One of the most important steps in any SEO campaign is deciding how many backlinks you want to build per month.
And if you want to go particularly fast with your link-building, you might be wondering how many backlinks per month is actually safe.
We’ll give you your answer in the article below!
How Many Backlinks Per Month is Safe?
If you’re building backlinks safely (using whitehat link-building techniques), there’s no limit on how many backlinks per month is safe. Anything from 10 to 100 is going to positively affect your website’s rankings.
That said, there are some caveats here.
If your website is completely fresh with no backlinks, we’d recommend going for a more conservative number. Think, 10-20 backlinks per month is a reasonable start.
As a general thing, we don’t recommend you try any sort of blackhat link-building techniques like using PBNs or backlink farms. In the best-case scenario, such links won’t have any impact on your site, and in the worst case, your website will end up getting penalized.
How Many Backlinks are too Many?
There’s no such thing as too many backlinks – as long as the links are from authentic websites, the more you can get the better.
The only problem you might have with a lot of backlinks is if they’re low-quality, blackhat links (which overall do more harm than good to your website).
How Many Backlinks Should I Build Per Day?
The same answer applies here – you can build as many backlinks per day as you want, as long as the links are whitehat/organic.
How to Evaluate Backlink Quality?
As we already mentioned, link quality plays a big part in whether or not the backlinks deliver positive results.
Here’s our checklist for assessing backlink quality:
- Website topical relevance. If your website is about VPNs and the link you’re getting is from a mom blogger, you won’t get a lot of backlink juice out of it.
- DA/DR. Both DA and DR are good metrics for getting a birdseye view of how strong a website’s backlink profile is.
- Website traffic. A good indicator that a website is in Google’s good graces is to see if it’s ranking well on Google.
- Whether the site is a link farm. If a website is jam-packed with guest posts (and nothing else), then the site is a link farm, which Google might penalize for being a link scheme.
- Whether the site is a PBN. The same goes for private blogging networks (PBNs in short). Getting dozens or hundreds of such links is bound to get your website penalized in the long term.
- If the link is do-follow. No-follow links, for the most part, don’t carry any SEO juice, and as such, don’t contribute much to your website’s rankings.
Should I Use Web 2.0 or Forum Backlinks?
No, neither web 2.0 backlinks (sites like Reddit, Medium, etc.) nor forum backlinks have any positive impact on your website’s SEO.
Both these types of links are no-follow and don’t carry any backlink juice.
If you want your website to rank well, we recommend you stick to building real backlinks from websites with a real audience.
And no, Fiverr backlinks don’t move the needle, either. Check out our guide to Fiverr backlinks to learn why this is the case.
What Kind of Backlinks DO Work?
Backlink types that are likely to improve your rankings are:
- Link insertion backlinks
- Guest posts
- Editorial links
- Niche edits
How Many Backlinks Should I Build Per Month?
If you’re just getting started with your website, aim for 10 to 20 backlinks per month. If the site is already established, though, or you’re in a competitive industry, you can go for as many backlinks per month as you can afford.
For reference, websites in the CBD, VPN, gambling, and other competitive niches sometimes build hundreds of backlinks per day to stay ahead of their competitors.
If you’re in something less competitive, though, like accounting, interior design, or some other local niches, then you can even rank with 5-6 backlinks a month!
How Long Does It Take for Backlinks to Drive Rankings?
Depending on your website’s existing backlink profile, niche, and content quality, it can take anything from 6 months to 2 years for backlinks to drive noticeable improvements in your website’s rankings.
Can I Rank Without Backlinks?
In certain niches, yes, it’s very much possible to rank without backlinks. Usually, this is the case if:
- Your competitors don’t have a lot of backlinks themselves
- You’re using a high-velocity content strategy
- It’s very hard to find contextual backlinks in your niche
Failing to deliver an adequate number of backlinks every month? Worry not, you can always outsource link-building!
