A resource by Hartzer.com
Learn link building properly, for free
50 lessons across 9 modules, plus honest profiles of 34 link building tactics — including the ones that do not work. No signup, no email gate, no upsell.
Course modules
Start with a tactic
Every tactic carries a visible risk grade. We say plainly when something is dead, when it wastes money, and when it carries risk the vendor selling it will not mention.
Three ways a link is acquired
Graded by risk, not by fashion
- Safe Defensible under Google's link spam policies on its face. 15
- Situational Safe executed well; a problem at volume or executed carelessly. 8
- High risk In violation of published guidelines, reliably ineffective, or both. 8
- Obsolete Not risky. Gone. Documented so you recognize it. 3
The research behind this course
Most claims about links in this industry are assertions. So I exported twenty years of my own backlink data — 1,301,839 links from 22,260 referring domains, not one of them ever bought — and measured them. The full study is published here, including the parts that reflect badly on me.
- 1,080 daysThe median referring domain stops linking after just under three years. Half the profile is already gone.
- 97.4%Of 645,202 lost links, the share that disappeared while the source page was still perfectly reachable. Four were lost to a 404.
- 69.3%Referring domains at Trust Flow 0 — on a profile where nothing was ever bought. Junk links are the default state.
Written by Bill Hartzer
Twenty-five years in search, domain names and expert witness work. Majestic Brand Ambassador. This site exists because the good material on link building is scattered, and most of it is selling something.