Link building in 2023. My method of backlink mining

In previous articles I wrote a lot about using the SAPE exchange for promotion, including foreign Google. This article will cover other exchanges that I am using now, although SAPE still has some good sites for promotion abroad.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this article is mainly devoted to promotion in European and English-speaking Google. I almost do not buy links for Yandex now, as Yandex is the main search engine in the Russian-speaking segment. When buying links for Russian-language sites promoted in Yandex, one should think only about attracting traffic to these links. Otherwise, you should not purchase anything, focusing on improving the site and non-search traffic (SMM, banners, offline advertising) – it will be much more useful.

So, if you are promoting a website in Europe and the USA – this article is for you.

This method has been tested for regions such as France, Spain, USA and Vietnam and gained positive results everywhere.

So, creating a link mass for a new site, the first thing to do is get links from trusted (mega-visited and authoritative in terms of AHREFS and MAJESTIC) sites.

Buying links on trusted sites

I buy links from trusted sites:

1. I buy links from the following trusted sites:
   1. FIVERR is a freelancing site. There are many webmasters from all over the world registered here, so you can easily find the link donors you need. Just use the search box, enter something like “backlinks”. It is a good and convenient service, which is first in my rating.
   2. Collaborator is a new exchange, I started using it in 2019. It has the RBC site, Forbs, as well as the Echo of Moscow site and other mega-trust resources, a lot of foreign sites, which is rare for a Russian-language exchange. The only disadvantage is the prices. Links there are expensive, but their quality is by far the highest in Runet.

3. Trastik is the third site in my rating. The exchange is new, there are few sites on it, but the sites are mostly high-quality. There are also foreign sites, and quite good.

The disadvantage is that the link can be placed in absolutely randomly, up to the fact that the English-language resource may have inserts of Russian auto-generated text. However, it is possible to type the text and meta tags on the page with the link by yourself.

4.Backlinks from webmasters who have their own sites in different segments. I look for them in this thread on the SEO-specialists forum: Links – exchange, buy, sell. There are also a number of channels in Telegram with ads from webmasters.

5.I use the Sape (Serpzilla) in two stages:

1. Search for competitors’ links. This exchange has a conveniently implemented search by “Favourites”. It is worth adding competitors’ donors to the Favourites list. However, when analysing foreign sites, be prepared that uploading 10`000 links to Favourites, you will find a maximum of 10 donors, which does not necessarily mean that it is worth buying.
2. Search for thematic donors. If you search hard enough, there are still trustworthy foreign sites on SAPE.

6. Outreaching is a very common method, in which you contact the webmaster of the site you like and ask them to place a link. The case is labour-intensive, takes a lot of time, a lot of letters remain unanswered, but it justifies itself, because most trusted sites are not represented in any exchange.

Buying links for crowd marketing

rowding works equally well for both foreign and Russian-speaking sites, because the goal of crowd-marketing (placing links on forums) is traffic, not building up the pozomerok of the promoted site.

For foreign sites I try to insert links on forums myself (or delegate this to the customer, which is preferable, as they are more aware of their business specifics) or, if the budget allows, order from REFERR.

Refer posts on Quora and Reddit, as well as on less known platforms, but the quality of the posts is poor. Sometimes it takes weeks to explain copywriters what services (products) are presented on the site and how the post should look like.

I recommend LINKBUILDER and PR.SAPE for crowdfunding in the Russian-speaking Internet. On these exchanges links from forums are much cheaper than REFERR, so for the Russian-speaking Internet they are the best.

What parameters do I use to check links?

Parameters of purchased links

1. Checktrust

Right now I’m setting up Checktrust to check links for foreign internet like this:

That’s all I’m interested in checking with Checktrust:

• Spam site – the most important parameter that we need from Chektrust. The formula for calculating this parameter is considered one of the best by corresponding specialists. It is easy to use – we buy everything that is in the green segment, and delete what is in the red.
• Google viruses – the presence of viruses on the site according to Google
• Majestic data. TF from 10 and CF from 30

2. Ahrefs

Here, I am interested in the DR (domain rank) parameter – the higher the better. I try to buy up from 30, the number of backlinks and referring domains and organic traffic.

Based on these two resources, I understand whether it’s worth buying a link or not and I also check it with my eyes. When you want to buy a link from a site with a lot of traffic, it is also useful to check it in SimilarWeb.

Purchase rate of references

I recommend looking at how your competitors are developing. The most convenient way to do this is using Ahrefs or SerpStat.

A few words about the Miralinks and Gogetlinks exchanges, which are popular in Runet. I have a negative experience of their usage because, firstly, there are no foreign donors, and secondly, there were cases when donors quickly “deteriorated” after purchase thereby worsening the link mass. The promoted site failed, removing the link is paid, and even so in most cases webmasters do not get in touch. Therefore, I have not included these exchanges in my review.

Today I buy links for my and my clients’ projects on 2 platforms: SAPE and FIVERR. FIVERR is an English-language freelancing site where you can find everything from design to music, but we are interested in webmasters who place links to their site. Other exchanges and sites that help with linkbuilding have not been tested, the quality of donors is poor, or there are problems with their functionality.