Key Takeaways
- Backlinks still move the needle: in large-scale studies, the #1 Google result has about 3.8x more backlinks than positions 2-10, and pages without links almost never get search traffic, which means B2B brands without a link strategy are nearly invisible to buyers.
- Do not treat buying backlinks like buying leads; cheap link packages, PBNs, and obvious marketplaces can trigger Google penalties and wipe out an entire organic pipeline your SDRs rely on.
- High quality backlinks are expensive: surveys put the average cost of a strong link around $500–$600, and over 50% of marketers now spend more than $300 per link, so you need a revenue-based ROI model, not a vanity-SEO mindset.
- The best place to invest in backlinks is not a single marketplace, but a mix of channels that produce editorially earned links: digital PR, guest thought leadership, partner and customer co-marketing, and reputable industry directories.
- Link building and sales development should be joined at the hip: your SDR sequences, outbound emails, and event follow-up are powerful engines for earning legitimate links through interviews, collaborations, and case studies.
- Risk management matters: align every paid placement with Google spam policies (sponsored or nofollow when appropriate), diversify anchors, and vet domains for real traffic and relevance to protect long-term rankings.
- Bottom line: if you are a B2B revenue leader, stop looking for the best place to buy backlinks and start building a repeatable, compliant, relationship-driven link acquisition program that compounds pipeline over time.
Stop Looking for a “Best Place to Buy Backlinks”
If you’re searching for the best place to buy backlinks, it usually means one thing: organic has stalled, paid channels are getting pricier, and someone on the revenue team wants a faster path to pipeline. We get it—B2B SEO can feel slow when a CRO is staring at CAC and next quarter’s number. But in 2025, “buy links” is often shorthand for “buy risk” unless you approach it like a compliant, revenue-driven distribution strategy.
Backlinks still influence rankings, and rankings still influence revenue—but the old playbook of cheap link packages, PBNs, and “dofollow guaranteed” placements is the fastest way to erase organic demand overnight. In practical terms, that can starve the same SDR motion you’re counting on to convert hand-raisers and warm up outbound. So the goal isn’t to find a secret marketplace; it’s to build a repeatable program that earns editorial links and protects your brand.
In this guide, we’ll reframe link building the way B2B leaders should: as a channel you can budget, forecast, and operationalize. We’ll connect links to actual buyer behavior, show where money can be spent safely (content, PR, partnerships, directories), and lay down guardrails that keep your site out of penalty territory. The end result is a playbook that helps SalesHive clients compound visibility while our outbound engine turns that visibility into meetings.
Why Backlinks Still Gatekeep B2B Visibility
The “links don’t matter anymore” narrative falls apart the moment you look at the distribution of traffic. Ahrefs data cited in industry analysis shows 66.31% of pages have zero backlinks, and a separate Ahrefs study found 96.55% of pages get no Google organic traffic at all. That’s the harsh reality: most content never gets discovered because it never earns authority signals.
On the flip side, competitive winners tend to have meaningfully stronger link profiles. Backlinko’s large-scale analysis found the #1 result has about 3.8x more backlinks than results in positions 2–10, which is why “good enough content” often plateaus in B2B categories. If your category is crowded and your competitors are investing, your link gap becomes a pipeline gap.
That gap matters because buyers prefer to self-educate long before they’ll talk to sales. Research cited in buyer studies shows 88% of B2B buyers do online research before purchasing and many start on Google, while other compiled research reports 81% start their process with a search engine. Add Gartner’s finding that 61% prefer a rep-free buying experience and 73% avoid irrelevant outreach, and the message is clear: if you’re not visible in search, both inbound and outbound get harder.
What “Buying Backlinks” Really Means (and Where It Breaks)
When teams say they want to buy backlinks, they usually mean paying for placements that pass ranking value. That’s exactly what Google has warned against for years: buying and selling links intended to manipulate rankings violates spam policies, and it can lead to manual actions or algorithmic devaluation. The risk isn’t theoretical—if organic is a meaningful acquisition path, a link-related penalty can cause a sudden demand shock that takes months to unwind.
There’s also an economic reality most B2B teams underestimate. Editorial Link survey data cited in 2025 stats reporting puts the average cost of a strong link at about $508.95, and more than half of marketers pay over $300 per link. Meanwhile, agencies and in-house teams commonly allocate roughly 32.1% and 36.03% of SEO budgets to link building, which tells you this is a real line item—not a quick hack.
The practical takeaway is that you should buy content and distribution, not “link juice.” The safest spend is on assets that deserve citations—original research, strong thought leadership, and partner co-marketing—then promoting them through legitimate channels where links are a natural byproduct. To make the differences concrete, here’s how we think about common spend paths in B2B link building.
| Spend Approach | What You’re Really Buying | Risk Profile | Best Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap link packages | Volume placements on unknown sites | High | Avoid; rarely helps pipeline |
| Paid guest content / sponsored posts | Content + distribution on a known publication | Medium (use sponsored/nofollow when appropriate) | Brand visibility plus referral traffic |
| Digital PR | Editorial coverage earned through newsworthiness | Low | Authority-building for TOFU assets |
| Industry directories / review sites | Discovery placement where buyers compare vendors | Low | BOFU visibility and trust signals |
Build a Revenue-First Link Plan (Not a Vanity SEO Plan)
Before you spend a dollar, decide how rankings translate into revenue. We recommend mapping target keywords to funnel stages and tying each target page to a measurable conversion event: demo requests, trial starts, contact forms, or high-intent lead magnets. This prevents the classic mistake of building links to blog posts that look impressive in an SEO report but never touch MQLs, SQLs, or closed-won.
Next, audit what’s already working using SEO tools plus your CRM attribution. Identify which pages influence opportunities, where you’re under-linked versus competitors, and whether your anchor profile looks natural. If your team is also evaluating sales outsourcing or an outsourced sales team to increase coverage, this alignment matters even more because you want the SEO program feeding the same ICP and the same messaging your SDR agency is running in outbound.
Finally, plan for timelines and expectations. Most B2B teams see meaningful link-driven movement in 3–6 months, and competitive categories can take 6–12 months to fully compound—so treat link building like a medium-term growth investment, not next-quarter quota relief. The upside is that when it works, it lowers blended CAC and makes every motion—content, partnerships, and even cold email agency outreach—more effective because prospects recognize your brand.
If you can’t explain how a link investment turns into demos and opportunities, you don’t have a link strategy—you have an SEO expense.
Where to Invest: Channels That Earn Legitimate Links
The “best place” to invest isn’t a single marketplace—it’s a mix of channels where links happen because your content is useful and your distribution is credible. Digital PR is the most scalable example: publish a data-driven asset, pitch a real angle, and earn editorial citations that are hard for competitors to replicate. This is also where relevance matters more than vanity metrics; a niche industry publication with real readership can outperform a random high-DR site that never reaches your buyers.
Thought leadership and contributed content can work when the primary value is audience fit and insight, not a guaranteed dofollow. In B2B, we like guest features that showcase expertise and point back to a genuinely helpful resource, such as a benchmark report or a deep solution guide. If there’s payment involved (sponsorships, paid distribution), handle it transparently and use the right link attributes when appropriate so you’re not building a long-term compliance problem.
Partnership and customer co-marketing is often the highest ROI channel because it can generate both backlinks and referrals. Joint webinars, co-authored case studies, integration pages, and association partnerships create a natural reason for another site to link to you—and those links tend to be highly relevant. This is where we often see link building intersect with outbound sales agency work: the same partner conversations that create revenue can also create durable authority.
Common Link Buying Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
The most expensive mistake is buying cheap, bulk backlink packages from generic sellers. Those links frequently come from networks, thin sites, or spammy placements that Google is incentivized to ignore—or worse, flag. Even when the site “seems fine,” unnatural patterns across dozens or hundreds of similar placements can build a risk profile that’s hard to diagnose until rankings drop.
The next mistake is chasing Domain Rating over relevance and traffic. A link that will never be seen by your buyers won’t drive qualified referral traffic, and it often won’t move the rankings that matter because topical relevance is weak. Instead, prioritize domains that share your audience, demonstrate real organic visibility, and publish content where a citation makes editorial sense—even if the metrics look less flashy.
Finally, don’t over-optimize anchor text or try to brute-force “money keyword” anchors like “b2b cold calling services” or “cold calling agency” across paid placements. In healthy profiles, most anchors are branded, natural phrases, or URL-based, with only a small minority being exact-match. If you want those keywords to rank, invest in content that truly deserves to rank, then earn links that cite it naturally; it’s safer and it performs better over time.
Make SDR Outreach a Link Engine (Not Just a Meeting Machine)
Most B2B teams separate SEO from sales development, and that’s a missed opportunity. Your reps already talk to partners, customers, podcasts, communities, and niche publications—exactly the relationships that produce high-trust mentions and links. With a simple playbook, SDRs can introduce co-marketing ideas (interviews, roundups, case studies, webinars) that earn editorial links while still driving meetings.
At SalesHive, we’ve seen the compounding effect firsthand: strong search visibility plus disciplined outbound creates a flywheel. When prospects recognize your brand from search, cold email and cold call services perform better because the message lands with more trust. And when your outbound team is trained to offer value—data, expert commentary, co-marketing—your “link building” starts to look like relationship building, not transactional placement buying.
This also supports partner and channel growth, not just SEO. If you’re running a b2b sales agency model internally or you outsource sales to extend coverage, bake “link opportunities” into the same account planning process: target associations, integration partners, and complementary vendors. The best outcomes are the ones where the backlink is simply evidence that a real business relationship exists.
How to Measure, Optimize, and Keep the Program Safe
If you measure success only by referring domains or DR, you’ll naturally drift toward risky shortcuts. A better scoreboard connects SEO to revenue: growth in non-branded traffic to high-intent pages, demo requests from organic, and opportunity influence where organic was a meaningful touch. This is where B2B teams can be more rigorous than consumer brands because you can validate impact directly in your CRM.
Build simple guardrails before you scale spend. Document what you will not buy (PBNs, link farms, bulk packages), how you’ll evaluate sites (relevance, real traffic, editorial standards), and how you’ll handle paid placements (proper disclosures and link attributes when needed). If you do work with vendors, qualify them like you qualify prospects: ask for sample placements, sourcing methodology, and proof they can earn links without relying on generic lists.
Looking ahead, link building will remain a core authority signal even as search experiences evolve, because engines still need ways to distinguish real expertise from synthetic noise. The teams that win won’t be the ones who found a “best place to buy backlinks,” but the ones who operationalized a compliant distribution system—research, partnerships, PR, and sales-enabled outreach—that compounds month after month. If you want to accelerate that flywheel while keeping pipeline steady, pairing SEO with a proven SDR engine (from list building services to a scalable cold calling team) is often the most practical next step.
Sources
📊 Key Statistics
Expert Insights
Treat Link Building as a Revenue Channel, Not an SEO Hobby
Before you even ask where to buy backlinks, decide how improved rankings will translate into demos, opportunities, and closed-won revenue. Map target keywords to funnel stages, then prioritize link efforts on pages that actually generate MQLs and SQLs, not vanity blog posts that never touch pipeline.
Use Your SDRs as Relationship Builders, Not Just Meeting Setters
Your outbound reps talk to partners, customers, and influencers all day. Turn some of those conversations into co-authored content, joint webinars, and case studies that naturally earn links on partner sites. Give SDRs a simple playbook and content templates so they can open doors for marketing while still hitting meeting quotas.
Buy Content and Distribution, Not Links in Isolation
The safest way to spend money in link building is to pay for great content and legit distribution: sponsored research, digital PR campaigns, or authoritative guest features. When you control the narrative and earn editorially placed links on relevant sites, you get both brand lift and SEO value without tripping Google's link scheme alarms.
Qualify Link Vendors Like You Qualify Prospects
If you do work with a link building agency or marketplace, run a discovery process just like a sales cycle. Ask for sample placements, organic traffic screenshots, and clarity on how they source sites. If they cannot explain their process in plain language or rely on huge generic lists, assume you are buying risk, not results.
Align Metrics With Sales, Not Just Domain Rating
Measuring only referring domains or Domain Rating can push your team toward risky, irrelevant links. Instead, track assisted conversions, demo requests, and opportunity-influenced revenue from organic search. That lens naturally steers you toward reputable industry publications and partner content over cheap, high-DA junk.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Buying cheap bulk backlink packages from generic marketplaces
These often come from private blog networks, hacked sites, or spammy directories that can trigger algorithmic devaluations or even manual actions, causing massive traffic drops and starving your sales team of inbound demand.
Instead: Avoid any vendor selling hundreds of links for a few hundred dollars. Focus your budget on fewer, higher-quality placements on relevant, real sites and invest heavily in content and relationships that can earn links organically.
Chasing Domain Rating over relevance and traffic
High-DR sites that have nothing to do with your niche or have thin traffic profiles rarely send qualified visitors or meaningful authority, so you wind up with a prettier Ahrefs graph and no impact on pipeline.
Instead: Prioritize websites that share your audience and show real organic traffic, even if their DR is modest. Relevance plus engagement will outperform random DR 80+ placements every time for B2B lead gen.
Separating link building from the sales and partner ecosystem
When marketing runs link campaigns in a vacuum, they miss easy wins from customers, channel partners, and influencers that already trust you and can drive both traffic and referrals.
Instead: Build a cross-functional program where account managers, partner managers, and SDRs systematically identify co-marketing opportunities, joint content, and listing pages that can generate both backlinks and referral deals.
Over-optimizing anchor text for money keywords
Aggressively stuffing anchors with exact match phrases like b2b lead generation agency can look manipulative to Google and increase your risk profile, especially if those anchors come from paid or semi-paid placements.
Instead: Let most anchors be branded or natural sentence fragments, and reserve exact matches for a minority of links you truly earn on highly relevant pages. Anchor diversity is a key safety valve for long-term rankings.
Ignoring content quality and search intent while hunting links
Links cannot prop up weak, misaligned content for long, so even expensive placements might not stick or rank, wasting budget that could have gone to sales enablement or additional SDR capacity.
Instead: Fix the foundation first: build pages that directly answer buyer questions, align with search intent, and showcase proof. Only then invest in promoting and earning links to those assets.
Action Items
Audit your current backlink profile and organic revenue contribution
Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush plus your CRM to identify which pages and keywords drive real opportunities, what kinds of sites link to you now, and where you are overexposed to low-quality links.
Define a B2B-specific link building playbook tied to the funnel
Map target pages to TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU stages, then choose 2-3 core link channels for each (for example, digital PR for TOFU guides, partner case studies for MOFU pages, and review directories for BOFU solution pages).
Create an outreach list of 50–100 high-value, relevant domains
Build a prospect list the same way your SDRs build accounts: segment by industry, audience overlap, and authority, then plan pitches for guest features, data collaborations, and joint webinars that naturally include backlinks.
Align SDR outbound sequences with your content and SEO priorities
Give reps 3-5 flagship assets to reference in cold email and call scripts so their outreach both generates meetings and seeds potential links from prospects, partners, and influencers who share or reference that content.
Establish guardrails for any paid link or sponsorship spend
Document a clear policy: no PBNs, no link farms, sponsored or nofollow attributes where required, max anchor-text aggressiveness, and a simple review workflow so SEO, marketing, and sales leaders sign off on risky placements.
Measure link building success with sales metrics, not just SEO metrics
Add UTM parameters, track first-touch and multi-touch attribution, and review how new links impact demos, opportunities, and close rates from organic search over 3-12 months.
Partner with SalesHive
While your marketing team invests in SEO, content, and smart link acquisition, SalesHive makes sure none of that demand goes to waste. Our US-based and Philippines-based SDR teams run high-volume, highly personalized cold email and cold calling programs that turn all that organic interest into qualified meetings. With 100,000+ meetings booked for more than 1,500 clients, we have seen firsthand how strong search visibility plus disciplined outbound can multiply pipeline.
SalesHive can also support the relationship side of your link strategy. Our list building and SDR outsourcing capabilities help you identify and reach the right partners, associations, and accounts for co-marketing and thought leadership plays that naturally earn backlinks. Because we do not lock you into annual contracts and we back onboarding with low risk, you can align outbound, link building, and sales development without taking on long-term commitments that slow you down.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Is it actually safe for a B2B company to buy backlinks in 2025?
Buying links purely to manipulate rankings is explicitly against Google's spam policies and can lead to manual actions that tank your traffic. That said, there is a gray area around paying for content, sponsorships, and PR where links are a byproduct, not the product. If you are paying for placement, assume the safest approach is to use rel=sponsored or rel=nofollow and focus on relevance and brand impact. The more your strategy looks like old-school link schemes, the more risk you are taking with your organic pipeline.
What is the difference between buying a backlink and paying for a guest post or PR placement?
Straight link purchases are usually pitched as we place X dofollow links on DR Y sites for Z dollars and have little to do with audience value. Paying for a guest post, sponsored report, or PR campaign is primarily about content and distribution, where the link is a secondary benefit. In B2B, you want the latter: high quality content on relevant publications where an editorially earned link makes sense. When in doubt, label truly sponsored placements correctly to stay aligned with search engine guidelines.
How long does it take for link building to impact B2B lead generation?
Most studies and practitioners see meaningful SEO impact from link building in 3-6 months, with competitive niches often taking 6-12 months. For B2B teams, that means you should not expect next-quarter quota relief from a new link program. Instead, treat it as a medium-term investment that compounds over time, while your SDRs and AEs keep pipeline moving via outbound and partner channels.
How many backlinks does a B2B site need to rank?
There is no magic number, but recent research suggests top-ranking pages often have hundreds of referring domains in competitive niches, and the average page one ranking needs over 200 backlinks to break through for tougher terms. What matters more is the mix: links from a diverse set of relevant, authoritative domains, supported by strong content and technical hygiene. For sales leaders, the real question is which pages need that level of investment to unlock significant pipeline, not how many links your entire domain has.
Can cheap backlinks hurt my site or will Google just ignore them?
Google is very good at ignoring a lot of trash links, but large-scale link schemes, obviously paid networks, and over-optimized anchor patterns can still trigger penalties or algorithmic devaluation. When that happens, you can see 80-95% of your organic traffic disappear overnight, and it can take months of cleanup and reconsideration requests to recover. For a sales org that depends on inbound, that is a major revenue shock you do not need to risk for a few cheap links.
Do nofollow or sponsored backlinks help B2B brands at all?
Yes, they can. While nofollow and sponsored links may pass less or no direct ranking value, they still drive referral traffic, brand awareness, and social proof. Links from trusted publications, review sites, and communities can influence buyers even if they are not counted as full votes in the algorithm. In B2B, where deals are large and research-heavy, those brand impressions often matter as much as raw PageRank.
How should sales and marketing collaborate on link building?
Marketing should own strategy, SEO, and content, while sales development and account teams surface opportunities: customer stories, partner success, joint webinars, and industry roundtables. Give reps simple talk tracks that invite customers and partners to be featured in content, then make sure every published piece links back to your key assets and, where appropriate, they link to you from their own sites. That way, link building rides along with motions you are already running to close revenue.
What KPIs should a B2B revenue leader watch to judge link building success?
Look beyond Domain Rating and total links. Track growth in referring domains from relevant industries, non-branded organic traffic to high-intent pages, demo or trial requests from organic, and opportunities or revenue where organic search is a meaningful touch. Over time, you should see lower blended customer acquisition cost from organic plus outbound and increased outbound reply rates as your brand becomes more recognizable from search.
