Stop Buying Backlinks FFS! Here are your REAL link building tactics.

"Someone sitting in your LinkedIn DMs right now is offering you backlinks for 99. Someone else wants to charge you five a month for a robust link building campaign. And I'm here to tell you that for most small B2B service websites, both of them can fuck right off."

Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of “SEO F**king What”, I'm calling out one of the most expensive myths in SEO — that spending money on backlinks is something small B2B service businesses need to do. It isn't. And I've got 30 years of evidence to prove it.

Here’s what I’m covering:

• Why Google’s original algorithm got gamed almost immediately — and how the link building industry was born from exploiting it
• The Penguin update of 2012: why thousands of legitimate businesses lost their rankings overnight, while the agencies who sold them manipulative links quietly updated their service pages and moved on
• What Google actually confirmed in 2024 about how much links matter now (their words: “we’ve made links less important”)
• Why the link building industry is still thriving — despite selling something worth a fraction of what it once was
• The free, legitimate links you’re probably already entitled to through professional memberships and directories — and not using
• Why on-page SEO, quality content, and a well-structured website will do more for your rankings than any link package sold by someone who DMed you 15 minutes after following you on LinkedIn

I also give you a proper piece of homework this week. Three things to do right now. None of them cost a penny.

If you’re currently paying for a link building package — or you’ve ever been tempted — listen to this first. It might save you a lot of money and a lot of future headaches.

Get found. Make money. Stop buying fucking backlinks.

Links mentioned

Non-Wanky SEO Courses: https://nonwankyseo.com

Google Search Console (backlink report — Legacy Tools, bottom of left-hand menu): https://search.google.com/search-console/

Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker: https://ahrefs.com/backlink-checker

Follow Nikki

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Mentioned in this episode:

ICN Network