fbpx

Generate Free High Quality Backlinks (25+ Tactics)

Join the 1,000+ brands that trust us for their link building.

For those of us consistently ranking in niches with any competition at all, there is no denying that high quality backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for search engines.

But there’s just one problem: These links usually cost you.

So it should come as no surprise that one of the most common questions we get asked is how to get good links for free.

But is that even possible? Can a good link that helps your rankings also be free?

The short answer: Absolutely.

Read on to learn our favorite ways to create quality links without paying a dime that will help boost your website’s authority and relevance and help you outrank your competitors in the SERPs.

And we’ll also include some tactics to stay away from and let you know some relevant tools to help you on your link building journey!

Using Tools To Snatch Competitors’ Backlinks

Spying on competitors’ backlinks is one of our favorite ways to find opportunities to score great links for free.

First, head over to Google and find the top-ranking websites for the same keywords one of your pages is trying to rank for.

Then, enter those websites into an SEO tool like Ahrefs or an Ahrefs alternative.

Among other things, these tools allow you to see all the backlinks any website or page has pointing to it along with some stats about the linking site, the anchor text used, and so on.

Look for the best and most relevant links they have and start making a list of all of the ones you’d like to get for yourself.

If you’re new to analyzing backlinks, this process may be a little time-consuming.

Distinguishing the different types of links as well as which ones are actually any good definitely takes a little practice and patience.

Don’t be afraid to open each link up in a new tab to see exactly what it is and to help your decision-making process.

Open up the links to see what they are and what they look like.

Once you’ve decided you want a link from a site, you’ll need to look around for either contact information (if it’s a blog) or how to post your information (if it’s something like a directory).

Some sites are very straightforward while others might take some digging and cold emailing.

For blog sites, be sure to highlight the fact that they are linking to similar content already. Explain why your content is deserving of a link or would make a good substitute for the link to your competitor.

It will obviously help tremendously if the page you’re trying to get a link for is well-written and better than your competitor’s page!

We’ve used this link building strategy to score hundreds of links, many of which ended up being completely free.

And best of all, you can repeat this process as many times as you’d like for every competitor you can find.

HARO

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is another incredible way to get free backlinks from top-tier authority sites in your niche.

When journalists are writing an article, they often like to get quotes from experts in the field of the topic to help lend their article credibility.

That’s where HARO comes in. HARO is a platform where journalists ask questions daily to get answers from experts.

How to use HARO to get free links.

Anyone can provide answers to their questions, and if they use your answer in their article, they will usually include a backlink to your website using your name or your brand’s name as the anchor text.

HARO is a bit of a numbers game as writers from top publications will receive many replies to their questions, so be sure to increase the odds of getting picked by doing the following:

  1. Answer quickly after the question is posted – don’t wait a few hours.
  2. Briefly state your credentials before answering their question.
  3. Give them what they asked for and nothing more.
  4. Include anything to stand out including stats, personal experience, etc.
  5. Use clear formatting in your reply and make your answer easy to see.
  6. Don’t give away that you’re doing it for search engine optimization purposes.

You can do this all yourself to get backlinks 100% free of cost from publications with insane authority (DR 80+ links, anyone?) and perhaps even gain some of that elusive referral traffic.

This tactic takes time and persistence, so many opt to train a VA to do HARO outreach for them.

Broken Links

A broken link is a backlink that is linking to a page that no longer exists. This could be because the website was taken down, the page was taken down, the URL was changed, etc.

Whatever the case, broken links are an opportunity for you to earn free backlinks as no webmaster likes their links ending up with the reader going to a 404 page.

Example of a broken link going to a 404 page.

We’ve got a whole article on finding broken links, but here are the basics:

First, you need to find a website that’s in your niche or that may link out to websites in your niche.

You can find sites like this by manually searching in Google, using Google search operators (more on these later), or finding them in a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush.

Next, you’ll want to vet the site to make sure you want a backlink from it. There are many things that factor into if a link is high quality or not.

After that, there are various ways to find broken links on the website.

Some of the more popular options are:

  • Ahrefs (best by links report looking for 404 errors)
  • Check My Links or SEO Minion (free Google chrome extensions)
  • Screaming Frog (crawl the site and look for external links that 404)

Basically, you are just looking for external links (outgoing links) from the website that return a 403 or 404 error.

When you find a broken link, you should send an email to the website owners notifying them of the issue and informing them of a new, relevant page they could link to (your page).

The emails you send to site owners will not always result in you earning a free backlink, but keep your chin up and keep searching!

It’s also worth noting that link building from finding broken links has got more competitive over the years (it seems people like free links), but it’s definitely not dead.

You can still get some amazing backlinks by searching for broken links on other sites and lending a helping hand.

Unlinked Brand Mentions

This is an extremely easy way to get free backlinks, but it also requires that people are already talking about your website or company.

You can find people talking about your business either using a paid tool like BuzzSumo (which is a bit expensive) or by doing it the old-fashioned way – Googling your business’s name and sifting through the SERPs for articles mentioning your brand without a link.

Example of an unlinked brand mention.

If you’re thinking about going the BuzzSumo route, definitely look at what we think about BuzzSumo vs Ahrefs.

If not, you can use Google search operators to help with the search.

Using this query will return all mentions of our brand name that don’t come from our website, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Demonstrating how to use Google search operators to find unlinked brand mentions.

You can exclude as many other sites as you want to narrow down your search for brand mentions on real blog sites.

When you find an article that mentions you without a link, reach out to them and ask about including a link as we did with the broken link building technique.

If all goes according to plan, you will turn a good amount of your unlinked brand mentions into quality backlinks at no cost.

Guest Posting

Before you say anything, yes, guest posting normally requires some money.

Whether you go through a trusted guest posting service or do the outreach yourself, in this day and age the large majority of websites will charge a fee to post your content on their blog.

To be able to land guest posts for free, we recommend leveraging the following two things:

  1. Extremely good content (with proof of equally good content written before)
  2. Outside-of-the-box bespoke outreach techniques

While still rare, offering extremely unique, well-researched content to blogs that understand its value can definitely land you some free guest post backlinks.

As for the second point, you will need to reach out to the sites in a highly personalized and attention-grabbing way to stand out from the hundreds of link building emails they get every week.

I’ve even heard of people doing things like religiously using cat images.

How to grab the person's attention that you're emailing.

For real.

Like always, be sure to vet the sites properly before pursuing a link on them.

To be honest, we don’t really pursue free guest posts (on purpose) due to its lower success rate.

But we do manage to get some guest posts for free every now and then while following our normal outreach processes!

Podcasts And Interviews

Interviewing prominent figures or influencers in your niche (or inviting them onto a podcast) can be a great way to get free links built to your website.

Once you put the interview or podcast on your site, they will want to share it with their own followers as well!

Example of a podcast we got backlinks from posting.

And of course, it also has the chance of being linked to by their followers/fans.

On the flip side of this, you can also get free backlinks by appearing for interviews/podcasts on other people’s platforms.

It’s a common courtesy when hosting someone for this type of content to introduce them along with a link to their main website.

Linking to our podcast guest's website in the introduction.

To be able to land interviews and podcasts, you will need to demonstrate that you have something interesting to talk about (usually not something that’s been talked about a million times before).

Much like guest post outreach, you will need to reach out to platforms that host this type of content and pitch them (or let them know why they should appear on your podcast).

Infographics And Videos

This technique is similar to writing extremely good content but in infographic or video form.

When you create an extremely good infographic, video, or other rich media resource and post it on your site, they tend to get shared and linked to disproportionally well in comparison to a standard article.

That’s because they are truly unique and stand apart from 99% of other content out there.

An infographic that can attract links from others in your niche.

Producing this type of content takes, skill, though!

After posting the content on your site, you could share it on various social media platforms, contact other blogs in your niche to tell them about it, and so on.

While a lot of time and effort goes into creating something like a nice infographic, they can really pay off in a high amount of free authority links over time.

Create A Free Tool

This technique is very similar to the infographic technique above and can really land you an insane amount of backlinks for free.

But this time instead of an infographic, you are creating a free tool that users can use on your website.

As an example, check out this free tool on PetMD.

An example of a free tool that can be used to attract natural backlinks.

Users can enter what type of pet they have, the body part that’s having an issue, and the symptoms.

The tool then automatically comes up with a list of different issues your pet may be having.

The downside to this technique is obviously that a little coding experience is required.

The plus side is an absurd amount of press, AKA free backlinks.

If you’re involved in the SEO community at all, you’ve probably noticed a good amount of gurus and brands releasing little tools like this every now and then.

And now you know why! They are a great way to grow an email list and build the authority of your website with high quality links, not to mention funneling people to your products or services.

Resource Lists

This is another example of a highly-sharable type of content you can post on your own site to generate more backlinks.

If you build it, the links will come!

An example of a resource list could be something like “100 Free SEO Tools To Help You Rank.”

This resource list attracts links and funnels users to their products.

The advantage of resource lists over infographics or creating a free tool is that they are much easier to execute. All you need to do is spend a little time doing research and writing.

The downside is that since they don’t require a specialized skill, there is a good chance that many other people will be creating lists for the same thing.

To stand out, you will really need to make a killer list that blows previous lists out of the water or think of something new.

Like always, be sure to advertise your list around after you’ve posted it (especially to websites that have already linked to similar content).

And on the flip side of this, if there are resource lists out there for something you provide, you can email and see how to be added to their list with a link.

Statistics Posts

Do you know who loves statistics? Writers.

99% of writers look up statistics when writing an article to make it sound more trustworthy and engaging (this statistic may or may not be true, but you get the point).

By compiling lists of interesting statistics and publishing them, you can get your content in front of other writers and earn some pretty nice links in the process.

One website that really likes to do this is Backlinko. If you search for Backlinko statistics, you’ll get the idea.

Examples of statistics posts that reports often site with a backlink.

Not only can this strategy score you free links, but it’s also a great way to build backlinks for your website from SUPER authority sites.

It will definitely take more work than something like a resource post, but go look at the links Backlinko has got from ranking those posts and you’ll understand why it’s worth it.

Social Media

This may seem like a no-brainer, but whenever you create a great piece of content, you can share it through various social media channels to get it in front of any many eyes as possible.

And if you’ve done a good job, you’ll probably earn some free backlinks out of it.

Each social media platform has its own vibe, rules, etc, so you’ll want to pay attention to where you’re at and what you’re sharing to make sure you don’t rub people the wrong way.

Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn, and TikTok are some of our favorites.

Focus on providing value first with sharing your content/URL being something of an afterthought. It’s not really an afterthought, of course, but it should at least appear like it is.

This will increase your chances of people being receptive to your content and not coming off as spammy or just there to enrich yourself.

Weird things happen when you legitimately try to help others!

Link Exchanges

If I link to you, will you link back to me?

Congratulations, you just got a free link.

This type of link exchange in particular is known as a reciprocal link exchange and definitely isn’t our favorite, but Ahrefs did a study that showed that 74% of domains with 10,000 or more monthly visitors had at least one reciprocal link.

Reciprocal links are the most basic type of link swap

We’ve got a whole article on link exchanges for you to learn the ins and outs of this link building strategy.

There are definitely some downsides to exchanging backlinks though, and we can’t recommend doing too many of them.

Be sure to read until the end of this article for the reasons why!

Rank Higher

Please hear me out before trying to reach through your screen and strangle me.

Please don't hate me.

I know you are reading about how to create free backlinks because it will help you rank higher, so it probably seems kind of weird that I’m recommending ranking higher as a way to get free backlinks.

But it works!

As you undoubtedly know by now, the large majority of the content that actually gets seen, read, and linked to on the internet appears on the first page of the search engine result pages.

And even then, it’s really the stuff in the top 3 positions that gets all the attention.

The top 3 ranking sites on a Google search.

It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in that way. The content that already has more links and authority will continue to attract more natural backlinks as it’s right in front of everyone’s faces.

It also turns out that there is more to SEO than just backlinks.

Fine-tuning things like matching search intent, proper keyword research, on-page SEO, technical SEO, topical authority, your content itself, and so on will all help you rank higher.

And chances are if you’re reading an article about getting free backlinks, you most likely haven’t done all of these things 100% correctly.

No one’s perfect, after all.

Learn to give the search engines what they want, and you’ll get more high quality links without doing any work!

Incredible Content

As the old saying goes, content is king.

There isn’t too much to say here that hasn’t already been covered in sections like infographics, free tools, etc.

The idea is to create something so good and so much better than everything else out there that people will link to it on their own.

The better your content is, the easier it will be to get quality backlinks free.

Irresistible content that gets linked to.

Make sure your article is well-written, visually appealing, and covers the topic better and more fully than any other article out there.

Then promote it!

Pillow Links

So far, all of the strategies we’ve mentioned have been for getting contextual dofollow links from real websites.

But not all incoming links are contextual dofollow links from real sites. There are plenty of other types of links (pillow links) that are great for link diversity and other purposes.

These types of links don’t give the same “oomph” to your rankings as a DR 50+ guest post link, but they are crazy easy to get and are part of a well-balanced backlink profile to keep things looking as natural as possible.

Pillow links are definitely NOT low quality backlinks.

Here are some of our favorites.

Forum And Blog Comments

Despite the bad reputation, forum and blog comments still have a place in SEO link building strategy today and are a great way to get free backlinks.

The trick is to do them in a natural, non-spammy way.

A few tips:

  • Don’t get them from spammed-out pages without hundreds of other links
  • Get them from relevant pages only
  • Don’t go insane with how many you create
  • Don’t use a keyword as your name (this becomes the anchor text)
  • Provide actual value in your comment/post
  • Make sure the site has decent SEO metrics

The number of inbound links you create from blog comments and forum posts should fall into a range that search engines like Google deem natural for your specific site and industry.

A small town plumber site isn’t likely to be mentioned in thousands of blog comments. The bigger the project and site, the more blog and forum comments you can build safely.

Also, remember to mix them in alongside other types of quality links to keep your backlink profile diversified.

To get this kind of free backlink, find a relevant forum or blog post, sign up if you have to, and then leave a reply with a backlink to your website in it.

You can find these sites by:

  • Searching Google manually
  • Using Google search operators (more on this later)
  • Snooping on your competitors’ links

Here’s an example of a good blog comment that uses a real name and provides value:

And here’s an example of a bad blog comment.

This comment isn’t relevant to the article, uses a spammy exact match keyword for their name, and has another exact match keyword link within the comment:

We still use blog comments and forum links on almost every site we rank, but we do them right!

When done right, even blog comments can be high quality backlinks that drive relevance to your website.

YouTube

Google owns YouTube, and although they say they don’t give special consideration to backlinks coming from their own properties, we think they’re lying.

Our experience shows that linking from Youtube can have very noticeable positive effects.

Yes, the links are nofollow. Yes, nofollow links can still be great!

The first step in the YouTube link building process is to publish a video. You could make something as simple as voice-over text on Fiverr for just a couple of dollars.

After you post your video, leave backlinks for your site, inner pages, and social properties in the description, and be sure to give it a good, relevant title.

It can be natural to leave quite a few backlinks for your site in the description:

This can really help to establish trust, relevance, and authority throughout your website.

But wait, there’s more!

You can embed your videos on the pages you linked to, and you can also try to rank the videos on page 1 to take up additional space and generate more organic traffic (they tend to rank easily if the SERP allows them).

For the time invested and benefit gained, link building with YouTube videos is one of the best pound-for-pound free backlink options available.

We like YouTube the best, but you can create free backlinks with other video and audio-sharing sites as well (any media-sharing website, really).

Web 2.0s

Web 2.0s are one of the more popular ways to create backlinks free.

Web 2.0s are online platforms that let users create their own mini-websites or blogs as a subdomain on their site. This takes the hassle out of buying a domain, paying for hosting, and learning how to make a website.

Getting backlinks from web 2.0s is great!

They are also a great opportunity to create contextual backlinks from relevant content.

Some people use web 2.0s very heavily, but we recommend only using a handful of these mini-sites per link building campaign.

There are countless platforms to choose from. Some of our favorite web 2.0s include Blogspot, Weebly, and Jimdo.

Once you’ve picked a platform, start creating quality content related to the website you plan on linking to. You can create multiple pages – each one is like a blog post and should be 300-500 words at least.

We don’t recommend using spun or auto-generated content for this.

Be sure to use outbound authority links as well as links to your own site. Only link to yourself once or twice per Web 2.0.

As web 2.0s are subdomains on very authoritative sites, many people like to use them as tier 2 link targets. They become much stronger when you point other more powerful links such as PBNs at them to power them up.

Like with any other kind of backlink, be sure that you’re not overusing them and are still following the principle of link diversity.

Social Signals

Social signals are when people link to, share, or otherwise interact with a link to your website on a social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit.

Example of how to earn links on social media sites.

Social signals are not the same as regular backlinks, and Google even says that they are not counted.

But, we have found that they do have a positive effect on helping websites or a page to rank.

To get social signals for free, you can simply ask your friends, family, coworkers, or satisfied customers to link to or interact with your content on social media.

If you have more time, you can market your site and content to other relevant people or businesses in your industry that might be interested in sharing it.

Social signals should be used alongside normal backlinks for best results, but we really love them for adding naturalness and diversity to a link building campaign.

If your website is getting inbound links from external sites like websites and blogs, it’s only natural to have a social media presence as well.

All in all, we use social signals every time as part of our overall link building strategy.

Just don’t expect the same results as something like guest blogging – they have their own purpose.

Social And Forum Profiles

Forum and social profile links are links from profiles created on forums and social media sites.

There are thousands of different forums and social media sites you can create free profiles on, and most allow you to add backlinks to your website.

Some of the biggest examples of these types of sites are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can easily search for more social media sites and forums in your niche.

To get these links:

  • Sign up
  • Fill out your profile completely
  • Put a free backlink to your website in the appropriate field
Creating social profiles to get free backlinks.

Many of these backlinks will be nofollow, but they are an extremely natural part of the pillow linking process for new sites beginning to establish their online presence.

We often get 100 or more profile links in the beginning stages of a link building campaign, but they can really be built at any time.

You can also really just go crazy with how many you build if you like, but note that they won’t have a huge impact on keyword rankings and are more for building naturalness.

Also be sure to only get profiles on forums that would make sense for your business to be on (social media sites don’t matter as much).

Also, be sure to see our favorite free social bookmarking sites for more ideas on platforms you can get these free backlinks from.

Directories And Citations

Directories are listings of businesses or websites, and citations are directories that allow you to list your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number).

Some directories and citations are paid, but many are free.

As far as free high quality links go, directories are some of the most useful – especially for local SEO link building.

But much like blog comments, be sure not to create these in a super-spammy way like people used to do in the past.

You can find niche directories manually, with Google Search operators, and with competitor research, and getting listed is as easy as signing up and submitting your business’s information.

Citations are the lifeblood of local SEO and should already be a part of your link building and ranking process if you have a local site. 

But, you can also do citations and directories for affiliate sites as well!

They aren’t crucial like they are for local sites, but they make great pillow links to add in some diversity.

We usually do at least 50 citations and directories when starting link building for a new website, and they make a great, free addition to any site’s backlink profile.

Free Backlinks Strategies To Avoid

So far, we’ve covered our favorite strategies to get quality, free backlinks built to your website URL that can improve your search rankings.

Here are a few strategies that some use to get free backlinks that can actually harm your web page in the search results on Google and other search engines.

Free Backlink Generator

There are many names this type of tool can go by:

  • Free backlinks generator
  • Free backlink maker
  • Automated link building tool
  • Backlink builder
  • Backlink tool

In general, if it’s some kind of software that is building backlinks automatically and en masse for free, it’s a bad idea for 99% of people trying to do SEO.

Don’t confuse this with good link building software, though.

We can’t tell you that a backlink generator won’t work at all to increase your keyword rankings, because they absolutely can work in the hands of a highly skilled and knowledgable black hat SEO.

But as a link building services provider, we see sites every week where the client has used link building tools to generate backlinks that end up hurting their SEO rankings.

A graph of a site that got a penalty for unnatural link building.

Remember that it’s not how many backlinks you can get, but how many QUALITY backlinks you can get that matters.

Search engine bots have algorithms that can detect these types of things, and unless you really know what you’re doing, you’ll most likely do more harm to your site in the search results than good.

Using Any Strategy Too Much

All of the strategies we’ve mentioned here are great ways to create backlinks for free.

But as you’ve hopefully noted, we have been careful to mention throughout this article not to overdo things and to maintain backlink diversity.

Because these strategies allow you to get free backlinks, people often don’t know when to stop and end up spamming out their websites with one tactic as they think they don’t have any other options.

These tend to be the easier-to-execute strategies, such as:

  • Link exchanges
  • Blog comments
  • Web 2.0s
  • Directories

These strategies all have a history of being used and abused, so please be sure to use them in moderation.

Practice link diversity, master the search engines, and get organic traffic.

Toxic Blog Comments

Blog comments may be the most common way we see people spam their sites out with low quality backlinks, but it’s not necessarily limited to them.

In general, you want to stay away from getting links from sites and pages that have insane amounts of outbound links on them or too many outbound links to external sites that are toxic.

A spammed out page with bad blog comments.

This is a good way to lump your site in a “bad neighborhood” in the eyes of a search engine.

So, always do your due diligence before going after the free backlink!

Free Guest Blogging Submission Sites

This is another tactic to create backlinks that we can’t really tell you won’t help your Google search results rankings.

Because free guest post submissions can actually be OK… in moderation!

Note that a free guest post is very different from a free guest post submission site. The key difference is free guest post submission sites usually advertise themselves as such.

A "write for us" page on a free guest post site.

Giveaways include things on their site along the lines of “write for us,” “submit a post,” etc.

So go ahead and use these websites to get a free backlink or two at the beginning of the ranking process, but we’d recommend you stop there to avoid wasting your time or potentially getting yourself into some trouble.

Tools To Help Get Free Links

No, we’re not talking about a backlink builder, backlink generator, or backlink maker!

To find out why we don’t think you should use a backlink generator, please see the previous section.

This is a list of relevant tools that will help you improve your website SEO and rankings on the search engine result pages.

That means legitimate backlink tools that will help you build backlinks for your website… not build them for you.

Some of these tools are paid, while others are free.

Ahrefs, Semrush, Ubersuggest

Though there are definitely key differences in these products and their prices, they are all used in very similar ways for creating backlinks free.

The main things you can use these tools for are vetting sites (checking domain authority, traffic, backlink profiles, rankings, etc) and finding backlink opportunities from your competitors (backlink checker).

We prefer Ahrefs for backlink data at the moment, but Semrush is gaining in popularity, and Ubersuggest tends to be popular for those on lower budgets.

Analyzing competitors on Semrush.

Whatever you choose, you definitely need a good SEO tool such as these and will not regret the investment.

Check My Links and SEO Minion

As mentioned previously, these are both free Google chrome extensions.

Check My Links mainly focuses on broken links, while SEO Minion has become a favorite of ours with a variety of other uses.

SEO minion is a great free SEO tool with a variety of uses.

Both can be used to find broken link building opportunities to help beef up your backlink profile for free.

Be sure to read our broken link building strategy section above for more information.

Broken Link Builder

While we don’t use this tool ourselves, it’s definitely popular with those who like to look for links pointing to external sites that are no longer valid.

The main draw here is that you don’t need to find the linking page with broken links yourself.

The tool finds them for you!

Pitchbox, Buzzstream, LinkHunter

These tools are incredible for streamlining your outreach process for link building.

These are all paid tools, with some of their prices being pretty steep if you’re newer to search engine optimization and building backlinks.

But if you’re serious about building links over time, they are definitely worth checking out and can end up saving you a ton of time, money, and stress.

Find link opportunities, get contact information, reach out to prospects, and keep track of everything all in one place.

Buzzstream is used to streamline your link outreach process.

Pitchbox is the OG of the bunch with Buzzsream gaining in popularity, and of course, there are some die-hard fans of LinkHunter as well.

Check out their pricing and options and determine which is best for you.

Google Search Operators

These are strings you can type into Google search to add parameters to the search.

You may remember this image from above where we used search operators to find unlinked brand mentions.

Demonstrating how to use Google search operators to find unlinked brand mentions.

But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

There are tons of different Google search operators you can use for a wide variety of tasks.

Learning how to use search operators effectively will give you huge advantages over people who don’t, and we use them on a daily basis.

Keep reading to the wrap-up section to get a list of 400 of them for free!

Free Backlinks Wrap-Up

We’ve really covered a ton of ways to get free high quality backlinks in this article.

Backlinks are crucial for SEO, and while many links are paid, you can still get great backlinks for free.

At the time of writing, it was hands down the most comprehensive and nuanced source of information on free link building tactics we could find.

As one more parting gift before we go, you’ve probably noticed us mention Google search operators a good amount of times as they are a crazy hack to using Google effectively and finding exactly what you are looking for.

So, here is a list of 400+ search operators to help you in your search for free backlinks!

Hopefully this has been helpful and these strategies become a part of your well-balanced link building campaigns to dominate your competitors.

Sometimes, you can get a lot more than you paid for… in this case, nothing!

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I get free backlinks?

You can get free backlinks by analyzing your competitors, HARO, broken link building, unlinked brand mentions, podcasts and interviews, infographics and videos, creating free tools, and so on.

Read the rest of the article for many more ways to get free backlinks.

What is a free tool to get backlinks?

Two free tools to help get backlinks are SEO Minion and Check My Links. There are also some free options from Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and others that can help you out if you’re on a budget.

Note that most of the really robust tools used to increase backlink popularity and monitor backlinks will end up costing you some money.

What is a backlink generator?

Backlink generators are software that generates backlinks for free en masse.

They create a ton of links pointing to your site (called inbound links).

We can’t recommend using a backlink maker like this as many website owners get themselves into trouble (Google penalties) by using backlink tools like this.

Do backlink generators work?

Yes, backlink generators definitely work to create more backlinks for free.

However, these links are not anything like organic backlinks, and a free backlink generator can often be a one-way ticket to penalty town in the hands of anyone but an experienced black hat SEO.

There are plenty of ways to create backlinks free, and we recommend using any of the strategies listed above in this article to create incoming links rather than automated backlink tools that create what is essentially spam.

Search engines may like it at first, but we see link building penalties fairly often from SEOs who decided to try out a backlink generator and got short-term results followed by a search engine penalty.

Instead of a free backlink maker, you should use a backlink tool that helps you find quality links with good domain authority.

How do beginners get backlinks?

Beginners can get free backlinks with competitor analysis, HARO, link exchanges (in moderation), free guest post submission sites (in moderation), and various forms of pillow links.

See the above sections for more information as well as the pitfalls of some of those methods.

How do I create backlinks?

You can create backlinks by either convincing someone to put a link on their site to your site, or you can build them yourself on various platforms like web 2.0s and social media sites by entering your website URL where appropriate.

There is obviously a lot more to it than this, so be sure to read the rest of this article for more info on creating backlinks!

Which sites are best for backlinks?

The best sites for backlinks are relevant to your site’s topic, have healthy backlink profiles of their own, have decent domain authority, are ranking for keywords, have some traffic, and are healthy sites that serve a purpose other than just guest blogging.

Chris Tzitzis' headshot for blog.Article by:
Chris Tzitzis

Hey I'm Chris, one of the founders here at SirLinksalot. I'm into building internet money machines (affiliate websites) and specialize in building backlinks. Find out more about me and my link building team.

Questions or Comments?

We are active in our Facebook Group seven days a week and would love to hear from you. Ask us questions, learn from other group members, and share your knowledge.

Join the discussion on Facebook →

Ready To Start Building Your Rankings?

Your link building journey to the top of Google starts today!

Apply for Managed Link Building to get a free analysis and game plan, or order backlinks a la carte.

Link building services that work.

Learning Resources

Blog

Podcast

Live SEO Support