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Insights, Tutorials & Best Practices

Expert knowledge for SEO professionals. Learn how to build, monitor, and protect your backlink profile with our comprehensive guides.

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All SEO Strategies (23) Link Building (19) Technical SEO (12) Case Studies Product Updates Tutorials Industry News Checklists (10)

Link Building

A marketplace-style listing tile beside the same link profile with most of its rows grayed out and struck through
Link Building

Expired domain backlinks decay before the auction closes

Policy requires an expired .com to resolve to nothing for weeks before anyone can buy it. The links you're bidding on were counted before that, by a crawler that hasn't been back.

Andrei

Andrei

Sep 11, 2026 • 13 min
Four unrelated donor domains changing state in the same week, the only view of a network from outside
Link Building

PBN backlinks don't fail one at a time

Google's spam documentation never uses the word. What a network link actually is in 2026, which footprints still identify one, and why four of them tend to go in the same week.

Andrei

Andrei

Sep 04, 2026 • 11 min
Six directories checked by hand: Curlie and Hotfrog pass link credit, SaaSHub and alternative.me nofollow, Product Hunt ugc
Link Building

Directory submission in 2026: what a listing is actually worth

Google's spam policy names low-quality directory links as link spam. We opened six web directories and read the raw HTML: the two that still pass link credit are the general-directory survivors, while every vertical directory worth being listed in withholds it. What the tactic is still good for, and what to check once a listing is live.

Andrei

Andrei

Aug 13, 2026 • 11 min
A status log: HARO shut down December 9 2024, back free under Featured.com April 22 2025, pitches scored for AI from July 2025
Link Building

HARO link building in 2026: what's left after the shutdown

HARO shut down in December 2024, came back under new ownership four months later, and picked up rules on the way — including AI scoring on every pitch. What exists in 2026, what a placement actually gets you, and the four checks worth running once your coverage is live.

Andrei

Andrei

Aug 07, 2026 • 10 min
A published article paragraph with a paid link inserted into it, the same paragraph one sentence shorter with the link gone, and the page still returning 200
Link Building

Niche edits: what you're actually buying when you pay for a link insertion

A niche edit buys you a seat on a page that already ranks. It also buys you the easiest link in the world to remove: the publisher deletes a sentence, the page still returns 200, and nothing alerts you. What insertions cost, what Google's policy says, and the four things worth re-checking after one goes live.

Andrei

Andrei

Aug 06, 2026 • 11 min
A genuine guest article on a relevant publication with one natural in-content link, beside a rejected spam article farm
Link Building

Guest posting for backlinks, done right: earn links Google counts

Guest posting still earns real backlinks in 2026, but only the genuine kind. How to find sites worth writing for, qualify them, pitch, write, and keep the link working after it is published, without crossing into the spam Google devalues.

Andrei

Andrei

Jun 17, 2026 • 10 min
A vendor price list of paid backlinks weighed against the consequence: most quietly devalued by Google
Link Building

Should you buy backlinks? An honest answer for 2026

Buying backlinks is not illegal, but it is mostly a bad trade. What Google actually does when you pay for links, when it is wasted money, when it is a real risk, and what earns links that last instead.

Andrei

Andrei

Jun 17, 2026 • 10 min
A backlink pointing at a page that has dropped out of Google's index, so the link equity has nowhere to land
Link Building

Is the page your backlinks point to still indexed by Google?

A backlink only counts if the page it points to is in Google's index. When one of your own pages quietly drops out, every link aimed at it is wasted — here's how to catch it before you keep spending.

Andrei

Andrei

Jun 11, 2026 • 8 min