Link building
 "Zoran Artmagic")
Reviewed by Zoran Artmagic ·
A link is a recommendation that Google reads along with. When a specialist portal, a manufacturer or a local newspaper links to your store, that page is saying: this is worth a visit. Google has always treated such backlinks as a sign of relevance and trust, and at its core, nothing has changed. What has changed is which links count and how you get them.
This entry describes the strategy and the rules. Concrete methods for stores are shown in the entry on link acquisition.
Why link building is especially hard for online stores
Nobody voluntarily links to a category page with 80 products. Editors, blogs and associations link to content that gives their readers something: a well-founded guide, your own analysis, a useful tool. This is exactly where many stores go wrong. They want links to the pages that sell, and that is why they don’t get any.
The solution is a detour that works: links land on content that deserves recommendations, such as a guide “How to choose the right trail shoes”. From there, the store links internally to the matching categories and passes on part of the strength gained. How this transfer works is described in the entry on internal link popularity.
What makes a good link
Topical relevance: A link from a running magazine is worth more to a running shoe store than ten links from random sites.
A real website with real readers: Google recognises sites that exist only to sell links and devalues them.
Editorial context: A link in the middle of a relevant article carries more weight than one in a footer or a link list.
The right target: The link leads to the page that matches the content, not to the homepage across the board.
Natural anchor text: Sometimes the store name, sometimes a description, sometimes a term. If a conspicuous number of links carry exactly the same keyword as anchor text, it looks engineered.
The best test is a simple question: would you still want this link if Google didn’t exist? If it brings visitors who are a good fit for you, the answer is yes.
From bought links to earned links
In the early years of search engine optimisation, links were easy to manipulate. Many people bought or rented them in bulk; link farms and networks of shadow domains served only this purpose. With the Penguin update in 2012, Google began to devalue such links consistently. Since 2016, Penguin has been part of the core algorithm, and the AI-based system SpamBrain now detects link spam largely automatically. Bought and swapped links therefore bring nothing at best today. At worst, they lead to a manual action and a loss of visibility.
The rules: what is allowed and what isn’t
Against Google’s guidelines:
Bought links without labelling, even if they are inserted inconspicuously into existing articles.
Systematic [link exchanges](lt) along the lines of “you link to me, I link to you”, as well as triangular schemes via a third website.
Private blog networks and other sites run only for links.
Guest posts in bulk whose main purpose is the link.
Unproblematic:
Natural links between partners when they help users, such as a manufacturer linking to its retailers.
Paid placements with the “sponsored” attribute: They pass on no ranking strength, but they don’t hurt either and can bring valuable visitors.
Links in comments and forums with “ugc” and links marked “nofollow”.
A natural link profile is a mix of all of these. It grows steadily with a company’s profile. A new store that suddenly gets dozens of links from large portals stands out.
A link building strategy in five questions
Which pages should get stronger? Usually a few important categories and the guides that link to them.
Who are the potential linkers? Specialist magazines, associations, manufacturers, clubs, regional media, blogs in your topic area.
What content is missing for them to link? A guide, an analysis of your own data, a calculator, a checklist.
Where do competitors stand? A backlink analysis shows who links to them and which sources are also within your reach.
How is it measured? By the number of new, topically relevant referring domains, the rankings of the target pages and the visitors who arrive via links.
Mentions without links and AI search
Not every recommendation needs a link. When your store is mentioned by name in specialist articles, forums or comparisons, this strengthens your perception as a brand, as an entity in the sense of entity SEO. For AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity, such mentions are especially important. They derive a brand’s credibility from what others write about it. This makes link building broader: it is about reputation, not just links. More on this under Generative Engine Optimization and E-E-A-T.
Bad links and how to deal with them
Every website collects links from low-quality sites over time. Google ignores most of them on its own. The disavow tool, which asks Google not to count certain links, only makes sense in exceptional cases: after a manual action, or if links were deliberately bought in the past. Using it preventively and on a large scale can, in the worst case, also devalue good links.
Just as important: metrics such as Domain Rating or Domain Authority come from tool providers, not from Google. They help with comparisons, but they are not Google’s assessment and not a goal in themselves.
How to create content that deserves recommendations is shown on content for online stores. How link building fits into the overall strategy is described on SEO for online stores.
Good links can’t be bought, only earned. Build content that others are happy to point to, and you get links as a side effect, and they last longer than any campaign.