Premium Link-Building Services: What They Are and Why They Matter for SEO 

If you want top search rankings, Google has to trust your website. How do you build that trust? By generating backlinks (links on other sites pointing to yours) from high-quality websites in your industry. For example, here’s one of our backlinks on Semrush, a major site in our industry: The rule of thumb with backlinks is: The higher the quality of the website, the more powerful a backlink from it will be.  Thus, premium link-building services involve targeting the most authoritative backlinks, which will have the most significant impact on your search rankings.  At this level of quality, you can’t simply buy your way in.  Premium backlinks are generated through:

1. Building relationships with trusted websites 
2. Engaging in digital PR to land media placements and editorial backlinks (which are super premium) 
3. Earning authority through E-E-A-T content 

These advanced link-building techniques will help you generate backlinks from sites with extremely high domain authority scores.  Domain authority is the metric we use to demonstrate the ranking power a backlink from a particular website has.  If you’re able to generate backlinks from websites with high DA scores, you’ll improve your own domain authority.  In this guide, we’ll show you:

1. What makes a backlink ‘premium’
2. Why premium backlinks are worth the investment 
3. How to evaluate providers 

Keep reading to learn more! 

Need help generating high-quality backlinks? Let our expert team handle your backlink outreach!

What are Premium Link-Building Services?

If you were looking for information about a breaking news story online, which of these two websites would you trust more:

1. Reuters 
2. A random news site with AI-generated stories (and no comments) 

It’s clear that Reuters is the more trustworthy source (it is one of the largest news agencies in the world, after all).  Well, this illustrates the principle behind backlink quality.  If a respected news outlet like Reuters links to one of your web pages, it’s highly likely that your content is accurate, well-researched, and trustworthy.  Since Reuters is reputable, they wouldn’t link out to a low-quality website, as that could harm their user experience and reputation.  Thus, earning a link from Reuters is a testament to the credibility of your business.  This is the way Google’s algorithm views backlinks. Here’s what they say on their official website: Essentially, backlinks are seen as ‘credibility votes’ that help Google determine the trustworthiness and quality of your website.  Now imagine if you generated a backlink from a random news site with low-quality AI-generated content.  How would that link reflect on your brand? It wouldn’t reflect well at all, which is why backlinks coming from low-quality websites aren’t worth your time.

Understanding the quality and price of link-building services

Now, let’s transition to the quality of link-building services.  In particular, what makes a link-building service premium? It all boils down to the types of websites the service targets for backlinks.  If the service targets highly trusted, niche-relevant websites with high domain authority scores, it’s definitely premium.  Conversely, if the service generates backlinks from unknown, irrelevant, or spammy websites, it’s low-quality (and not worth the investment).  These factors also determine the quality level of a link-building service:

• Outreach quality and effectiveness. Outreach is an art form, and some agencies are better at it than others. Truly premium link-building services should feature outreach experts who are able to yield consistent results. 

• Website vetting and research. While a website may have a high domain authority score, it still needs to hold relevance to your website. Thus, premium link-builders will take the time to research and vet each website to ensure they’re viable targets. 

• Deliverables and reporting. Lastly, the amount of time it takes for an agency to deliver results matters, as does the level of transparency in their reporting. Ideally, you want to work with an agency that will deliver results within a reasonable timeframe. Their reports should also be transparent (i.e., clearly letting you know which links they were able to build) and easy to read. 

Here’s a chart breaking down the difference between low-quality, medium-quality, and premium-quality backlink services:

Premium-quality backlinks	Medium-to-high-quality backlinks	Low-quality backlinks
Trusted news websites, media outlets, and academic publications	Guest posts on relevant blogs, link insertions, forum comments, social media	Private blog networks (PBNs), link farms, raw AI-generated content
Has the most significant impact on your domain authority and search rankings	Can have a decent impact on authority and rankings (especially guest posts).  Forum comments and social media posts are best for building a natural-looking link profile.	Will have no impact on rankings whatsoever (Google’s algorithm devalues low-quality backlinks).  In some cases, these backlinks can lead to penalties (like buying spammy backlinks from PBNs)
Are the most expensive, difficult, and time-consuming to generate	Are in the mid-range of affordability and ease to build	Tend to be cheap but still aren’t worth it

Why Premium Links Deliver Better SEO Results 

Now that you know what makes a link-building service premium, why is it worth the investment? Well, as we’ve touched on briefly already, premium backlinks provide the most significant benefits for your SEO.  First, premium backlinks will pass the most trust signals to your website, boosting your domain authority as a result.  So, if you’ve been unable to outrank a competitor who has a higher domain authority score than you, premium backlinks are your secret weapon.  Next, there are numerous benefits associated with having your website linked back to from a respected, high-traffic website.  Just think, for example, if you were able to secure backlinks from major platforms like NBC, GQ, Forbes, and The Associated Press.  That would mean your content (and brand name) would appear in front of millions of prospects, which leads to:

1. A strong uptick in brand awareness and exposure
2. Boosted brand credibility 
3. The ability to generate a ton of referral traffic 

These are significant benefits that can lead to more leads and sales!  This is the reason why link-building has become a staple of digital public relations (PR).  Besides boosting your domain authority and increasing your potential for high rankings, backlinks are also a fantastic way to increase brand exposure and generate lots of traffic. 

Do you want to significantly boost your brand exposure and domain authority? Check out our super-premium digital PR service!

Additionally, premium backlinks are not short-term gimmicks.  They provide long-term SEO success through boosted domain authority, referral traffic, and high search rankings (assuming they don’t break). 

Premium backlinks impact on GSO (generative search optimization) 

Building premium backlinks on trusted websites will also improve your visibility in Google’s AI Overviews and other generative search tools like Perplexity.  Why is that? Take a look at this Google AI Overview: It’s filled with citations to trusted sources online. The more quality backlinks you’re able to build to trusted sources in your field, the more likely you are to appear in these types of AI breakdowns.  Take it from ChatGPT: So, if you’ve been trying to boost your visibility on generative AI tools, premium backlinks are one of the best ways to do it. 

What to Look for in a Premium Link Provider 

If you want to hire an agency to build premium backlinks for you, there are certain things you should know beforehand.  The last thing you should do is go with the first agency you find online.  Instead, you should do quite a bit of research to ensure the agency you choose can:

1. Truly build premium backlinks
2. Build backlinks in your business’s niche 
3. Deliver results in a reasonable timeframe 

Also, there’s no shortage of red flags to look out for, as there are plenty of dishonest agencies out there that claim to build premium backlinks but don’t.  By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to distinguish reputable agencies that deliver impressive results from scammers who make grand promises but don’t follow through.  

Manual outreach process and niche relevance

The quality of an agency’s outreach process will make or break your backlink strategy.  That’s why AI-generated outreach emails don’t work.  Site owners already have their inboxes filled to the brim with generic backlink outreach templates, and using AI won’t add anything they haven’t already seen dozens of times before.  Personalization is the name of the game for successful outreach, and it’s only achievable with experienced human writers.  Outreach should be about building lasting relationships instead of making a hard pitch.  The best agencies use outreach experts who will research your target websites and start to build a rapport with them before requesting a backlink.  This forms long-term partnerships and relationships with relevant websites, which paves the way for more backlinks down the line.  Niche relevance also matters when building premium backlinks.  If Google discovers that one of your backlinks isn’t directly or contextually relevant to your content, it will devalue the impact it has on your search results.  That means irrelevant backlinks will do you no good whatsoever, even if they’re premium quality.  For example, the technology news website TechCrunch has an insanely high domain rating (92) and exemplary SEO metrics overall: Obviously, one of its backlinks would be considered premium.  Yet, if your website sells knitting products, a backlink from a major tech news website won’t be relevant, so Google will likely ignore it.  That’s why relevance is an extremely important factor to consider when looking for a backlink provider.  If the agency builds a bunch of irrelevant premium backlinks for you, they may as well have done nothing. 

Transparent metrics

You should never have to guess if your backlink strategy is working or not.  Trustworthy agencies will keep you posted every step of the way with transparent reporting and metrics.  Here are the types of metrics they should provide you with:

1. Your DA/DR scores. Moz’s Domain Authority and Ahrefs’ Domain Rating are the two gold standards for determining the ranking power of your domain. Your link-building agency should let you know what both are every time they update you on your strategy. 
2. Link type. Some backlinks require nofollow tags, like self-distributed press releases. Nofollow backlinks have a highly minimized impact on your search rankings (although it’s not entirely zero). The agency you work with should be transparent about whether the links they build are dofollow or nofollow. 
3. Organic traffic. Lastly, you should know how much traffic you’re generating to your website, including any referral traffic coming directly from backlinks. 

If an agency is willing to share these metrics with you, the chances are high that they aren’t acting in good faith. 

Custom strategies 

Every website has different needs when it comes to SEO.  Yet, that doesn’t stop some agencies from trying to take a one-size-fits-all approach (which is usually done to cut corners).  Instead, the agency you choose should work with you to develop a custom that’s 100% unique to your brand.  For instance, if you’re trying to outrank competitors who have higher domain authority scores, you need to focus on premium backlinks.  However, if your competitors have you beat in terms of quantity (i.e., they have more medium and high-quality backlinks than you do), you need to focus on closing the gap so that you can outrank them.  Each of these scenarios requires entirely different strategies, which is why using the same approach doesn’t work. 

Red flags to watch out for 

You should be wary of any agency that:

• Promises guaranteed rankings. There’s no way to guarantee specific rankings on Google. All anyone can do is enact SEO best practices and a solid strategy and hope for the best. Granted, seasoned SEO experts like us are able to consistently achieve top rankings, but we don’t make specific promises (like “you’ll rank #1 for all your keywords”). 

• Sells cheap backlinks in bulk. If a backlink bundle seems too good to be true, it is. Large volumes of cheap backlinks often come from PBNs and other spammy sources. Also, suddenly acquiring a ton of backlinks will get you flagged for spam (and you’ll likely get penalized). 

• Has poor reviews online. Always remember to check third-party review sites to see if an agency has a good reputation amongst its customers. The reviews you find on their official website are always going to be positive, so check elsewhere to see the other side of the coin. Granted, a few negative reviews are inevitable for any business, so one or two isn’t a big deal (especially if the agency responds and resolves the issue). If the vast majority of reviews are negative, though, you should find another agency! 

These are all telltale signs that an agency isn’t worth your time or hard-earned money, so steer clear! 

How The HOTH Handles Link Outreach Differently 

We’re one of the largest and most sought-after brands for link-building, so we know a thing or two about outreach!  During our tenure, we’ve developed an organic outreach process that yields consistent results.  At the same time, we continue to evolve and change with the trends, incorporating modern techniques and technologies into our process.  Whenever we conduct outreach, our focus is on real humans and real relationships.  We vet every single website to ensure niche relevance, and our clients get to approve all backlinks before they go live.  Also, we make sure our efforts tie into your broader SEO strategy, whether you’re on one of our managed plans (HOTH X) or are sticking with individual link-building products.  Just check out some of our case studies to see some of our handiwork in action – like the time we got a plumbing company to rank for over 100 relevant keywords due to the links we built. 

Appreciating the Value of Premium Quality Backlinks 

To recap, the quality of a backlink is tied to the domain it hails from.  A trusted news outlet that generates a ton of traffic? Definitely premium.  An unknown site that spreads raw AI content containing misinformation? Not worth a penny!  Accordingly, premium link-building services target premium domains for backlinks (without forgetting relevance).  Are you ready to get started with better SEO? Don’t wait to schedule a link outreach consulting call or kick things off with a technical audit!