Eric Siu examines why link building is failing. Gaetano tested five providers and found targeted links are harder to get, links work less than they used to, most providers ship low-quality links to hit quotas, and digital PR agencies cost too much and create coordination headaches.
This is why link building is basically dead when it comes to SEO. So Gaetano says this, he says, over the past few months, I have tested 5 different link building service providers and the results have been wishy-washy. I think it's a combination of the following problems. 1, targeted link acquisition has gotten way harder. The golden era of link building might very well be over. 2, links are less effective than they used to be. Now they still work to an extent, but you need to get way more links at higher quality to be successful. 3, link providers mostly just want to get paid. They will pitch you mostly low quality stuff so they can say, wow, we got you 5 links this month. But as an SEO, you must really be asking yourself, does Acting like this actually matter. And then 4, here's the last point and we can react to this. Digital PR companies suck. They're expensive and annoying to work with. Most SEO managers would rather just build links. Working on PR requires a collaboration with brand and comms teams, which is a huge headache for SEO. Just adds layers of complexity that we don't want to deal with.
