Backlinks are often described as “the currency of the Internet.” What unites practically every website on the first page of Google is that they all have a lot of backlinks.

Customers will often not see the backlinks other than the “anchor text” that is clicked on, so links are pretty much invisible, so to speak.

However, they were not invisible to Google algorithms.

Since Google opened its first shop, it has used Google PageRank to determine the quality of a business’s search engine optimisation.

Therefore, for over twenty years, backlinks have been an essential part of Google’s algorithm, which ultimately decides where a website should rank in its search engine results pages (SERPs for short).

 

Link building is, therefore, well a must

If you were to ask various digital marketing agencies what they find the most challenging and time-consuming aspect of SEO, they would often shout back and say, “Link building.” It usually means looking at a competitor’s backlinks, having countless Excel spreadsheets open, and working through potentially tens of thousands of lines of links.

Some of these links will be complete rubbish that must be ignored (and disavowed). On the other hand, there could be links that are diamonds in the rough, so to speak, and accumulating the same links could massively help the business.

In short, good-quality links (hyperlinks) move you up Google’s SERPs, while rubbish, toxic spam links move you down.

 

Table of contents:

• What exactly is link building?
• Is link building still part of the organic SEO process?
• Why bother? What are the benefits of link-building if it takes so much time?
• White hat vs. black hat link-building
• What precisely differentiates a backlink in quality?

 

What exactly is link building?

Create a picture of a Google logo stuck to the back of a giant spider, and the spider is sitting on a vast spider’s web.

The Internet is a web of hyperlinks that connect everything. It is like a giant spider’s web.
For the spiders to crawl through that web (Googlebot), they need something to interconnect the different websites. So, links, aka hyperlinks, are used.

This is where you click a link, and like magic, without knowing the website’s URL, you are magically transported to another company’s website. It’s genius; it helps save time and helps the customer.

For example, you could have bought a garden room. Then, a page asks if you want to obtain an installation cost. You think, well, yes, please, and then, like magic, you are taken to a company’s website, which is a separate website that builds and puts together the garden room.

Backlinks interconnect different websites on the Internet.

Google algorithms use hyperlinks to decipher how vital a business is.

Generally speaking, the more quality links you have, the more DA and domain authority you have.

It’s the business with strong DA that sits at the top of Google’s results.

For example, if many links are inbound, incoming to a domain name or website, but come from highly relevant and respected businesses, then Google will also deem that website essential. So, for example, let’s say the Independent newspaper, I newspaper, and the Guardian all link to you. This will improve your company’s organic search engine optimisation.

So, let’s give you an example: Let’s say you run a local business and have won various awards, qualifications, and mentions from well-known news outlets such as the BBC.

Usually, this website is at the top of Google.

 

Currency of the Internet

So, a few terms repeatedly crop up as you read various SEO blog posts.

The first is that “content is king,” and the other is that “backlinks are the currency of the Internet.”

It would be too simplistic to say that SEO is all about backlinks and content marketing, but they are a massive part of the process.

It’s a bit like saying that a racing car is just a gearbox and a motor, yet there will always be other crucial aspects of the vehicle that make it work.

The same goes for SEO. Links are crucial, and good-quality content is vital, but hundreds of other moving components called “Google ranking factors” decipher whether a website’s SEO is quality.

 

Is link building still important?

Create a picture of “Pinocchio” with his nose extending as he sits in a marketing agency’s offices.

So when you hear some agencies refer to “link building as dead” or that it’s a finished process, well, they are not telling the truth.

We call those people who say link-building is dead “Pinocchio” because link-building is not dead.

Huge multinational plc companies have dedicated teams of link builders.

The reason is simple: to be on Google’s first page, you need a lot of links.

You need quality links, as they are the fuel that turbocharges your website up Google ranks.

 

 

Google’s PageRank Algorithm

Google’s PageRank Algorithm is where Alphabet or Google’s algorithm first started.

It is, therefore, the seed that turned into the mighty oak trees, so to speak.

However, by looking back at this rather simplistic formula and algorithm (Google PageRank), we understand how the algorithm evolved into what it is today.

Google’s algorithm is not simplistic today; in 2025- it’s complex.

Today’s combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning combines hundreds of different ranking factors into a massive algorithm that thousands of Google engineers have developed over the decades.

It’s now fine-tuned to reward high-quality websites and eliminate spam rubbish SEO from its index.

Trying to fool the system

You will always get people to try to cut corners.

You know those annoying people when you’re stuck in traffic, and they think it is clever enough to overtake the series of queuing cars stuck in traffic!

The thing is, shortcuts don’t work when it comes to SEO.

We mention this simply because you still see people on social media platforms trying to sell backlinks in massive quantities for a low fee.

This is a surefire way of causing your website to crash and burn (receive a Google Penalty) and causing your SEO to fail.

It ruins the SEO and can cause lasting damage (Google Penguin Link Penalty).

 

Page quality

Page quality and the quality of the business’s links (hyperlinks) are now of enormous importance.

The websites that rank right at the top of Google are in the first position in highly competitive business sectors so that you can bet your bottom dollar; they have good backlinks linking to them.

Sometimes, hundreds of hours are spent building links.
Websites with hundreds, if not thousands, of backlinks and quality links often rank higher on Google.

 

How do you view competitors’ backlinks?

Agencies nationwide spend hundreds of hours doing this, such as entering their direct competitors’ URLs into a backlink-checking tool.

Moz Pro is a good tool, and we think it’s worth subscribing to.

Then, you place it in the URL of the direct competitor into Moz and view their backlinks; it often takes an expert to decipher what quality and low-quality links are. You most definitely don’t want to start building spam and toxic links. This will damage your SEO.

 

White hat vs. black hat link-building

Should we build our backlinks in a white or black hat way?

In our view, black hat SEO is finished; don’t use it because it can cause lasting damage to your business’s SEO, i.e. a Google Manual Action or a Google Algorithmic penalty.

Quality is now the game’s name and has been for some time.

So, put your time and energy into building and completing quality work. Otherwise, you could incur a massive fact penalty, which could mean that your business gets deindexed (Google Penalty, i.e. Google Penguin, a link penalty).

 

Typical black hat tactics to avoid:

What links-building tactics should be avoided like the plague?

Create a picture, write “link building” with a massive red circle, cross all the words link building, and design it like a logo, like a no-entry sign.

Avoid buying backlinks, building spam backlinks, and entering manipulative backlink-building processes like the plague.

In a nutshell, and explaining as simply as possible, don’t build a backlink unless it helps real shoppers.

So, for example, if you sell trainers, write a helpful and informative guide on another website, perhaps listing the best trainers to buy in 2025, and then link back to your e-commerce website. This could work.

That’s if the website is linking to use quality.

On the other hand, if you start talking to consultants about buying links in mass, then we would avoid this. You don’t need to build links in mass; you just need a lot of quality links, which often can’t be built quickly or in mass.

Don’t buy links on mass; as a matter of fact, don’t buy links at all.

 

What’s the best way to obtain backlinks?

The best way to obtain backlinks for your business is simple: it is to earn them.

This often means a lot of hard work, writing helpful and informative content, and frequently, long-form content marketing that is more than 2000 words.

You might be scratching your head, thinking why we dedicate so much time and resources to giving away free advice to customers.

Yet your global brands and leading companies hire SEO agencies to do just that.

These companies know they must offer quality advice through helpful guides, blog posts, and well-designed product pages. Then, dwell times often increase, and other websites start linking to quality content.

It’s a bit like pumping out aromatic smells from a restaurant; you start to entice hungry diners.
The same is true with content marketing. If you produce enough quality work, you will naturally obtain backlinks.

 

What does a quality link look like?

How would your agency describe the quality link?

Quality links come from websites that are related to your business sector.

If you retail running trainers, you will want a backlink from a website related to sports, ideally running a website.
Quality link juice from a website, a brand or a company you instantly recognise as a reliable source of information.

 

How do I go about building links?

 

 

First, you need a reason for the businesses to link to you.

Remember earlier when we talked about restaurants pumping out aromatic smells of food to make you feel hungry and to attract hungry diners?

While this is the same with a business’s content marketing, content is king. Therefore, you will get links from various companies, bloggers, and news websites if you offer reliable, high-quality information.

Don’t get us wrong—this does take time, so, at the start, you may think it’s a slow process.

However, you do want to accumulate links slowly because of link velocity. Accumulating quality links over a long period will start to improve your business’s SEO.

 

 

Backlink research

We think the best way to obtain new, high-quality links is for the high-level link-building expert, who should have a range of backlink-checking tools at their disposal. For example, depending on the SEO agency, they may use Ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz Pro; all are really good.

Yet, at this marketing company, we have to say we think Moz Pro is one of the best backlink-checking tools available.
Therefore, our agency recommends Moz.

 

Competitor link research

To conduct competitor backlink research, you enter the URL into a backlink-checking tool, such as Moz Pro.

 

Is building links difficult?

We would say it’s one of the most challenging tasks in the SEO profession.

You have to look at your competitor’s backlinks, which might sometimes have well over 50,000 links.
Some of these links might not be of good quality and soon need to be disavowed.

So, the SEO company will need to look through the backlink profile and find good-quality links that will boost your business’s organic SEO and move it up the ranks.

 

Come to the best and forget the rest

We can help your business get to the first page of Google.co.uk. 

However, while some companies might claim to have an ultra-fast process, we always take a different approach. We prefer to be honest and transparent with you and say that improving a company’s SEO is anything but fast.

The process needs to be slow, and the reason for that is that work needs to be high-quality drip-fed over a long timeframe.

Remember earlier when we mentioned link velocity?
Well, for example, high-quality links should be built over a long timeframe; if you start building a massive number of links in a short timeframe, it may look like you bought those links.

Therefore, links need to be built correctly over an extended timeframe, so improving the business’s SEO requires chipping away at its SEO.

 

Come to the best and forget the rest.

We are an established SEO agency, and thousands of businesses know us in the incredible cities of Bath and also in Bristol.

We are the company to call if you want quality SEO offered at a reasonable price.