Thread by Tibo (@tibo_maker)

backlinks are the most misunderstood part of SEO most businesses either: • over-optimize them • buy garbage links at scale • or use backlinks to compensate for weak content that’s how backlinks turn from an asset into a liability backlinks actually work when they come from: • authoritative sites • relevant niches • contextual editorial placements one solid link from a site Google already trusts beats hundreds of random directory or pbn links. especially for newer sites, links from frequently crawled domains can speed up indexing and early visibility when they hurt (or do nothing): low-quality links, link farms, comment spam, irrelevant directories, and “agency-controlled” links that can disappear later are worse than useless. Google’s recent spam updates wiped out thousands of sites that chased volume instead of relevance if your content isn’t strong, backlinks just amplify the problem what to fix before building links: - nail content and technical SEO first if your pages don’t satisfy intent, links won’t save you - prioritize quality over quantity 5–10 niche-relevant, editorial links > 500 random ones - keep your link profile natural mix dofollow and nofollow. audit and clean up toxic links regularly this is exactly why we built Outrank the way we did Outrank focuses on: • building content pages that deserves links • covering topics deeply and holistically • helping teams earn links naturally, not manufacture them backlinks don’t fix weak sites, they only scale what already works