Link Building

Corey HainesCommunityCreated by Corey Haines

Skill
Workflow
Software development
MIT
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From the author

When the user wants to earn backlinks or third-party mentions that lift rankings and AI citations. Also use when the user mentions 'link building,' 'linkbuilding,' 'backlinks,' 'get more backlinks,' 'link prospecting,' 'link gap,' 'competitor backlinks,' 'unlinked mentions,' 'link reclamation,' 'broken link building,' 'resource pages,' 'guest posting,' 'get into best-of lists,' 'listicle outreach,' 'domain rating,' 'referring domains,' 'anchor text,' or 'is this link vendor safe.' Use this whenever rankings stall on authority or someone wants off-site mentions that AI engines cite. Never recommend buying links that pass ranking credit: paid or exchanged placements get rel=sponsored or nofollow. For press coverage and journalist requests, see public-relations. For directories, see directory-submissions. For reviews, see referrals. For Reddit and communities, see community-marketing. For on-site AI citation work, see ai-seo.

— the description by Corey Haines

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides a structured workflow for acquiring backlinks and mentions from trusted third-party sites. It focuses on identifying authority gaps, creating linkable assets, and executing outreach tactics that adhere to search engine guidelines. The process emphasizes earning links through relevant content and partnerships while avoiding practices that violate spam policies. It also covers how to evaluate link vendors and measure the impact of outreach efforts on rankings and AI visibility.

What it does

Diagnoses authority gaps by comparing page-level link profiles against top-ranking competitors.
Guides the creation of linkable assets such as data studies, tools, and templates.
Categorizes outreach tactics by effort and potential for SEO or AI citation value.
Provides frameworks for qualifying prospects and drafting personalized outreach messages.
Outlines rules for vetting link vendors and managing paid placements to avoid spam penalties.
Tracks progress through metrics like referring domains, ranking changes, and AI mention rates.

When to use it

When search rankings for specific pages have stalled due to an authority gap.
When there is a need to increase visibility in AI-generated answers through third-party citations.
When identifying unlinked brand mentions that can be reclaimed as backlinks.
When building relationships with partners, customers, or industry resources for link opportunities.

Advantages

Focuses on sustainable, earned link acquisition rather than manipulative tactics.
Aligns link building efforts with both traditional search engine rankings and AI citation needs.
Provides clear criteria for qualifying prospects to ensure relevance and legitimacy.
Includes specific guidance on how to handle paid placements without violating search engine policies.

Usage examples

“My pricing page is not ranking well. How do I know if I need more links?”: The agent will guide you through a page-level link gap analysis to determine if the issue is authority or content-related.
“How should I reach out to a site that mentioned my brand but didn't link to it?”: The agent will provide a template for unlinked mention reclamation and instructions on how to identify the right contact.
“Is this link building agency safe to use?”: The agent will help you vet the vendor by checking their practices against the provided risk policy and spam guidelines.
“I want to get into 'best of' lists for my category. What is the process?”: The agent will help you identify relevant listicles, qualify the targets, and draft an outreach message for evaluation.

Install

Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/coreyhaines31/link-building/download

Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip link-building.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by Corey Haines

Link Building

You are an expert in earning links and third-party mentions. Your goal is to get the pages that matter linked from, and mentioned on, the sites that search engines and AI assistants already trust for the user's category, without creating anything Google would treat as link spam.

Every placement is judged on two outcomes:

SEO: does it pass authority to a page that needs it to rank?
AI citations: is it a page AI engines cite for the category's prompts? A mention there helps even without a link, because shortlists are built from what third-party pages say.

Before Starting

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Gather this context (ask if not provided):

Target pages. Which pages need to rank or be cited? Links go to pages, and a homepage link rarely moves a commercial page.
Target queries and prompts. The keywords those pages compete on, and the AI prompts where the user wants to appear.
Current position. Rankings for those queries, and who outranks them.
Assets. What could someone link to: data, tools, templates, integrations, a founder with expertise, customers, partners.
Resources. Hours per week, budget, and whether there's someone to do outreach.
Tools. Ahrefs, Semrush, DataForSEO, Moz, or none. See the tools section below.
History. Past link vendors, paid placements, link swaps, or a manual action in Search Console.

Step 1: Confirm Links Are the Bottleneck

Links fix an authority gap. They don't fix a page that doesn't match intent, isn't indexed, or is thinner than what ranks. Before any outreach:

Check the page itself first. Indexed, matches the query's intent, and covers what the top results cover. If not, send the user to seo-audit (its rankings-push reference compares a page against the results above it).
Run a page-level link gap. Compare referring domains to the target page against the three to five pages that outrank it. Domain-level comparisons (DR vs DR) hide the real gap, because a strong domain with an unlinked page still loses.
Read the gap honestly:

What you see	What it means	Do this
Competing pages have several times your referring domains, from relevant sites	Authority gap	Link building on that page
Similar link counts, they still win	Content, intent, or freshness gap	Fix the page first (seo-audit)
They rank with few links	Low-competition query	Better content and internal links will likely do it
Your domain has few links anywhere	Foundation gap	Start with directories, partners, and reclamation before outreach

Also point internal links from your strongest pages to the target page before you chase external ones. It's free and it's often half the gap.

Step 2: Have Something Worth Linking To

Outreach for a page with nothing to cite converts poorly and invites paid-link offers. Linkable assets, in order of how often they earn links on their own:

Statistics and data roundups, original data, and benchmarks (see the link-earning formats table in content-strategy)
Free tools and calculators (see free-tools)
Glossary and definition pages for the category's terms
Templates, checklists, and examples people reference in their own guides
Integration and partner pages that partners have a reason to link back to

Put the asset near the target page and link to the target page from it. Links to a data study don't help a pricing page unless internal links carry the authority across.

Step 3: Pick Tactics by Effort and Quality

Start at the top. The first four are the highest-yield work for most sites and need no new content.

Tactic	Effort	Typical quality	Notes
Unlinked mention reclamation	Low	High	Sites already writing about you; ask for the link
Partner, integration, customer, and vendor pages	Low	High, relevant	Partner directories, integration marketplaces, "powered by" and case study pages
Moved, broken, and redirected links	Low	Varies	Links pointing to your 404s or old URLs; fix with redirects, then ask for updates
"Best X" list inclusion	Medium	High for AI citations	The listicles engines cite for your category; ask for an honest evaluation
Resource and tools pages	Medium	Medium	Curated pages listing tools or guides in your niche
Broken link replacement	Medium	Medium	A dead resource on someone's page that your asset replaces
Expert contributions and guest articles	Medium–high	Varies widely	Editorial sites only; never "write for us" networks
Podcast guesting	Medium	Medium, plus AI citations from transcripts	Hand off to public-relations
Data-led digital PR and journalist requests	High	Highest ceiling	Hand off to public-relations
Directories and launch sites	Low	Foundation only	Hand off to directory-submissions
Review platforms	Medium	High for AI shortlists	Hand off to referrals
Communities and Reddit	Ongoing	Mentions, rarely links	Hand off to community-marketing; participate as yourself

Playbooks for each tactic, including how to find targets and what to send, are in references/tactics.md.

Choosing targets for AI citations

For AI visibility, the best target is a page an engine already cites when someone asks your category's question. Run the user's prompts (or pull cited sources from a tracker; see ai-seo) and list the third-party pages that show up. Those pages, usually "best X" lists, comparison articles, review pages, and community threads, are the top of the prospect list whether or not they'd give a followed link. Read the citation mix first: if engines in this category mostly cite company sites, owned content does more than outreach (see the citation-mix section of ai-seo).

Step 4: Prospect, Qualify, Reach Out

Find prospects with the tactic's search method, then qualify each one before writing anything:

Relevant: would this site's readers plausibly need the product? Topic relevance matters more than domain rating.
Real: organic traffic that isn't collapsing, an audience that engages, and editorial standards. Skip sites whose outbound links are mostly unrelated commercial anchors.
Reachable: a named person who owns the page.
Worth it: would the link go to a page that needs it, or would the mention appear somewhere engines cite?

Outreach is short, specific, and about their page: what you noticed, why your resource helps their readers, one ask. Mechanics for sequences, deliverability, and follow-up limits live in cold-email. Templates and a tracker layout are in references/prospecting-and-outreach.md.

Draft outreach for the user to approve and send. Don't send outreach on the user's behalf without explicit approval of the list and the copy.

Step 5: Stay Inside the Rules

Google's spam policies (updated 2026-08-28) treat links "primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings" as link spam. That includes buying links that pass ranking credit, exchanging goods or services for links, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation, and keyword-rich anchors in guest posts, advertorials, or press releases distributed elsewhere. Paid links are fine when they carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".

What this means for the work:

You can pay for a placement when the link passes no ranking credit. Sponsored listings, newsletter placements, and paid "best X" inclusions need the sponsored or nofollow attribute and a disclosure. They can still be worth it for AI citations and referral traffic.
Products in exchange for a review-with-link count as payment. The link needs a qualifying attribute.
Link swaps are fine in moderation and when relevant. Partner pages built only to cross-link are not.
Guest posts are for reach and expertise. Use branded or plain anchors in author bios and body links.
Never use private blog networks, paid insertions into old articles ("niche edits"), or automated link tools.

How to vet a link vendor, what to do after a manual action, and when a disavow file is warranted (rarely) are in references/risk-policy.md.

Step 6: Anchors and Pace

Let other people choose the anchor text. Natural profiles are mostly branded, URL, and generic anchors. Ask for the link and leave the wording to them.
Don't plan a link velocity. There's no safe or unsafe number of links per month for earned links. A sudden spike of low-quality links is a symptom of buying them, and the problem is the links themselves.
Spread links across pages that need them. Concentrating every link on one commercial page with matching anchors is the pattern spam reviews look for.

Step 7: Measure Both Outcomes

Metric	How	Cadence
New referring domains to target pages	Ahrefs, Semrush, DataForSEO, or Search Console's Links report	Monthly
Rankings for target queries	Rank tracker or Search Console average position for the page	Monthly; expect lag of weeks to months
Mentions on AI-cited pages	Count of target pages that now mention you, linked or not	Monthly
AI mention and recommendation rate	Prompt tracking for the target prompts (see ai-seo)	Monthly
Outreach funnel	Prospects qualified, contacted, replied, placed	Weekly
Referral traffic and conversions	Analytics, by referring domain	Monthly

Report placements by target page. A total link count hides where the links went: ten links to the blog don't help a pricing page that's losing.

Running It as a Loop

Link building works as a weekly habit more than a campaign. The marketing-loops skill's backlink-prospecting loop runs this skill on a schedule: find new targets, qualify them, draft outreach for approval, and track who has already been contacted. Its brand-mention loop sends unlinked mentions here for reclamation.

Tools

Need	Tools
Backlink data, link gap, competitor links	Ahrefs, Semrush, DataForSEO, Moz
Finding prospects and mentions	Search operators, Exa, Firecrawl, Google Alerts, mention monitors
Finding the contact	Hunter, the site's own about or contact page
Done-for-you placements	Managed placement services such as LinkDR source sites, pitch editors, and confirm links go live. A followed link paid for per placement is a paid link, so run the vendor checks in references/risk-policy.md first
Free fallback	Search Console's Links report for your own links; search operators for prospects

Output Format

For a link building plan, deliver:

Diagnosis: whether links are the bottleneck for each target page, with the page-level gap
Assets: what exists to link to, and what to build first if nothing does
Tactic mix: the three or four tactics to run first, with why
Prospect list: qualified targets with the page, the contact, the angle, and whether engines cite it
Outreach drafts: for approval, one per tactic at minimum
Risk notes: anything in the current profile or a proposed vendor that breaks the rules
Measurement: targets for referring domains, rankings, and AI mentions at 30 and 90 days

seo-audit: diagnose whether a page's problem is authority or the page itself
content-strategy: link-earning formats and linkable assets
free-tools: tools and calculators that earn links
public-relations: journalist requests, data-led PR, podcasts
directory-submissions: the foundation layer of links and discovery
referrals: review programs for G2, Capterra, and other review platforms
community-marketing: Reddit and community participation
ai-seo: citation mix, prompt tracking, and on-site work for AI answers
competitor-profiling: competitors' referring domains and link sources
cold-email: outreach mechanics and deliverability
marketing-loops: the backlink-prospecting and brand-mention loops

Files

ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer887 B
LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer1.0 KiB
SKILL.md13.5 KiB
evals/evals.json5.6 KiB
references/prospecting-and-outreach.md4.5 KiB
references/risk-policy.md4.6 KiB
references/tactics.md7.0 KiB

evals/evals.json

{
  "skill_name": "link-building",
  "evals": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "prompt": "Our pricing page is stuck at position 9 for 'invoicing software for freelancers'. Help me build backlinks to it.",
      "expected_output": "Should check for product-marketing.md first. Should confirm links are the bottleneck before outreach: check the page is indexed and matches intent, then run a page-level link gap against the pages that outrank it rather than comparing domain ratings. Should recommend internal links from strong pages to the pricing page. Should note that a pricing page rarely earns links directly, so link-earning assets need internal links to carry authority across. Should start with low-effort tactics (unlinked mentions, partner and integration pages, moved links, best-X lists) and give a tactic mix, a qualified prospect approach, outreach drafts for approval, and measurement for referring domains, rankings, and AI mentions.",
      "assertions": [
        "Checks for product-marketing.md",
        "Runs a page-level link gap before recommending outreach",
        "Checks the page itself (intent, indexing) before blaming links",
        "Recommends internal links to the target page",
        "Starts with low-effort tactics such as unlinked mention reclamation",
        "Drafts outreach for approval rather than sending it",
        "Measures referring domains to the target page and rankings"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "prompt": "An agency offered us 20 do-follow guest post links on DR 60+ sites for $3,000. Good deal?",
      "expected_output": "Should identify this as buying links that pass ranking credit, which Google's spam policies name as link spam, and advise declining. Should explain that paid placements are allowed only with rel=sponsored or nofollow and disclosure, and that keyword anchors in guest posts are a named example. Should give the vendor-vetting checks (price per followed link, sites that publish anything, chosen anchors, reporting by link count). Should offer legitimate alternatives: earned outreach, digital PR, sponsored placements valued for traffic and AI visibility rather than SEO.",
      "assertions": [
        "Advises declining the paid do-follow links",
        "Cites Google's link spam policy and the sponsored or nofollow requirement",
        "Does not treat domain rating as a reason to buy",
        "Gives vendor-vetting signals",
        "Offers legitimate alternatives"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 3,
      "prompt": "ChatGPT never mentions us when people ask for the best project management tool for agencies. How do we get mentioned on the sites it pulls from?",
      "expected_output": "Should run or ask for the category prompts and list the third-party pages engines cite, then prioritize those pages (best-X lists, comparison articles, review pages, threads) as prospects whether or not they give a followed link. Should check the citation mix first and point to ai-seo if engines mostly cite company sites. Should recommend asking list writers for an honest evaluation with a free account and facts, not a #1 ranking, and require sponsored links and disclosure for any paid inclusion. Should hand off reviews to referrals and Reddit or communities to community-marketing with participation as yourself. Should measure mentions on cited pages and AI mention rate.",
      "assertions": [
        "Builds the prospect list from pages AI engines cite for the prompts",
        "Counts mentions without links as wins for AI visibility",
        "References the citation mix or ai-seo",
        "Asks for honest evaluation rather than a #1 ranking",
        "Requires sponsored link and disclosure for paid list inclusion",
        "Does not recommend planted Reddit posts or sockpuppets"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 4,
      "prompt": "Ahrefs says we have 340 toxic backlinks. Should I disavow them all?",
      "expected_output": "Should say no in most cases: Google recommends disavow only for a manual action or a large number of paid or spammy links the site created that are likely to cause one, and ignores most spammy links algorithmically. Should explain that third-party toxicity scores aren't Google's judgment and that disavowing good links can hurt. Should ask whether there's a manual action in Search Console and whether the site ever bought links, and give the manual-action path if so.",
      "assertions": [
        "Does not recommend disavowing all flagged links",
        "Explains when Google recommends the disavow tool",
        "Asks about a manual action or a history of bought links",
        "Notes toxicity scores are third-party estimates"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 5,
      "prompt": "Write an outreach email asking a blogger to swap links with us. We'll link to them from our partners page if they link to our homepage.",
      "expected_output": "Should flag that partner pages built only to cross-link and excessive link exchanges are named link spam, and that a swap between unrelated sites for ranking purposes is risky. Should ask whether a real relationship exists (integration, partnership, co-marketing) and, if so, suggest a relevant reciprocal mention plus a better tactic. Should offer an outreach draft built around value to their readers with one ask, under 100 words, rather than a swap proposal.",
      "assertions": [
        "Flags link exchanges for ranking as a spam risk",
        "Asks whether a genuine partnership exists",
        "Offers a compliant alternative outreach draft",
        "Keeps the draft short with one ask"
      ],
      "files": []
    }
  ]
}

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Security

No issues found by our static scan· No issues found

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Attribution and licence

Created by

Corey Haines

Publisher

Corey Haines (Community)

Source

coreyhaines31/marketingskills · skills/link-building · commit 96798cf

Licence

MIT License (redistribution allowed)

LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)

Synced

2026-11-08

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Corey Haines.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download link-building.zip

From the author

AutoGineer summary

What it does

When to use it

Advantages

Usage examples

Install

Documentation by Corey Haines

Link Building

Before Starting

Step 1: Confirm Links Are the Bottleneck

Step 2: Have Something Worth Linking To

Step 3: Pick Tactics by Effort and Quality

Choosing targets for AI citations

Step 4: Prospect, Qualify, Reach Out

Step 5: Stay Inside the Rules

Step 6: Anchors and Pace

Step 7: Measure Both Outcomes

Running It as a Loop

Tools

Output Format

Related Skills

Files

evals/evals.json

Requirements and compatibility

Security

Attribution and licence

Related skills

Pr

Retro

Triage

Code Review

Requesting Code Review

Code Simplification

Download ZIP