Written by: Ryan Walsh

Date: 13/01/2026

Subject: Link Building / Advanced link building strategies

Building backlinks remains an integral part of search engine optimisation- don’t believe therefore just because the conversation has moved on to GEO that links are a thing of the past!

 

However, building links is just one part of the equation.

As any really good link building expert will tell you, it’s also a full-time job to manage backlink profiles.

Links don’t just need to be built, they also need to:
– Be managed- spam links removed
– Manage the anchor text
– Mitigate over optimisation issues
– To ensure a good mixture of do-follow and no-follow backlinks are built

What is a backlink profile?

In 2026, many agencies are focused on GEO and AI and are blogging about the subject until they turn blue in the face. Now, don’t get us wrong: that’s an essential and emerging part of optimising a business’s website for greater AI / GEO visibility.

However, links, that is, backlinks, are still the bedrock of search engine optimisation. Googlebot will crawl and index a business’s links sometimes daily.

Therefore if your business has the best links, superior links which are top quality, well, this is a sure-fire way of improving your ranking.

In any industry, regardless of what you retail, the business which rank at the top of Google will always be the businesses with the strongest and best backlink profile. As we progress through 2026 backlinks are still important, as they are still a key part of Google EEAT/

The inbound links pointing to your website, however, have to be quality. Don’t fall into the trap of millions of businesses and start building links from any place you can source them. Trust us, as we are an experienced agency, that if the backlinks are not built right, this could cause the website to incur a Google Penguin penalty.

 

Why does a strong backlink profile matter?

It’s a little bit like saying why does high-octane fuel matter to a race car driver?

It’s crucial; it’s what makes the difference between winning and losing.

High-quality backlinks are therefore essential; they can make the difference between a business that ranks number one or position thirty-seven, for example. Backlinks, out of the two hundred plus ranking factors are still considered the most important. Therefore it stands to reason that if the backlinks are superior to your competitors, your business will rank higher.

This is why we said early, it doesn’t matter what you sell, if you have strong backlink profile in 2026 you will outrank many of your direct competitors.

Backlinks, however, are not all given the exact weighting.

Some are worth more than others. Let’s provide a very brief example. Imagine an inbound backlink, it’s from, let’s say, the New York Post, which has just run a story on an innovative product you have just created. This backlink alone could catapult your business onto page one of Google.

Therefore, its often not just about quantity, its also very much about the quality of the backlinks.

In 2026 Google’s algorithms are extremely sophisticated, and know a good link from a bad link.

Your company’s backlink profile is therefore assessed on the following basis:

DA score or Domain Authority of the source website
A really well-respected website, a business that’s a global brand, now if these websites link to your domain, they can massively help improve your business’s search engine optimisation and provide a massive boost.

 

The anchor text

When our SEO agency first looks at some businesses’ backlinks and the accompanying anchor text, it becomes immediately apparent sometimes that the anchor text has been over-optimised.

Over optimisation is a commonplace, as businesses often believe “more is better”. However, when it comes to link building, you must take your time to build quality links slowly. This therefore allows the “link velocity”- the rate at which your businesses accumulates links to be slower.

So, therefore slow and steady wins the race. However, link quality is the pivotal factor, as Google’s algorithm will calculate the link quality for every single link.

This means that the keywords the business wants to rank higher for are sometimes overused in the anchor text. Googlebot often detects over-optimisation; the SEO is not white hat. For that reason, the business could even, in some circumstances, actually obtain a link penalty.
You have to write the anchor text or obtain anchor text that describes the post or page it links to.

 

Target URL

Is there a particular page that is attracting a lot of powerful inbound backlinks? Is there a product page? Is there a service page on your website that is attracting a lot of inbound backlinks?

For example, it could be a particular service. Let’s say that you have one of the best solicitors in your city working for you. That solicitor is generating a lot of online conversation, perhaps winning awards and being recognised for key cases. Then that person’s profile may attract many mentions (semantic web) and backlinks to a single page.

That particular page is therefore attracting a lot of link equity, and it may rank very highly on Google for the services that person offers.

 

Number of links and diversification

Just as you don’t want one person telling you how good you are, it’s always better to have multiple people stating what you are, as you will have more confidence in what they say is true.

Well, this is the same in terms of how Google’s algorithm actually works. There’s no point in having 100 backlinks from the same source; it’s far better to have many strong, high-quality backlinks from a wide range of different websites.

It’s then, when you have accumulated a lot of strong backlinks from a wide range of sources, that you will often see your business SEO massively improve.

Therefore, as the old saying goes, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Instead, look to gain links from multiple sources.

 

What are the benefits of building a strong backlink profile?

In 2026, businesses are often focused on how they can gain more customers from AI, such as being mentioned in a Google AI Overview answer.

However, for this to even occur, a business has to consider how to improve its Google EEAT score carefully. And anyone who knows about

Google EEAT will tell you that a key part is improving the website’s authority. Now, a key way to do this is to build backlinks.
Building backlinks, when done right and completed by a winning agency such as Walsh & Partners, can help improve rankings.

 

What effect does a bad backlink profile have on a business?

 

A good backlink profile, as we mentioned, can catapult your business towards the stars; however, a spammy backlink profile can have the opposite effect.

A poor-quality backlink profile can lead to poor ranking. For example, let’s say the business has many links from websites that have actually received a Google Penguin penalty.

This means that this business could, for example, be linked to link farms. The links emanating from this website are therefore toxic and spam.

If a business obtains links from these domains, that website could also receive a link penalty.

 

How do you go about building good quality links- what defines a good quality backlink profile?

Good quality backlinks are:

Relevant niche

You need powerful links, backlinks with a good DA score. These backlinks must be relevant.

When Googlebot crawls and indexes links, it considers link quality. However, Google will also want to know which business sector these links are coming from.

If the majority of the 10,000 links come from the construction sector, this is a clear signal to Google’s algorithms that the business is well known there.

If the backlinks are high-quality, it becomes apparent that the brand is well-known in the construction sector; otherwise, why would 10,000 websites want to link to it?

Diverse

As we mentioned earlier, it’s always a good idea to have a diverse backlink profile. To have quality links coming from a wide range of business websites.

High-authority websites

When building links, you want them to come from high-authority websites. These high-authority websites will send more link juice to your website. The more link juice that you obtain, the higher your website can rank on Google.

No spam links

A sign of a good backlink profile is the absence of spam links. This is an essential task for your search engine optimisation agency: checking for spam links.

If spam links are found, they must be managed appropriately. That is, they need to be handled by an expert link-building company that knows how to treat and disavow low-quality and spam links.

Anchor text

As we mentioned earlier, it’s essential to write the anchor text in a white-hat way.

Unnatural backlink profile

You can plough hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into link building and actually cause more harm to your SEO than good.

Therefore, it’s critical to build a natural, high-quality backlink profile.

 

Do-follow and no-follow backlinks

Have you seen backlinks marked with the rel=”nofollow” attribute?

Well, this is a way for a business to link to a website, yet no link equity is passed because it’s a nofollow backlink.

However, talk to the top marketing agencies in the world, and they will tell you that to have a natural, high-quality backlink profile, there needs to be a good mix of do-follow and no-follow backlinks.

SEO experts globally now believe that even if the backlinks are no-follow, they can still have a positive impact on a business’s search engine optimisation.

Therefore, the belief was that if a backlink were nofollow, it wouldn’t affect rankings.

However, now some of the best agencies in the world believe that even if the links are no-follow or there are several no-follow backlinks from, say, leading businesses, this can still help improve the business’s SEO.

 

How do I check my business’s backlink profile?

You can use a range of tools; we highly recommend using Ahrefs in particular.

Link relevance

It’s important to mention this in more detail: what often differentiates the businesses ranked on page one of Google is quality and the relevance of the backlink.

Therefore, if there are ample amounts of quality links, which are also relevant to that business, this can often be the winning backlink profile, where that business ranks at the top of Google’s organic SERP’s.

What is the best way to obtain brand-new backlinks?

The best way for any business here in Cardiff or beyond to obtain backlinks is simple- the company should earn them.

By dispensing high-quality advice and helping customers, other businesses are often encouraged to link to you.

Let’s give you an example: a dental practice may have won an award for a particular dental procedure they offer. The award company could then link to the homepage; this is a relevant backlink that will help the business.

 

Google EEAT

A key aspect your marketing company should focus on is improving your company’s Google EEAT score. An essential part of this process for improving a higher Google EEAT score is improving the website’s authoritativeness; the main way to do this is to build robust, white-hat backlinks.

 

Why do I need to keep building links?

Links naturally deteriorate over time.

A business might start with 1,000 links, yet website owners naturally delete these.

A blog post regarding the best saloon car of 2018 is obviously outdated; the information is therefore obsolete. Because of this, the owner may delete the page; thus, the link is lost.

Therefore, globally, a central part of SEO experts’ jobs is to build links. To find new links and use link-building tools such as Moz Pro to conduct competitor backlink analysis. To see links and create new links to replace the old ones.

 

How many backlinks does my business need?

As mentioned previously, link building is a constant task, as publishers delete links.

However, as a general rule of thumb, you will need more powerful backlinks than what your direct competitors have.

Is it worth the effort?

Well, this depends on how important it is for your business to rank high organically on Google.

For some businesses, it’s not a matter of whether they need to invest in SEO; it’s often a matter of whether they must.

If they don’t, the competition gains a significant advantage and sometimes millions in extra revenue.

How our agency can help:

 

Our agency is owned and managed by Ryan Walsh.

Ryan Walsh is one of the most experienced SEO experts in Cardiff.