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DMB : Link Building: Hero Section
Link Building

Every link building page says white-hat. Here's what we actually do.

Some of these tactics are how PR has always worked. Some of them are paid placements that Google's policy names directly. We'll tell you which is which, what each one costs you in risk, and let you pick the level you're comfortable with.

Get a free backlink audit (877) 522-7738

Standards agreed in writing · Every placement and cost disclosed · Removal on request, at our cost

DMB — Link Building: 02 Proof Bar
Your standards Minimum traffic and exclusions, set by you up front
Every URL shown With what each placement cost, monthly
Risk labelled Each tactic marked, not repackaged
No DA metrics We report traffic and rankings instead
DMB : Link Building: Risk Spectrum Section
Choose your level

Five tactics. Different speeds, different exposure.

These are the same five services every link building agency sells. The difference is that we'll say out loud which ones Google's link spam policy describes, because you're the one carrying the consequence, so you should be the one choosing.

What we can build, and what it costs you in risk Slowest and safest first
Digital PR & earned coverage We pitch journalists a genuine story, original data, an expert comment, a newsworthy angle. The publication decides whether to run it and whether to link. No money changes hands for the link. This is how PR has always worked. SpeedSlow RiskNone
Unlinked mention conversion Someone already wrote about you without linking. We find those mentions and ask the author to add the link. You've already earned the coverage, this just completes it. SpeedMedium RiskNone
Resource page & broken link outreach We find pages listing tools or references in your field, or pages linking to something that no longer exists, and suggest your content as a fit. Editorial decision, no payment. SpeedMedium RiskLow
Guest posting We write an article and place it on a site in your sector, with a link back. Sites that accept guest posts at volume usually charge a placement fee. Google's link spam policy names guest posting done primarily for links. Whether a given placement reads as genuine contribution or as a paid slot depends entirely on the site. SpeedFast RiskModerate
Niche edits We pay a site owner to insert your link into an article they already published. It works because the page is aged and indexed. This is a paid link, and Google's policy on exchanging money for links covers it directly. Nobody in the industry describes it that way, but that's what it is. SpeedFastest RiskHighest
Most clients run a mix, weighted toward the top. We'll recommend where to sit based on how much of your revenue depends on organic search, a business with 70% of its pipeline from Google should be far more cautious than one where search is a secondary channel. That's your call to make, and you can only make it if someone tells you what the options actually are.
DMB : Link Building: Policy Section
The part usually skipped

What actually happens if Google notices.

Agencies tend to describe this in one of two ways: it's completely safe, or your site will be destroyed. Neither is accurate, and the real answer is more useful.

The likely outcome

The link stops counting

Most of the time, Google's systems identify a paid link and simply discount it. No warning, no notification, no penalty, the link just stops passing any ranking value.

The practical consequence isn't a disaster. It's that you paid for something that quietly does nothing, and you may never know which ones. That's the ordinary risk, and it's a budget risk more than an existential one.

The less likely outcome

A manual action

A human reviewer at Google can issue a manual action for unnatural links. It appears in Search Console, it can affect specific pages or the whole site, and rankings drop until it's resolved.

Recovery means removing or disavowing the links and filing a reconsideration request. It's survivable and people do it, but it takes weeks to months, and the traffic doesn't come back until it's done.

Manual actions for paid links are uncommon and usually follow either scale or carelessness. Being told the risk is zero should worry you more than being told it exists.

DMB : Link Building: Metrics Section
Measurement

We don't report Domain Authority.

DA is a third-party score invented by an SEO software company. It's a useful rough filter when evaluating a site, and it is not something Google uses. An agency reporting monthly DA gains is showing you movement in a number that doesn't appear in any ranking system.

We report

Referring domains gained

How many distinct sites now link to you, with every URL listed. Countable, verifiable, and yours to check.

We don't report

Domain Authority movement

A Moz score. Not used by Google. Goes up when you buy links from sites with high DA, which is circular.

We report

Rankings on the target pages

The specific pages we built links to, tracked against the specific terms they're meant to rank for.

We don't report

Total backlink count

One good link beats two hundred bad ones. A rising total tells you nothing about whether anything improved.

We report

Referral traffic from placements

Whether real people clicked. Often the honest answer is very few, and that's worth knowing, because a link nobody clicks is worth only its ranking value.

We report

What each placement cost

Placement fees passed through at cost, itemised. You'll know which domains were paid for and how much.

DMB : Link Building: Limits Section
Limits

Where we stop, even if you ask.

Being open about buying placements isn't the same as having no line. These four are excluded from every engagement, not because they don't work in the short term, but because the ones that do work briefly tend to cost more later than they ever returned.


  • Private blog networks

    Networks of sites built solely to sell links. They get identified as networks, and when one goes down every site linked from it is affected at once. The failure mode is correlated, which is what makes it worse than it looks.


  • Automated or bulk link placement

    Software-generated comments, forum profiles, directory blasts. Cheap, fast, worthless, and the strongest signal you can send that your link profile was manufactured.


  • Sites with no real audience

    If a site has a high third-party score and no organic traffic, the score is the product. We check actual traffic before recommending any domain, paid or earned.


  • Exact-match anchor text at volume

    Fifty links all reading "personal injury lawyer Richmond" is the easiest unnatural pattern to detect. Anchors get varied deliberately, which sometimes means the anchor you wanted isn't the anchor you get.

DMB : Link Building: Process Section
How it runs

You set the bar. We work to it.

Approving every domain individually sounds reassuring and works badly, sign-off takes weeks, good placements get taken in the meantime, and you end up doing our job. So the standard gets agreed once, in writing, and everything is disclosed after.

01 / Audit

Your existing profile

What you already have, including anything toxic inherited from a previous agency. Occasionally the first useful action is removal, not acquisition.

Weeks 1 to 2
02 / Set

Standards & exclusions

Minimum organic traffic per domain, relevance requirements, which tactics are in scope, and a do-not-place list, competitors, sectors, anywhere you don't want your brand appearing. Signed off once.

Week 2
03 / Build

Against the standard

We source and place without waiting on sign-off, working to the bar you set. If something lands somewhere you object to, we get it removed at our cost, that's the remedy, and it's a real one.

Ongoing
04 / Report

Links, costs, rankings

Every URL, what it cost, and what happened to the target page's rankings. Including the months where nothing moved.

Monthly
DMB : Link Building: Pricing Section
What it costs

Our fee, and the placement cost, separately.

Most link building is quoted as one number per link, which hides how much went to the publisher and how much to the agency. Splitting it means you can judge both.

From $2,500 / month

Management fee. Placement costs are passed through at cost on top, itemised per domain, no markup between what the publisher charged and what appears on your invoice.

  • Placement costs at cost. You see what each site charged. Rates vary enormously by sector and traffic, so a single blended per-link price would be a fiction.
  • Never priced per link. Per-link pricing rewards volume, and volume is what makes a profile look built rather than grown.
  • Standards and exclusions set by you, in writing, before we start. If a placement breaches them, we remove it at our cost.
  • Risk level agreed in writing. Which tactics are in scope and which aren't, set at the start and not quietly widened.
  • Month-to-month after the first quarter. Link building takes time to show, but not so much that you should be locked in for a year to find out.
DMB : Link Building: FAQ Section
Questions

Before you call.

Is this white-hat? +
Partly, and we won't pretend otherwise. Digital PR, unlinked mention conversion, and resource page outreach are genuinely earned, no money changes hands for the link. Guest posting and niche edits usually involve a placement fee, and Google's link spam policy covers paid links. Every agency selling these calls them white-hat. The term exists to describe the opposite. You should decide with that on the table rather than find out later.
What's the actual risk to my site? +
Most likely, a paid link gets identified and discounted, no penalty, no notification, it just stops passing value. You paid for something inert. Less likely but real: a manual action for unnatural links, which appears in Search Console and drops rankings until you remove or disavow the links and file a reconsideration request. That's weeks to months of recovery. Manual actions for paid links are uncommon and usually follow scale or carelessness, but "uncommon" is not "impossible," and anyone telling you the risk is zero is telling you something they can't know.
Why don't you report Domain Authority? +
Because Google doesn't use it. DA is a score built by Moz, an SEO software company, to estimate ranking ability. It's a reasonable rough filter when assessing whether a site is worth approaching, and it is not a ranking factor. Reporting monthly DA gains means showing you movement in a third-party number, and since DA rises when you acquire links from high-DA sites, an agency selling DA improvement through link buying is reporting on its own inputs. We report referring domains, target page rankings, and referral traffic instead.
How many links do I need per month? +
Fewer than most agencies will quote you. A sudden jump from three referring domains to sixty is itself an unnatural pattern, regardless of how good each link is. The right pace depends on your existing profile, your competitors' profiles, and how established your domain is, the audit works this out. In competitive sectors it's usually a handful a month, sustained, rather than a burst.
How long until rankings move? +
Links need to be crawled and processed before they count, which takes weeks. Then the effect has to be large enough to show against everything else moving. Realistically: four to eight weeks before the first links are indexed, three to six months before you can attribute a ranking change to link building with any confidence. Anyone promising movement in thirty days is describing something other than links.
Do you do white label link building for agencies? +
Yes, on one condition: your client has to know what they're buying. We'll deliver under your brand and stay invisible, but we won't help present niche edits to an end client as white-hat earned coverage. If you're comfortable being straight with your client about the tactic mix, the arrangement works. If the model depends on them not knowing, we're the wrong supplier.
Do I get to approve each site before you place a link? +
Not domain by domain, and we'd argue that's better for you. Per-placement approval sounds reassuring but works badly in practice: sign-off routinely takes a week or two, the opportunities we sourced get taken by someone else in the meantime, and you end up doing quality control on a list of unfamiliar domains. What you get instead is control over the standard, minimum organic traffic, relevance requirements, and a do-not-place list covering competitors, sectors, or any site type you don't want associated with your brand. We work to that bar, disclose every URL and cost monthly, and remove any placement you object to at our cost. You keep the outcome you actually wanted without the bottleneck.
Can you clean up links from a previous agency? +
Yes, and it's occasionally the first thing we recommend. The audit identifies inherited placements from private blog networks, obvious link farms, and sites with scores but no audience. Some can be removed by contacting the site; the rest can be disavowed. Worth saying: Google discounts most low-quality links automatically now, so disavowing isn't the urgent task it once was, it matters most when there's a manual action or a genuinely large volume of paid links behind you.
DMB — Link Building: Related Links Section
Explore further

Looking for one specific thing?

Digital PR services Search engine optimization SEO audit services Technical SEO Content marketing SEO content writing Local SEO Enterprise SEO Yext advertising
DMB — Link Building: Final CTA Section
Next step

We'll tell you what you already bought.

Send us your domain. We'll go through your existing backlink profile, flag what looks bought, what looks earned, and what looks like it's already being ignored, including links a previous agency told you were white-hat. Findings are yours whether you hire us or not.

Get a free backlink audit (877) 522-7738

Just your domain · No obligation · Findings are yours to keep