Backlinks in 2025: What’s DEAD and What’s WORKING?

Are you still building backlinks like it’s 2015? That might be the reason your website isn’t ranking—even after investing time, money, and effort. The truth is, the backlink game has changed completely in 2025. Google no longer rewards outdated tactics like mass guest posting, PBNs, or comment links. Instead, the focus has shifted to quality, topical relevance, and natural signals. If you’re serious about improving your website’s SEO, it’s time to drop what’s no longer working and adopt what actually brings results today. In this post, I’ll break down the outdated strategies to avoid and the powerful new ones you should start using right now.

• Built 100 backlinks but your rankings didn’t improve?

• Paid thousands to agencies and still no results?

• That’s because 2025 has completely changed the backlink game.

Outdated backlink strategies to avoid in 2025:

• Mass low-quality guest posting

• Using PBNs (Private Blog Networks)

• Reciprocal link exchanges

• Blog comment backlinks

• Overusing exact-match anchor texts

• Buying backlinks from link farms

• Site-wide footer links

• Submitting to article directories

What actually works in 2025:

• Getting backlinks from topically relevant authority sites

• Earning user-generated backlinks via genuine discussions on forums

• Brand mentions (even without links) from reputed sources

• Appearing as a guest on niche-specific podcasts

• Publishing original data-driven research

• Using broken link building with better content as replacements

• Responding to HARO (Help a Reporter Out) queries for PR backlinks

• Creating collaborative content with industry experts

Backlinking is no longer a quantity game. It’s about quality, relevance, and trust.

If you’re still using old-school link building, it’s time to pivot before Google pivots you.