Most backlink advice still treats link building like a numbers game: more links, higher domain rating, better rankings. That math stopped working. Over the past two years Google has rewritten how it reads links, and a lot of the tactics that used to be safe bets now do nothing, or quietly hold your site back.
If you run SEO for an eCommerce brand and you are trying to figure out which links are still worth chasing in 2026, this is the workflow we use. It covers the audit, the research, the tactics that still earn rankings, and the ones worth retiring.
Overview
- Backlinks remain a ranking signal, but Google now evaluates them in real time and ignores most low-quality links instead of penalizing them.
- The December 2024 and October 2025 spam updates devalued link networks, paid placements, and AI-generated guest-post farms, so volume-first tactics carry real risk.
- The links that move rankings now come from genuine authority: digital PR, original data, expert sourcing, and brand mentions, including the ones large language models cite.
π Quick takeaway
The goal is no longer “more links.” It is fewer links from places that would link to you whether or not you asked.
Do backlinks still matter for SEO in 2026?
Yes. Backlinks are still one of the signals Google uses to judge whether a page deserves to rank, and for competitive eCommerce queries they remain one of the clearest ways to separate two pages with similar content. What changed is how the signal is read.
Google now reassesses a site’s link profile continuously with machine learning rather than reacting to spam after the fact. In practice that means a weak or manipulative link rarely earns a penalty anymore. It simply gets ignored, so the time and budget spent acquiring it returns nothing. The upside is real for links that pass: a relevant link from a site people actually read still lifts rankings and sends qualified traffic.
π Quick takeaway
A bad link in 2026 usually will not hurt you. It will waste you. That is the more expensive problem at scale.
What changed: Google’s 2024 and 2025 link spam updates
Two updates reset the rules. The December 2024 link spam update targeted link networks that had operated undetected for years, and the October 2025 spam update went further, naming AI-generated guest-post farms, sites publishing thin machine-written content only to embed paid links, as their own violation category.
The pattern behind both is consistent. Google’s own spam policies now treat large-scale link buying and exchange schemes as a domain-level risk, not a per-link one. Guest-post networks that repositioned themselves as “content marketing” after earlier enforcement were caught in the same net. SEO teams also saw a sharp drop in the number of external backlinks Google indexed at all, including links from high-authority domains, because Google stopped counting links it judged to be placed for ranking rather than for readers.
One more change worth flagging for anyone still working from a pre-2024 playbook: HARO, the press-query service that built thousands of links for SEO teams, was discontinued by Cision on December 9, 2024. The brand was revived by Featured.com in April 2025, but the free, high-volume version many guides recommended no longer exists.
π Quick takeaway
If a tactic scales cheaply and anyone can buy it, Google has probably already learned to discount it.
How to run a backlink audit
Before you build anything, look at what you already have. An audit tells you whether your link profile is healthy, where the easy wins are, and whether anything needs cleaning up. Start with your competitors so you have a benchmark, then turn the same lens on your own site.
Run each main competitor through Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz and note their domain rating, referring domains, link types, and growth pattern. This shows you where you stand before you spend a cent.
Check the anchor text competitors earn. A profile that is heavy on exact-match commercial anchors is a warning sign, not a model to copy. Natural profiles lean toward branded and URL anchors.
Then audit your own profile:
- Export your live, broken, and lost backlinks and sort them by domain rating.
- Flag links from sites under DR 30, and look closely at anything that looks paid, networked, or off-topic.
- Watch for unnatural spikes or drops in referring domains. A sudden climb can signal a low-quality campaign you inherited, and a sharp fall can flag links Google has stopped counting.
If you find a cluster of spammy links that looks capable of triggering a manual action, build a disavow file and submit it in Google Search Console. For most sites this is no longer urgent, since Google ignores rather than penalizes most junk, but it still matters when you have inherited a genuinely manipulated profile. Our guide to toxic backlinks walks through how to tell the difference, and a broader technical SEO audit puts link health in context with the rest of your site.
π Quick takeaway
Audit competitors first. You cannot tell whether your link profile is thin or healthy until you know what winning looks like in your niche.
Backlink research: finding links worth earning
Once you know where you stand, find the gap. The backlink gap is the difference between the referring domains pointing at you and the ones pointing at the competitors who outrank you. It is the most reliable shortlist of links worth pursuing, because someone has already proven those sites will link to a page like yours.
Export your top competitors’ backlinks, then filter hard. Drop no-follow links with no traffic value, foreign-language pages, and anything from a site you would not want your brand next to. What remains is your replicable list: the pages where a link to you would genuinely add value for that page’s readers. Sort by referring-domain quality so you work the highest-value opportunities first.
π Quick takeaway
The best link prospects are not “high DR sites.” They are sites already linking to three of your competitors and not yet to you.
Link-building tactics that still work in 2026
After the spam updates, the tactics that survive share one trait: they earn links from people who chose to link, because the thing you made was worth citing. These still work.
Digital PR and original data
The strongest link earner now is something genuinely new: a survey, a benchmark, a piece of proprietary data, or a strong point of view tied to a current event. Journalists and bloggers link to sources, so give them a source. For eCommerce brands this can be conversion benchmarks from your category, a pricing study, or seasonal demand data. One original chart can earn more authoritative links than months of outreach for generic content.
Replicable links
If a competitor earned a link with a resource, ask whether you have something better: more current data, a clearer explanation, an upgraded graphic. If you do, reach out to the linking page and make the case. This is the modern version of the old broken-link tactic, and it still works because you are offering the page an improvement, not a favor.
Selective guest contributions
Guest posting is not dead, but the version that scaled is. A single, genuinely useful article on a respected, niche-relevant publication still carries weight. A subscription to a network that places the same article on 40 thin sites is now a liability. Pitch publications you would read yourself, and treat the link as a byproduct of the audience, not the point.
Expert sourcing
With HARO gone, expert-sourcing demand moved to Featured.com, Qwoted, and journalist requests on social platforms. The mechanic is the same: answer a reporter’s question well enough to be quoted, and earn a link from a domain you could never pitch cold. Quality of answer is everything, since editors now filter hard for substance.
Brand mentions, including in AI answers
Unlinked mentions of your brand are link opportunities: find them with an alert tool and ask for the link. But mentions matter beyond classic SEO now. Large language models increasingly cite the brands and sources they reference in answers, and those citations are becoming their own discovery channel. We cover how to track this in our guide to brand mentions in AI answers, and it is a core part of answer engine optimization.
π Quick takeaway
Every tactic that still works has the same shape: make something worth citing, then make sure the right people see it.
Tactics to retire, and what replaced them
| Retire | Why | Replace with |
|---|---|---|
| Bulk directory submissions | Ignored at best, a pattern signal at worst | A handful of relevant industry and local listings |
| Guest-post networks | Named in the October 2025 spam update | One strong placement on a publication you respect |
| Buying links | Domain-level penalty risk | Digital PR and original data |
| Exact-match anchor campaigns | Reads as manipulation | Branded and natural-language anchors |
| Chasing DR alone | DR does not equal relevance | Topical relevance plus real readership |
The through-line: anything you can buy at volume, Google has learned to discount. Budget moves better into things that are hard to fake.
How many backlinks do you need to rank?
There is no fixed number, and chasing one is the wrong frame. What matters is the gap between your referring domains and those of the pages currently ranking for your target query, weighted by quality. For a low-competition long-tail term you may already have enough, and the work is on-page and content depth. For a competitive commercial term you may need a handful of strong, relevant links rather than dozens of weak ones. Pull the SERP, measure the gap, and set the target from real data instead of a benchmark from a blog post.
π Quick takeaway
“How many links” is the wrong question. “How big is my referring-domain gap on this specific query” is the one that produces a plan.
How scandiweb approaches link building for eCommerce
We treat links as one input to an eCommerce SEO program, not a standalone service to be bought by the dozen. That means the audit and the gap analysis come first, link work is tied to pages that can convert the traffic, and every tactic is one that would survive a Google spam update.
It is the same approach behind our SEO program for Macron, where a structured program contributed to a +65.8% revenue increase year over year. Across more than 2,100 eCommerce projects since 2003, the pattern holds: durable rankings come from authority you earn, not links you rent. If you want the fundamentals in one place, our eCommerce SEO crash course is a good starting point.
π Quick takeaway
Links work best when they point at pages built to convert. A great link to a weak page is a wasted introduction.
Frequently asked questions
What is backlink building?
Backlink building is the process of earning links from other websites to yours. Each link acts as a signal of trust that can improve search visibility, and the modern version focuses on earning relevant, editorial links rather than acquiring as many as possible.
Are directory and listing links bad for SEO?
A few relevant industry or local directories are fine and can help local visibility. The problem is bulk submission to hundreds of low-quality directories, which Google now ignores and can read as a manipulation pattern.
Is guest posting still worth it in 2026?
Selective guest posting on respected, niche-relevant publications still works. Subscribing to networks that place the same article across many thin sites does not, and was named in Google’s October 2025 spam update.
How long does link building take to affect rankings?
Plan for three to six months before earned links show a clear ranking effect. Digital PR can land faster when a story gets picked up, but durable movement comes from a steady profile built over time.
Do backlinks influence AI Overviews and LLM answers?
Indirectly, yes. Authoritative coverage and brand mentions help language models recognize you as a credible source, which affects whether they cite you. This overlaps with link building but is best managed as part of answer engine optimization.
What domain rating should a linking site have?
There is no hard cutoff. Relevance and real readership matter more than the score. A DR 40 site in your niche that drives traffic is usually worth more than a DR 80 general site that does not.
Not sure whether your link profile is helping your rankings or quietly holding them back? That is the first thing we check in an eCommerce SEO program. Talk to our SEO team and we will start with a look at your profile and your biggest competitors’ gaps.
About this guide
Maintained by the scandiweb SEO team. Reviewed by the scandiweb Digital Growth team. Last updated May 2026.
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