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- Link Building
Bart Magera9 min readHow To Buy Backlinks: An Honest Guide To Doing It Without a Penalty
Most "how to buy backlinks" pages are written by people selling them. This is the operator version: the risk spectrum, the links I would never buy, the narrow gray area where paid links are done carefully, and how to vet a placement before you pay.
- Link Building
Bart Magera9 min readEcommerce Link Building: How I Earn Links That Reach Product Pages
Nobody links to a "buy product X" page, which is why most ecommerce link building advice misfires. This is the operator process: earn links to assets people will cite, then route that authority internally to the category and product pages that make money.
- Link Building
Bart Magera8 min readFree Backlink Sites: The Ones That Actually Work in 2026
Most lists of free backlink sites are junk: dead, spammed, or risky. This is the honest version, the backlink sites actually worth your time in 2026, tiered by value and risk, plus where free links really fit and which ones to avoid.
- Link Building
Bart Magera9 min readLocal Link Building: The Tactics That Move The Map Pack
Local rankings are won on relevant local links and citations, not raw domain rating. This is the operator guide to local link building: the tactics that move the map pack, how links differ from citations, and how it changes by industry.
- Link Building
Bart Magera9 min readGoogle SpamBrain: How Google's AI Detects Manipulative Links
Google's spam detection stopped being a list of rules and became machine learning. SpamBrain is the system, and it changed link building: it catches patterns no rule could spell out, and it usually neutralizes manipulative links rather than penalizing them. Here is how it works and how I build around it.
- Link Building
Bart Magera7 min readLink Schemes: How We Interpret Google's Policy in 2026
Google's Spam Policies on link schemes are deliberately broad. The policy text gives Google room to interpret tactics case-by-case. This is how we interpret the policy day-to-day on client work: clear violations, grey-zone tactics, and the patterns that actually trigger manual action.
- Link Building
Bart Magera11 min readUnlinked Brand Mentions: Why They Matter More in The Age of AI
An unlinked brand mention is the web talking about you without a link. It passes no PageRank, so plenty of SEOs dismiss it, and plenty oversell it. The honest answer sits in between, and it has shifted now that AI engines surface brands by how often they are mentioned, link or not.
- Link Building
Bart Magera11 min readTypes of Backlinks: The Taxonomy I Use To Rank Them by Value
Most "types of backlinks" guides dump 25 types in a flat list and leave you to guess which matter. This one groups them into four value tiers, from the editorial links that earn rankings to the PBN links that earn penalties, with a verdict on each.
- Link Building
Bart Magera11 min readLinkable Assets: The Content I Build When The Goal Is Links
Most content earns zero links because it was never built to. A linkable asset is the opposite: content engineered to give other writers a reason to cite you. Here are the six types I build, how I choose between them, and why creating the asset is only half the work.