Guides for link building buyers

The cost study answers what links really cost. It is built from 253,527 listing prices across 15 marketplaces, broken down by Domain Rating, organic traffic, country and marketplace, so you can tell whether a quote is cheap, normal or padded before you reply to it. Read it first if you have a budget but no feel for the market.

The buyer's guide is about picking a provider. It walks through the five ways link building is sold, from self-serve marketplaces to digital PR firms, the quality floor worth setting, the evidence to ask for and the contract terms that matter, and it ends with how to run a small test before you commit a full budget.

Our methodology explains why the rankings come out the way they do: the six criteria, how much each one weighs, what each evidence label means and how often the facts are checked again. It's for anyone who would rather check our work than take a score on trust.

Used together, they cover the whole decision. Start with the guide to choose the right kind of service, use the cost study to sanity-check prices, read the method so you know what a score means, then shortlist from the ranked lists or the agency directory.