"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:

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Someone sitting in your LinkedIn DMs right now 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.

This is SEO Fucking What, I'm Nikki and I've been doing SEO for over 30 years.

Before it was even called SEO.

I help people like you get found on search and make money from your website.

Today we're doing the episode I've been putting off because I

know I'm going to get shit for it from every link building agency.

Every LinkedIn guru who's built their entire business model around convincing

you that backlinks are the answer to everything. We're talking backlinks:

what they are, why the industry has built an entire cottage economy of

absolute bollocks around them, and why —

for most small business-to- business service websites —

obsessing over them is an absolute waste of your time and your money.

Start with some history because this matters and nobody selling you a

link package wants you to know it.

Back in the early days of Google, the whole algorithm was built around the

idea that if lots of other websites link to yours, your site must be good.

The more links the better. Simple, logical.

Almost immediately, completely and utterly gamed by every SEO who realised they

could manufacture links and trick the algorithm into thinking their site was

more authoritative than it actually was.

Because as I've told you before, SEOs — we fuck it up for ourselves.

We created link farms, private blog networks, paid directories.

Reciprocal link schemes where two websites just agreed to link to

each other to inflate their numbers.

By the mid-2000s, it was a full blown industry.

People were earning £40,000 a month selling links from networks of

websites, but for no other purpose than to pass link value around.

I watched it happen.

I watched it work, and I watched Google spend the next decade

systematically dismantling it.

While the people selling the links moved on to the next scheme and left

their clients holding the bag.

The Penguin update in 2012 was the big one.

Thousands of websites lost their rankings overnight because of

manipulative link building.

And these weren't just dodgy sites.

Legitimate businesses.

Businesses like yours, who trusted an agency to build links on their behalf.

And had absolutely no idea what was being done in their name.

Businesses that took months or years to recover — some never did.

And you know what really pisses me off about that?

The agencies who sold those links — they were fine.

They just quietly updated their service pages, stopped mentioning Penguin, and

carried on selling the next thing. The businesses left dealing with

manual actions and tanked rankings —

that's who paid the price.

That's always who pays the price.

Recovering from a Google manual action is not a quick fix.

I've seen businesses go through the reconsideration request process and come

out the other side still not ranking where they were before — because without the

artificial boost from manipulative links,

the actual authority was lower than they thought.

The links were doing the heavy lifting the whole time. When the links went,

so did everything. All that money, all that time, and they ended up worse

off than if they'd never bothered.

So that's the history.

But what about now?

Surely links still matter.

You know what — they do.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that links are completely

irrelevant, because that's not true.

I won't say things that aren't true just to make a point. But Google

confirmed in 2024 that they only need very few links to rank web pages.

Their words were: "Over the years, we've made links less important."

That's Google — the actual company — telling you directly that links

matter less than they used to.

Roger Montti spent 25 years in SEO.

He was the moderator of the Link Building Forum at Webmaster World

back when that was the most important SEO resource on the internet.

This is someone who knew more about link building than anyone alive, and

he wrote a piece for Search Engine Journal last year saying it's okay to

not buy or obsess over links anymore.

Google now relies far more heavily on neural networks, machine learning,

user behaviour signals, content quality — and links, while still a factor, are

far less important than at any point in the history of SEO. And yet — go on

LinkedIn right now, search for SEO.

Count how many people are flogging link building packages, banging on

about domain authority, insisting you can't possibly rank without

a robust link building strategy.

The link building industry is thriving.

It's just that the thing it's selling has less value than it did when the

industry built itself around it. And most of the people selling it know that —

and they don't care. Or they haven't updated their thinking since about 2015.

Both options are fucking infuriating, and I'm gonna tell you exactly what

I think. And I fully expect my mentions to be a lively place after this one.

For most small B2B service websites — and by that I mean small websites, not small

B2B companies — spending money on backlinks is a waste. Not a

small waste. A significant waste of money that could be doing something

genuinely useful for your business.

Spending hours of your time chasing backlinks is a waste.

Your time and budget will do more for your rankings

if you put them into your on-page SEO, your content, your site structure, than

they will if you spend them buying links from people who called out of

nowhere offering DA 70 placements. And buying links isn't just a waste

of money and time — it's a risk.

Because Google may not penalise you today.

It might not penalise you this year. But when it does — and it has done before, and

it'll do again — you'll be the one dealing with the fallout. Not the agency who took

your money every month. Not the LinkedIn tosser who told you links were everything.

You — dealing with a manual action, trying to get your rankings back,

wondering why you trusted people who had every financial incentive

to keep selling you something regardless of whether it actually works.

Okay, now I've got that off my chest.

What should you do?

A few things — and none of them involving paying anyone a penny.

If you're a member of a professional association or industry body,

make sure you are listing links to your website.

These are legitimate, relevant links you're probably already paying for through

membership fees and not using. Sort it out. If you're listed in relevant directories,

check those listings are accurate and linked — not dodgy directories that exist

purely to sell links. Relevant industry directories that real people use.

If you write genuinely useful content and someone finds it helpful, they

might link to it without you asking.

I do that all the time.

That's the best kind of link there is.

You can't manufacture it, you can't buy it.

You earn it by not being shit. Guest posting on relevant industry

publications is still worth doing

if the publication is one your potential clients read and the content

you're contributing is actually good.

Mass mailing the same recycled article to 200 random blogs and calling it outreach?

One good guest post on one publication

your clients trust is worth more than 50 links from sites that exist purely to sell

placements. And that's honestly about it.

Create content worth linking to. Be findable in the right places.

Let the decent links come naturally and spend the rest of your time and

all of your money on the things that are actually gonna help your rankings —

because the reality for small B2B service businesses:

you're not competing with massive e-commerce sites or national brands with

domain authority built over decades.

You're competing with other small businesses in your sector or your

area — most of whom have exactly the same patchy link profile you do.

The thing that's gonna separate you from them is not a hundred more backlinks.

It's better page titles, clearer service pages.

A website Google can navigate. Content that answers what your

clients are searching for.

All the stuff I've been covering in this podcast — all the stuff the link

building merchants don't wanna talk about because there's no monthly retainer

in telling you to write a decent H1 — [UNCLEAR — see correction log] from a

bloke on LinkedIn who followed you 15 minutes ago and immediately DM'd you

about his packages. After the break,

I'll give you a list of jobs to do this week — and I promise

you it won't cost you anything.

Right. Homework.

And this week's homework is mostly about what not to do —

which makes a bit of a change.

So first of all, if you are currently paying for a link building package,

stop. And find out exactly what you've been getting for your money.

Ask for a full report of every link that's been built.

Look at the sites linking to you.

Are they relevant to your industry?

Do they look like real websites that real people visit — or do they look like they

were built for the sole purpose of selling links to people who don't know any better?

If it's the latter, have a very direct conversation with whoever is taking

your money about whether this is helping you or building up a problem that

you'll be the one dealing with later.

Secondly — check your existing backlinks for free.

Google Search Console has a backlink report.

Find it under Legacy Tools

in the left-hand menu — it's right at the bottom.

It's a bit wobbly, but it'll give you a picture of who's linking to you.

Ahrefs also has a free backlink checker.

Have a look at what's there.

You might be surprised — and not always in a good way.

And thirdly — if you're a member of any professional bodies,

associations, or organisations,

check right now that your listing links to your website.

If it doesn't — fix it today. These are usually legitimate, relevant links.

You're already entitled to them.

You're probably already paying for them through your membership fees.

Use them. And that's it.

No outreach campaigns. No link buying. No handing money to

strangers on the internet.

Just get a clear picture of where you stand and make sure the easy,

legitimate links you are already entitled to are actually working for you.

If today's episode has made you want to get your on-page SEO sorted so you're not

relying on links to do the heavy lifting, go and have a look at my Non-Wanky

on-page SEO course at nonwankyseo.com.

It's everything I do for clients laid out so you can do it yourself.

£200.

There's a £20 a month option too, if you'd rather spread it out — go

and have a look at nonwankyseo.com.

Make sure you're following SEO Fucking What wherever you're listening

so you don't miss the next episode.

And if someone on LinkedIn tries to sell you a backlink package — do me a favour,

send them a link to this episode first.

It'll save you a lot of money and a lot of future headaches.

Until next time — get found, make money.

Stop buying fucking backlinks.