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What are backlinks — and what never to pay for
A backlink is simply another website linking to yours. Google reads each one as a small vote of confidence — and votes from respected neighbors count more than votes from strangers selling votes.
Why Google cares who links to you
Google can read your website, but your website would say anything — every plumber’s site says they’re the best plumber. Links are how Google checks what other people think. When your trade association, a supplier, or the local paper links to your site, that’s independent evidence you’re real and reputable. It’s the “prominence” leg of how local ranking works.
Quality beats quantity, massively. One link from your city’s newspaper is worth more than a thousand from spam directories nobody reads. Google has spent twenty years learning to tell the difference — which is exactly why buying links in bulk doesn’t just fail, it backfires.
How a local service business earns real links
- Your trade association — most publish a member or “find a contractor” directory. If you’re licensed, you likely qualify for a listing already.
- Your suppliers and brands — manufacturers often keep “authorized installer” or “certified dealer” pages. If you install their product, ask to be on it.
- The chamber of commerce and local business groups — membership usually comes with a listed link.
- The directories that actually matter — a consistent, complete profile on Google, Yelp, BBB, Nextdoor and the one or two directories big in your trade. Consistent name, address and phone everywhere.
- Local sponsorships — the little league team, the school fundraiser, the community event. Sponsors get thanked with a link, and it’s a real one.
- Being quotable — local reporters need a tradesperson to explain frozen pipes every winter. Answer one email and you’re the plumber the paper links to.
What never to pay for
All of these end in a penalty, not a ranking
- “500 backlinks for $99” packages — farms of junk pages Google already ignores or actively punishes. Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit violates Google’s spam policies, by name.
- “Private blog networks” (PBNs) — fake blogs that exist only to sell links. When Google catches the network, every customer of it sinks together.
- Mass directory submissions — two hundred directories nobody has ever visited add nothing; the handful of real ones you can do yourself in an afternoon.
- Link exchanges at scale — “you link me, I link you” rings are one of the oldest patterns Google detects.
The tell is always the same: if a link can be bought by anyone with a credit card, it carries no information about you — and Google knows it. Real links can’t be bought, which is precisely why they count.
First you need a website worth linking to
Speedy Sites builds one for local service businesses — $0 today, ready in under an hour, $99/month after a 30-day trial.
Build my website →Source: Google’s spam policies name link buying and link schemes directly.