How To Get Free Backlinks in 2026 (Methods That Actually Work) — Transcript

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1. 0:00This link building thread was going
2. 0:01viral on the SEO subreddit last month.
3. 0:04There is a lot of good stuff in it if
4. 0:06you are looking to build backlinks
5. 0:08without spending money, without paying
6. 0:10for the links. The post is, "How are you
7. 0:13guys building backlinks after Google
8. 0:15officially said random and low-quality
9. 0:17backlinks are useless. If I want real
10. 0:19authentic links, I have to pay. I'm
11. 0:21stuck with a backlink building." By user
12. 0:24zealous ideal sky 632. "I'm an SEO
13. 0:28analyst and one of the main
14. 0:30responsibilities is backlink building.
15. 0:32Recently after reading Google's official
16. 0:34guidance that low-quality unrelated
17. 0:36backlinks, like random blog submissions,
18. 0:39directory submissions, bookmark sites,
19. 0:41etc. don't provide value anymore, I
20. 0:44completely stopped building those kinds
21. 0:46of links. Now I'm stuck. Whenever I try
22. 0:49to build genuine relevant backlinks,
23. 0:51almost every website owner asks for
24. 0:53payment. Very few are willing to link
25. 0:56for free. So I'm confused. If I build
26. 0:59random backlinks, it feels like a waste
27. 1:01of time. If I focus on high-quality
28. 1:03relevant backlinks, most opportunities
29. 1:05are paid. How are you all handling this
30. 1:08in 2026?" So this thread got so many
31. 1:11comments, so many votes, I had to dig
32. 1:14through so many awful AI comments, and
33. 1:17actually a lot of my favorite comments
34. 1:19were buried at the bottom because they
35. 1:21were posted later. So I'm reading a
36. 1:22bunch of comments, my favorite ones,
37. 1:24some of them will be out of order in
38. 1:26which they appeared cuz I went through
39. 1:28everything for you and then I organized
40. 1:30it by my favorites. The top one was from
41. 1:33aromatic pineapple, who said, "For a
42. 1:35LockTech client of mine whose target
43. 1:38audience was hospitals, I took a
44. 1:40research-first approach." And this is
45. 1:42actually going to be a recurring theme
46. 1:45in this thread, is what this person is
47. 1:47sharing. So this person says, "I ran
48. 1:49surveys, analyzed multiple research
49. 1:51papers, interviewed hospital staff, and
50. 1:54studied publicly available data. Based
51. 1:56on all of that, I prepared a detailed
52. 1:58article on how hospitals lose revenue. I
53. 2:01shared it with a friend who works at a
54. 2:03leading newspaper in South India. He
55. 2:05liked it and published it in the
56. 2:06technology column. After that, Medical
57. 2:08Buyer Nirmitee and several other
58. 2:11industry publications picked it up and
59. 2:13republished it. We got free mentions and
60. 2:15a high-quality backlinks from a leading
61. 2:17newspaper without any outreach budget.
62. 2:20This is what I would suggest. Create
63. 2:21something unique and worth reading.
64. 2:23Publish original research, reveal
65. 2:25surprising statistics, present insights
66. 2:28people haven't seen before. Then
67. 2:29proactively reach out to relevant
68. 2:31publications. Research with original
69. 2:33data gets picked up naturally is what I
70. 2:36observed. And it doesn't even have to be
71. 2:38your data. This is from commenter
72. 2:40valuable_win,
73. 2:42who said, "First grab all the easy
74. 2:44backlinks like local citations and
75. 2:46social media profiles for your business.
76. 2:48This is called foundational backlinks,
77. 2:50by the way. Then next take some time to
78. 2:52understand what your audience wants.
79. 2:54Start developing content for those
80. 2:56things. Try to reverse engineer it by
81. 2:59asking what a website would link to in
82. 3:01my industry or what you would link to in
83. 3:03an article. Data stories are great. You
84. 3:05don't even need to use your own data.
85. 3:08Plenty of free data sources like Yelp
86. 3:10Trends and government census data to
87. 3:13help get you started. Here's an example.
88. 3:15We recently pulled data from the census
89. 3:18about pests, think mice, and correlated
90. 3:20that with population to get a home
91. 3:22infestation score. We then ranked it by
92. 3:25state and sent the report to local
93. 3:27papers. Got a dozen or so free links
94. 3:29from that for our home insulation
95. 3:31client. This next post, you could tell
96. 3:34that the poster used AI as an assistant
97. 3:37to write it, but I still think that this
98. 3:39post has unique data. So, I decided to
99. 3:42include it anyway. As in like I actually
100. 3:44think it's somebody with a unique
101. 3:45experience who just used AI to help them
102. 3:47write it. So, this person bestpoint8381
103. 3:51said, "What I did instead of outreach,
104. 3:53scrape an entire French sector, run a
105. 3:56scripted audit on every site, publish
106. 3:58the distribution. No survey, no
107. 4:00interviews, nobody to email. 2,141
108. 4:04training providers, then 3,111
109. 4:07law firms, then 5,568
110. 4:10home services companies, then 5,706
111. 4:14tourism businesses. Roughly two days of
112. 4:16work per sector once the scraper
113. 4:18existed. Anyone writing about that
114. 4:20sector needs a number to cite, and there
115. 4:22isn't one, so they use mine. Same
116. 4:25mechanism inside AI answers. A stat with
117. 4:28a sample size and a date gets quoted.
118. 4:31The requirements are lower than people
119. 4:32assume. Public data, one metric people
120. 4:35argue about. That's really smart. One
121. 4:37metric that people argue about. Find
122. 4:39something that people argue about
123. 4:41because that shows that they care. And
124. 4:42an honest methodology section that says
125. 4:45what you did not measure. Mine excludes
126. 4:47measured visibility entirely and says
127. 4:50so, and that paragraph is a reason
128. 4:52people trust the rest of the numbers.
129. 4:54So, be transparent. Nobody has audited
130. 4:56your niche at n equals 3,000. That gap
131. 5:00is your link asset." Yeah, I like that
132. 5:02post, too. This next one is from SEO
133. 5:03Pub. SEO Pub, Mike Friedman, he's been
134. 5:06on the podcast before. He's really
135. 5:07great. He said, "Directories are not
136. 5:10random." So, directories, I think of
137. 5:12directories as foundational backlinks.
138. 5:14If you're a real business, you probably
139. 5:16are going to put yourself in a lot of
140. 5:17relevant directories. You're going to
141. 5:19try to find relevant directories. And
142. 5:20I've seen this many, many times. So,
143. 5:23with this new business that I'm funding,
144. 5:25we used boostbenchmark.com. That's my
145. 5:27affiliate link for a list of directories
146. 5:29that I really like. We used that, put
147. 5:31ourselves in all the directories on that
148. 5:33list, and then our rankings improved
149. 5:35immediately. They improved immediately
150. 5:37because these are relevant, indexed, not
151. 5:40small, random BS. It's the type of
152. 5:42places that an actual business would put
153. 5:45themselves. So, directories are not
154. 5:47random. Then, SEO Pub says, "If you want
155. 5:50to consistently build links, you are
156. 5:52probably going to have to pay for them,
157. 5:53no big deal, or creating linkable assets
158. 5:56are another good method. With AI these
159. 5:59days, it is so easy to build quizzes,
160. 6:01tools, or other interactive elements on
161. 6:03a site." Actually, I have a great
162. 6:05episode on this, episode 1037 of this
163. 6:08podcast, how one simple website got
164. 6:11384,000
165. 6:13backlinks, linkable assets explained.
166. 6:15And basically, I share all these
167. 6:17examples of viral linkable assets that
168. 6:20were so successful, no link building
169. 6:23budget could recreate that. And then, I
170. 6:25share a formula that you can use to
171. 6:27ideate your own linkable assets. So, I
172. 6:30highly recommend that episode. This
173. 6:32comment is from Old Occasion 9380,
174. 6:35who said, "Start close to home. Do your
175. 6:38firm's partners, vendors, and customers
176. 6:40already link to them to highlight the
177. 6:42relationship? Are there awards or
178. 6:44badging programs you could initiate that
179. 6:47would encourage linking? Could be as
180. 6:48simple as naming the best uses {slash}
181. 6:51applications of your product and
182. 6:53showcasing them, giving the winners HTML
183. 6:55badges to showcase their award? Does
184. 6:58your client have some information that's
185. 7:00relevant in their local community where
186. 7:02they could offer Q&A content to a
187. 7:04newspaper, like Ask the Gardener with a
188. 7:07site? These, along with the quote and
189. 7:09content ideas above, work well for both
190. 7:12SEO and AI citations." I want to add
191. 7:14goodwill link building, doing good
192. 7:16things for people and then asking for
193. 7:18the link for the companies and
194. 7:20organizations you do good things for.
195. 7:22And giving anonymous tips to newspapers
196. 7:25about the good thing that you did,
197. 7:26because newspapers love sharing
198. 7:28feel-good stories. I have an entire
199. 7:30episode on that from a couple days ago,
200. 7:32episode 1155
201. 7:35of the podcast, he donated a free roof
202. 7:38and got links you can't buy. That is
203. 7:40That will give you tons of ideas. I have
204. 7:42ideas in that for e-commerce, SaaS, and
205. 7:44local services, and you will love that
206. 7:46episode. This next comment by Mobile
207. 7:49Reveal 8938
208. 7:51is on why a lot of people over
209. 7:54prioritize backlinks, which they do. You
210. 7:57don't need a million backlinks to rank.
211. 7:59This is what you need. So, this person
212. 8:01says, "I've seen very few comments that
213. 8:04mention paid backlinks aren't organic
214. 8:06backlinks, and Google/Bing will ignore
215. 8:08them at the least de-list sites at the
216. 8:11most extreme. It's pretty simple. If you
217. 8:13pay for it, it isn't organic. And
218. 8:15eventually, the search engines will
219. 8:17figure it out, and you are out the money
220. 8:19spent. I'd suggest stop trying to game
221. 8:21the system. Like a casino, it isn't your
222. 8:24system, and it's not even your game. And
223. 8:27on top of that, the house always wins in
224. 8:29the end." First of all, that is amazing.
225. 8:31I really agree with that. Backlinks are
226. 8:33important and might have up to 1/3 the
227. 8:35weight among ranking signals, but an
228. 8:38equal weight goes to the metrics content
229. 8:40quality/relevance/uniqueness.
230. 8:43Another large percentage is the on-page
231. 8:45experience. You might get away with
232. 8:47buying backlinks, but if the other
233. 8:49ranking factors are so-so, you are
234. 8:51probably twisting yourself into a
235. 8:53pretzel finding target search queries
236. 8:56that show improved ranking. Or, you are
237. 8:58using target queries that rely more on
238. 9:01local SEO and your Google Business
239. 9:03Listing than content-based SEO. I've
240. 9:05been in SEO for over 20 years going back
241. 9:08to when link farms and article spinning
242. 9:10was a real thing. I've seen my white hat
243. 9:12turn black after Google updates and had
244. 9:15to repair the errors the newly
245. 9:17blacklisted tactics created. Today, our
246. 9:19SEO work is based on content and page
247. 9:22audits, competitor content analysis, and
248. 9:24analytics trends. We win organic search
249. 9:27more often and get paid more per page.
250. 9:29We leverage the other 2/3 of ranking
251. 9:32signals. So, the other 2/3 are
252. 9:34relevance, as in have a target keyword,
253. 9:37put it in your page title, URL slug, H1,
254. 9:40beginning of your first sentence, meta
255. 9:41description is optional, and behavioral
256. 9:43signals. Have page titles people want to
257. 9:45click. Give the answer right away so
258. 9:47they don't immediately pogo stick and go
259. 9:49back to the search results to look for
260. 9:51something better. I ran a poll on X
261. 9:53recently. I said, "Out of this list,
262. 9:56what's the most important Google ranking
263. 9:58factor? User signals, relevance, or
264. 10:00authority?" The winner of this 157 votes
265. 10:03was authority, but my opinion is it's
266. 10:06user signals, then relevance, then
267. 10:08authority. And I've been saying this for
268. 10:10a long time. People really over index on
269. 10:12the importance of authority. Authority
270. 10:14is important, but if you have a site
271. 10:16with a lot of authority and terrible
272. 10:17user signals, it's not going to matter
273. 10:19and you're going to get de-indexed. Or a
274. 10:21page with high relevance can very easily
275. 10:24beat a page with high authority and very
276. 10:26little relevance. So, I agree with what
277. 10:28Mobile Reveal 8938
278. 10:31said in the comment. This is from
279. 10:33Redditor 7 26378
280. 10:36who said, "I rank numbers 1 through 5
281. 10:39for 200 plus keywords and never bought a
282. 10:41backlink or made an effort with the
283. 10:43exception of digital PR/press posts."
284. 10:46Just a simple comment on how a lot of
285. 10:48people over index on the importance of
286. 10:51backlinks. Backlinks are important,
287. 10:52especially if you're a new site or if
288. 10:54you're going after the most competitive
289. 10:56terms, but a lot of people don't need to
290. 10:58do that. You don't need to go after the
291. 11:00most competitive terms. Most people
292. 11:02actually overlook the most competitive
293. 11:05keywords and don't even know how to
294. 11:07optimize for keywords properly in the
295. 11:09way that I described a couple minutes
296. 11:11ago. Expert quotes, got to mention it.
297. 11:14This is from commenter November Sky 18
298. 11:17who said, "I'd recommend some sort of
299. 11:19digital PR. You actually don't need to
300. 11:21pay for it if you sign up for services
301. 11:23like HARO or Quoted. Just be really
302. 11:26quick in responding and please don't use
303. 11:28AI generated answers when pitching
304. 11:30journalists unless you want to get
305. 11:31banned. You can also use sources sources
306. 11:34and connectively, which was previously
307. 11:36called featured. And the last comment
308. 11:38I'll share is from Gavelist, who said
309. 11:41and said this about these low-quality
310. 11:43paid backlinks. Not useless. They will
311. 11:46actively tank your geo. I audited a
312. 11:49company that was doing crappy backlinks
313. 11:51from their previous SEO firm. They had a
314. 11:53beautiful geo build, whatever that
315. 11:55means, but they had a set of about 20
316. 11:58paid for backlinks that AI rightfully
317. 12:00flagged as misleading, paid for or fake.
318. 12:03Their AI visibility should have been
319. 12:05over 50% of queries. They were showing
320. 12:08up at less than 6%. You'd have to ask
321. 12:11their name in the question to AI to have
322. 12:13them show up. It's probably more
323. 12:15advantageous to the client to actively
324. 12:18remove their backlinks if they are crap
325. 12:20quality. So, I took this to mean that
326. 12:22doing test due diligence on this company
327. 12:25with AI, the AI was calling out these
328. 12:28suspicious mentions in the form of these
329. 12:31paid backlinks. Could also be that this
330. 12:33person was just using AI to help do the
331. 12:36SEO audit. When I read this the first
332. 12:38time, I took it to mean the AI was
333. 12:40saying this company is suspicious
334. 12:42because of these low-quality looking,
335. 12:44spammy-looking backlinks, which you
336. 12:46absolutely see. I have seen in the
337. 12:49thinking stage Claude saying filtering
338. 12:52out SEO spam. So, it's absolutely
339. 12:54possible. Anyway, you don't need to pay
340. 12:56for backlinks. You want the foundational
341. 12:58links, and then there are a million
342. 13:01billion cool creative fun ways to get
343. 13:04top websites or relevant websites, real
344. 13:07websites, real businesses to link to
345. 13:09you. And then, optimize for relevance,
346. 13:11optimize for behavioral signals, and
347. 13:14look for high-intent keywords that
348. 13:17competitors aren't targeting. If you
349. 13:18want to save years learning how to
350. 13:21identify these keywords, and then how to
351. 13:23find them, the high-intent keywords that
352. 13:25competitors aren't targeting, I have an
353. 13:27SEO course on this, Compact Keywords. It
354. 13:29shows you how to find searches with real
355. 13:32buying intent, where the person on the
356. 13:33end of the search is looking to buy
357. 13:35something, use something, or make a
358. 13:37discovery call. And I show you how to
359. 13:39find these searches, target them with
360. 13:41conversion-based SEO landing pages,
361. 13:43structure your site for these pages, do
362. 13:45an SEO technical audit, more strategies
363. 13:47for building links, examples in every
364. 13:49niche, and so much more. There's so much
365. 13:52in this course. If you haven't checked
366. 13:53it out yet, check it out. Please, you
367. 13:55will really like it. You can get it at
368. 13:56compactkeywords.com,
369. 13:58and that's everything that I got for you
370. 14:00on this episode of the show. This
371. 14:01episode 1,160
372. 14:04of the podcast, 1,160
373. 14:06days in a row doing this show. If you
374. 14:08watch this on YouTube, thank you so much
375. 14:10for watching. If you listened on Spotify
376. 14:12or Apple Podcasts, thank you so much for
377. 14:14listening. And I will talk to you again
378. 14:16tomorrow. Bye now.