then slowly add guest posts and outreach. Try to get links from high-authority sites that are also close to your topic. Skip the shortcuts. Pick one method from this blog and try it this week. That is better than reading ten more articles about it.
FAQs About Types of Link Building
Is SEO Backlink Building Different from Link Building?
No. SEO backlink building is just another name for the same thing. A small test we like: if Google didn’t exist, would this link still bring me visitors? If yes, it is a good link. Links are primarily for users, not search engines. So if the only reason for getting a link is to trick search engines, it isn’t worth it.
What is the Difference Between Dofollow and Nofollow Links?
A dofollow link passes some ranking power to the page it points to. A nofollow link asks Google not to. So dofollow helps rankings more. Still, it is good to have both kinds. Nofollow links from good sites also bring visitors, so don’t ignore them.
How Many Backlinks Do I Need to Rank?
Nobody knows the exact number, as it depends on your competition. One thing you can do is search your keyword, take a look at the top 3 results, and see how many referring domains (unique websites) each of those results has. That’s a ballpark target. It’s better to look at referring domains and not total links, because 100 links from one site is not equivalent to 100 links from 100 sites.
How Long Does Link Building Services Take to Work?
You might see results from link building services between 3-6 months. Easier keywords and phrases might move sooner, and harder ones might take longer. Moving up the rankings for a keyword takes time. We usually don’t expect to see movement for a keyword until at least a month after we’ve built some links for it.
Can I Buy Backlinks?
Sure, but doing so can put you at risk of breaking Google’s rules. If you must buy backlinks, be sure to mark your links as sponsored. We believe that the money is better spent on producing quality content and doing legitimate outreach. Although it’s a slower process, you won’t have to stress about the next Google update.