Link building that actually works: lessons from Reddit

Reddit's honest answer to how you get backlinks is that there are only a handful of routes, and none of them is quick. You earn links with something worth citing, pitch people one at a time, build relationships, or pay. The threads agree that cheap link packages do more harm than good. Whether paying for links is acceptable at all is where they disagree, loudly.

On 31 October 2026 we re-read the most-discussed link building threads of the past year in r/SEO, r/bigseo, r/localseo and r/indiehackers and grouped them by the questions people keep asking. Each question gets Reddit's answer, the points where people disagree, and what we would do. Any numbers of our own come from the 1,289-directory database behind BacklinkBot and from the link building price list we collected on 31 October 2026. Last checked: 31 October 2026. (How we pick and credit threads: how we research Reddit.)

How do you actually get backlinks?

Reddit's most upvoted answer lists four ways: wait for links once you rank, buy them, do outreach and guest posts, or build your own sites. Everything else is a version of one of those. Most threads add that the cheapest real route is copying what already works for competitors: see who links to them, then pitch those same sites.

That four-way list comes from u/GrumpySEOguy, who posted it as the top reply (41 points) in the biggest backlink thread of the year in r/SEO and repeats it in other threads. The original poster had 3 links against competitors with 500 to 1,000, and had ruled out cold email because response rates are low. Nobody offered a shortcut. One reply pointed out that a competitor's "1,000 backlinks" is mostly noise. Filter it down to referring domains with real traffic and the gap shrinks a lot.

The cynical view gets as many upvotes as the practical one. In a November 2025 thread, the top answer (74 points) was blunt:

"There is nothing genuine out there anymore." (u/svvnguy in r/SEO)

The commenter's point was that "make great content and links will come" fails when you have no audience, and a regular in r/SEO replied that they had considered making that advice a bannable offence. An SEO analyst in a 115-point thread from August 2026 hit the same wall from the other side: once they stopped building low-quality links, nearly every relevant site they contacted asked for money.

The tactic that comes up most, and works at any budget, is the competitor audit. The top answer (32 points) in r/SEO's "where can I buy backlinks" thread said exactly that: audit the backlinks of the top competitors in your niche, then contact the same sites. Ahrefs or Semrush will show you their list, and Google Search Console shows your own.

What we'd do: pull the referring domains of three competitors who outrank you, keep the ones with real organic traffic and a topic that matches yours, and start there. That list usually comes to 20 to 50 sites, not 1,000.

Can you build links with $0?

Yes, but you pay in time. The free routes Reddit recommends are relationships, original data people want to cite, free tools, journalist requests (HARO-style platforms) and a short list of free dofollow directories. Expect a few links a month at first. The commenters who got free links from big publications usually already had real expertise or contacts.

The strongest $0 answer is to make something people cite. In a September 2026 thread asking for "legal" ways to get many links, the top reply said the only route that scales is giving people a reason to cite you: data, a useful tool, or a strong opinion backed by numbers. Further down, a well-known SEO put a number on it:

"Do legitimate research and publish a study. I've gotten 3200 backlinks that way." (u/billhartzer in r/SEO)

That's one person's result, not a typical one. Still, stats pages, calculators and small studies come up again and again in these threads as the links that keep arriving after the work is done.

The second free route is people. When someone asked in January 2026 whether guest posts, PR or HARO links are possible without paying, the top reply (43 points) said yes, through networking on X, Reddit, LinkedIn, local chambers and web agencies. Others added journalist platforms (featured.com, Qwoted) and reporters' own newsletters, which often post requests before they reach the big platforms. One commenter's client got links from well-known Australian news sites without paying, though the commenter pointed out that the client had decades of expertise and some existing contacts.

The third is cold email at small scale. A founder in the September thread said emailing bloggers about his tools got him about 10 links. That's modest, but it's real.

Our own data shows how much of the directory side is free. Of the 1,289 directories in our database, 681 give a dofollow link, and 348 are free, dofollow and DR 30 or higher (counts pulled 30 October 2026, full breakdown). We keep a longer free list on 300 free backlinks.

What we'd do: spend a weekend on the free, dofollow directories that match your category. Then put the next month into one linkable asset (a small study or a free tool) and pitch it to the sites from your competitor audit.

Do Reddit links count?

No, not for ranking. Reddit tags outbound links nofollow ugc, so they pass little or no authority. What they do bring is traffic, crawling, and threads that rank on Google and feed AI answers. We checked 28 live Reddit links on 31 October 2026, and every one was nofollow.

The details, including the myth that enough upvotes make a link dofollow, are in do Reddit links count as backlinks?.

Do paid link services work?

Sometimes, but Reddit treats most of them with suspicion. The public "link packages" sold through ads and marketplaces get the worst reviews, along with stories of penalties and cleanups. The few positive reports involve expensive, hand-picked placements where the buyer approved each site. Google's rules count paid links as spam unless they're marked sponsored.

In an r/SEO thread asking whether the big per-link vendors work, the top replies were negative, and one commenter described a penalty that took months to clean up. In a separate thread, a buyer said he spent thousands of dollars on link packages and that a backlink audit came back mostly toxic. Both are single accounts. Regulars in the second thread pushed back: "toxic" scores are third-party guesses, and buying links was the buyer's choice. The exact words, vendor by vendor, are in the ledger linked below.

Practitioners also argue that paying isn't the problem in itself. The sharper complaint, from r/bigseo, is about an agency whose links were all paid placements at $25 to $150, prices commenters said only poor sites accept. We list every vendor Reddit names, with praise, complaints and prices, in the link building services ledger. If you're shopping now, our buy backlinks guide covers what to check before you pay.

What does it cost?

On Reddit, people quote anywhere from $50 to $1,000 or more for a link that moves rankings, and the common view is that quality starts around $250. Below that, commenters assume the seller is a site built to sell links. Vendors' own pricing pages back this up: DR 50 links cost $249 to $405, and DR 70+ links start around $399.

We read the pricing pages of 13 link building providers on 31 October 2026. This is the per-link range by DR (Click Intelligence prices in pounds, about £700 a link):

A 2023 r/SEO thread put effective links at $50 to $1,000+ and dismissed $20 links as almost certainly coming from link networks. In the August 2026 thread, a commenter said high-quality links start at about $250. One commenter in r/localseo said agencies mark links up three to four times, and that doing the outreach yourself gets the same links for about $80 to $100. Another told buyers to spend $500 or more per link. These are opinions from people in the trade, not market data. Our link building pricing page breaks the costs down further.

Are directories worth it?

Reddit is split on this. Sceptics in r/bigseo say "first backlinks packages" were invented by link sellers and that directory links mostly don't count. Founders in r/indiehackers and r/SaaS report their DR going up after directory listings, though they rarely show traffic. Both sides agree that a few relevant directories beat hundreds of random ones.

The sceptic's position comes from r/bigseo: use directories for traffic and marketing, not for links. On the other side, an r/indiehackers post reports 220 submissions, 440 linking domains and DR 54. The account behind that post belongs to a directory submission service, so treat it as a vendor's case study. Commenters asked whether the DR jump turned into referral traffic or rankings, and the author said the data was observational.

Our own database adds some numbers. Only 681 of the 1,289 directories in it give a dofollow link, and only 187 are both dofollow and DR 50 or higher. Communities do worst: just 16% of them give a dofollow link. We go into more detail in is directory submission still effective.

Backlink exchanges and guest posts

Reddit treats small, relevant exchanges between real sites as fine and exchange schemes at scale as not fine. A popular r/SEO rule of thumb says the link must be followed, the linking page must get organic traffic from Google, and both pages must be relevant. Guest posts work on real niche sites, but these days they often come with a fee.

That three-part test comes from u/WebLinkr, an r/SEO regular, in a thread asking whether backlink exchange is bad. Their answer was that it's bad in large amounts and fine in genuine relationships. Others added that it depends on relevance, and that neither side should have a history of spamming exchanges. Google's spam policies list excessive link exchanges ("link to me and I'll link to you") as link spam, so keep yours rare and real.

On guest posts, a publisher in one thread said paid guest posts are now one of their few reliable income streams. That explains why so many "free" pitches come back with a price. Another commenter said free placements usually come with a condition: a nofollow link, a link back, or content you write yourself. There's more detail in our post on reciprocal linking.

How to vet a vendor

The checks Reddit recommends are simple, and they focus on the sites rather than the metrics. Ask for real example links, confirm the linking sites get organic traffic and that the traffic isn't falling, and be wary of prices that look too low. One experienced commenter warns that guest post networks lose their value over time.

u/joyhawkins wrote in r/localseo that she stays clear of guest posting networks. She has watched the ranking pages on those sites decline year after year, so the links help in the short term and then unwind. In r/bigseo, an agency charging $25 to $150 per link got the reply that the low price was itself the warning sign. Buyers in every thread also complain about seller DMs after they post, so vet anyone who contacts you first.

Our full checklist is in how to vet a backlink agency.

What we'd do

Start free and specific, and pay only for what you can't do yourself. Audit three competitors, submit to the free dofollow directories in your category, build one thing worth citing, and pitch it to the sites you found. If you buy links, buy a few relevant ones you approved, not a package.

In order:

1. Audit three competitors who outrank you. Keep the referring domains that have traffic and a matching topic.
2. Do the free directories first. 348 directories in our database are free, dofollow and DR 30+. Pick the ones in your category and skip the rest.
3. Build one linkable asset: a small data study, a calculator or a stats page.
4. Pitch it to the sites from step 1, a few a day, with a note about their specific page. The how to build backlinks in 2026 guide covers the outreach.
5. If you pay, approve every site and ask how the link is labelled. Compare against the ranges above and the services ledger.
6. Track rankings and referral visits, not DR alone.

Step 4 is where most people give up. Our SEO agent finds pages already ranking for your keywords and drafts a pitch for each one, and you approve every email before it sends. If you'd rather start with the free part, open the free dofollow directory list and work through the ten that fit your category this week.