Author: Ryan Walsh
Date: 26/03/2026
Topic: Link building, search engine optimisation.

Even in 2026, backlinks are still massively important. Most marketing experts would agree that they are a core and crucial pillar of search engine optimisation.

Now, in an era of GEO and AI, as well as organic SEO, it’s more important than ever that content marketing is authoritative.

The main way to make a website more authoritative is to earn high-quality, white-hat backlinks.

Tell me more. What is a backlink profile?

When you use a tool such as Majestic or Moz Explorer, which is really good, it just offers a super long list of all your inbound links.

These tools can also provide an opinion on the quality of a link, sometimes expressed as a domain authority score.

Backlink checkers look at the quality of the incoming link as well as how the anchor text is written. Also, how many incoming links are pointing at the website?

 

Tell me more, why does having a good backlink profile matter so much?

Well quite often businesses, will have a similar website, perhaps its designed using WordPress for example.

Then the staff or the appointed marketing agency, well they might be all blogging about the same thing.

In matter of fact, when a leader in that business sector writes an article about something, then sometimes this causes a chain reaction.

Meaning that several other businesses start writing an article about the same thing.

Therefore, how does Google work out which businesses should rank at the top of Google?

How when all the businesses are simply talking about the same thing, and offering the same advice?

Well, often it comes down to backlinks, simply put, if the business has authoritative links, then normally it is the magic formula that means that the business rises higher in Google’s search results, higher than the competition.

How does Google work out if a backlink profile is good quality or not?

Domain authority of the source site.

Now let’s explain exactly what domain authority means, basically let’s say your website and a direct competitor has exactly the same number of links.

Let’s say 100 links in total each.

However, one company could have links from large blue-chip companies, from well-known brands, from well-known bloggers, from award websites, where the company has prestigious awards for business.

Then the other hand the other business has 100 spam links.

Therefore, one business has strong backlink profile, that will improve the Google EEAT score, and one has a spam backlink profile, which could mean that the business is taken out of Google’s index, because it considered as not adhering to the Webmaster Guidelines.

Now is the start difference between the two.

The spam links can buy cheaply, but massively damage the businesses SEO.

Then the other website could have strong links from say The Guardian Newspaper, from an Business Award company, and perhaps from a leading brand, which has stated that it’s a trusted supplier. These links are much harder to come by, but can make the world of difference, and actually mean that the business moves up Googles results.

 

Relevance of the link and anchor.

Anchor text is massively important, and our experience, it’s an area where many companies get this aspect wrong.

What you can do is over optimise the anchor text, which is a massive no no.

For example, if you sell “organic dog food” and all of the anchor text, of 1000 incoming links all say this, then that’s not a good idea.

The links then look artificial, spam, and this will trigger a Google spam penalty. This could be issued by Google Spam Brain or perhaps by Google’s Manual Action, or an algorithmic penalty triggered by Google Penguin.

 

Target URL

It look really spammy if all of the link’s point to one single page, so for example 70 links all pointing the homepage, with no other links pointed to other pages, this can look spammy.

It looks as thought the links have be bought, and directed to one page.

What you want is the backlinks pointing to a wide range of different pages, and from different sources. Again, the DA needs to be high.

 

Ratio of link types

How can we build a really good backlink profile that beats the competition?

 

Niche and relevant links

Okay, so this is another top tip from us, either the marketing company, or the staff in the business can sometimes feel under pressure to build links.

Management might say, we need 10 backlinks built every single month.

However, that put people under pressure to build links sometimes and either spam or not relevant.

For example, if you run an online jewellery store, and you’re getting most of your links from spam websites that post articles with everything from where to go on holiday to which fireworks to buy, then the links won’t be relevant.

If you work in the jewellery sector, you’re going to want links from high-quality jewellery-related websites.

Links are sourced from diverse domains.

You might have found a website where you can gain a high quality and relevant backlink.

However, too much of a good thing can damage your SEO also.

For example, 1000 links incoming and 89% come from just one source, that can look manipulative as well.

You want links from a diverse range of websites, from as many high quality and relevant websites as possible.

Minimal links from spammy sources.

So again, this returns to our example of putting say a SEO agency under pressure to build a certain number of links in a timeframe.

They could build spam links, or alternatively a company that hasn’t much knowledge on what constitutes as good quality links, may build spam links without knowing the implications that this can have.

Basically, as part of your business’s backlink profile, you want a minimum amount of spammy links as possible.

Backlink building requires serious effort

Here’s another thing that’s worth keeping in mind, that is backlink building, when done right requires serious effort and determination.

The reason for this is rather simple: a top-quality business or website that’s deemed very influential and important is not to link to any business on demand.

They need a real reason to want or have to link to the business.

For example, a solicitor’s practice that belongs to a elite members group, that recognises the experience and expertise of highly experienced solicitors, a link from that website would be massively beneficial. For example, from a website that represents lawyers from the Magic Circle, for example.

 

Do follow/No follow Ratio

This is a really good point, that is you want a good mix of what are called do-follow as well as no-follow backlinks.

The difference between these links, are some can pass link equity and others do not.
Let’s give you example of what we mean, some backlinks are placed on a page, and the business just wants to direct the customer to some useful advice.

They don’t therefore sometimes want to pass link equity.

They sometimes just want to offer that link, because they know it will be very useful for the reader.

So, for example, somebody who is interested in getting asbestos removed correctly, the page may link to a page of experienced and accredited businesses which can safely remove asbestos.

Therefore, is be rel=”nofollow” attribute that’s added, so that link equity is not passed over.

 

Then these do-follow links

Now do-follow links are completely different; they do pass over link equity.

These links, if you have enough of them, can transmit a huge amount of link equity to the pages which they are linked to.

Basically, having a massive and positive impact in terms of where that page then ranks on Google.

For example, if you are financial analyst, or say a stock broker and your asked for your opinion on the Financial Times, the FT then you could gain a link back the business which you work at, which could be a do follow backlink.

If Google or another search engine such as Microsoft’s Bing, sees that you have a lot of quality do-follow links then this can massively improve the businesses SEO.

How do you analyse the quality of your backlink profile

There are various tools, such as Ahrefs, we personally like using Moz Pro.

There’s also SEM Rush as well as many others.

You can look at your business’s backlinks, as well as also analysing your direct competitors.

Therefore, you can find link building opportunities as well when you use these really high-quality tools.

However, just as a tennis racquet is as effective as the player that uses it, this is the same of a backlink tool.

They can provide an extensive list of your direct competitors’ backlinks, but, the real skill is with the backlink builder. That means that in your top and leading SEO companies, there will be one if not many backlink building experts.

Because it is a skill-set in itself, to look at a long list of backlinks, and know which ones should be built, which backlinks can’t be built, and which are spam to ignore.

 

What are toxic links

When we first started writing this article, we explained that backlink building is incredibly hard work.

It requires a huge amount of effort, therefore naturally there will be a lot of businesses which will cut corners.

Which will buy links, buy spammy links. This is a sure-fire way to SEO disaster, therefore as we mentioned earlier the business can actually can be hit by a Google Penalty.

This penalty can mean that once issued, such as a Google Penguin penalty that business is then “de-indexed” which basically means in that instant moment, because too many spam links have been detected, the business is totally removed from Google’s search results.

Now, this is something to bear in mind, in that if your buying links, or building spam links you can damage the businesses search engine optimisation.

 

What would you describe as the very best way of building backlinks for any business?

Be the leader not a follower

Google EEAT

Whether you’re optimising your website for ChatGPT citations

Whether you want to appear a lot the Google AI Overviews or perhaps you want to appear high organically.

You will want your website to be seen by more potential customers.

The best way of doing this is to write high quality content, with a Google EEAT score that absolutely through the roof.

But what about links?

Well links can come naturally, without you having to do any work at all. That’s if you offer the best world-class information and advice.

Consider this, say you’re a top solicitor, now if you write helpful, well written advice, that could help people right across the world.

Then as they quote in forums, on blogs and on company websites where they have read very useful and helpful work on your website, they may place a backlink.

These backlinks can be added, without you even requesting them. Some of the very best SEO companies in the entire world, and we consider ourselves in that group of companies, they will you that, it best to naturally build links.

This means acquiring links without you even asking.

 

Quality always wins the day

When it comes to building backlinks, quality always pays dividends.

Let’s answer some FAQ regarding building a backlink profile:

 

How do you build a winning backlink profile?

Creating a winning backlink profile, means doing the following:

 

Building the links slowly

When it comes to improving any businesses organic search engine optimisation, slow and steady wins the race.

If you pile on too many blog posts too your website this can look spammy.

If you build too many links, too fast, this can look, again spammy.

Therefore, you have to consider “link velocity” which basically means, building the links slowly over a long timeframe.

If Googlebot crawls and indexes a lot of links, in a short amount of time, then this could look like you have bought the links. It could be considered that the links are spam, or that you used manipulative link building practices.

This could trigger a manual action penalty or indeed a algorithmic penalty.

 

Quality links, less spam

Often some people take the idea that more is better when it comes to link building.

This is just simply not true when in comes to link building.

You want quality links; you don’t want them diluted by a ton of spam links.

Think of link building, like eating in a fine restaurant, you don’t want to be stuffed and full, you want quality ingredients, and therefore less is more.

 

Relevant

To re-cap the links that you build need to be high quality, and relevant.

Therefore, if you work in insurance sector, then you want links which are related to insurance.

 

Do I need to manage my backlink profile?

You most certainly do; you need manage the health of your companies’ backlinks.

There are many reasons for this, for example you might hire the wrong SEO company, who build a ton of spam links.

You might alternatively incur a negative SEO attack.

In either case, you need to be on-top of this.

Another reason is, you might be purchasing a domain name. Let’s a business has been put up for sale, and the domain name is part of the sale of the business.

You might think great, I am going to buy that.

However, first things first, you have to check the health of the backlinks.

 

Are the backlinks toxic?

Is this why the business is up for sale, has their marketing failed?

Therefore, if you’re buying a domain name, do have a look at whether there’s spam links directly connected to that domain name?

 

When should we use Google’s Disavow tool?

You have to be really careful using Google’s Disavow tool, in matter of fact you need to have in-depth knowledge of how backlinks work.

Therefore, just as you wouldn’t start pulling around parts and cables on your car if you didn’t know what you were doing, then you shouldn’t do this for your business’s backlinks.

Its best left to an SEO company that are link building experts. Or even better than that would be to hire an agency that specialises and has a good reputation in Google penalty recovery.

 

Only part of the mix

What you have to remember is that backlink building is just one aspect of the search engine optimisation process.

In order to get any business higher in Google’s organic ranks, and to gain more AI visibility, you need to concentrate on improving the other ranking factors.

Backlinks are an essential part of the SEO mix; however, they are not the only ranking factor.

In matter of fact for a businesses SEO to be successful, firstly we believe there needs to be well written and excellent quality content marketing, as otherwise there’s nothing to link to.

Therefore, you’re a startup business, before you start building links, and analysing a competitors backlinks profile, you should concentrate on getting the on-page SEO and main pages write,

You should also concentrate on adding content marketing that will attract inbound links.

 

Who is Walsh & Partners?

We are one of the most established SEO businesses in Cardiff, South Wales.

The agency is run by Ryan Walsh, one of the most experienced SEO consultants in Wales.

We can build links, we can write the content marketing, we can also implement top quality on-page SEO for your business.

For example, the use of internal backlinks is also super important to spread link equity across the major pages.

We are therefore of the best and most knowledgeable SEO agencies in the area.