Website owners are often asking the following question: “How many backlinks can I safely build per day without incurring penalties?” The reason behind this frequently asked question is that backlinks are one of the key ranking factors of SEO and that building backlinks incorrectly or too quickly can cause you to incur a penalty from the search engines for doing so.
The crux of the issue is that there isn’t a universal maximum number of backlinks that can be safely created per day. Instead, what’s most important with your backlink profile is how natural it appears to be in addition to whether it follows the search engines’ guidelines.
How to create backlinks varies widely by individuals. In addition to varying methods of creating backlinks, there is also great variance in the amount and quality of backlinks needed based upon how competitive a keyword is.
For very high levels of keyword competition, a much stronger backlink profile is required for your site to attain and maintain high rankings in the search engines.
Are There Penalties for Acquiring Backlinks Too Quickly?
You’ll be penalized based on the quality and appearance of your link profile, not quantity. For instance, if you receive organic backlinks that have been naturally built up (news articles, viral media) you won’t receive any type of penalty as long as they were acquired through genuine means such as press communications or legitimate website links.
In example: If you gain hundreds or thousands of naturally occurring organic backlinks from your content going viral within a short period of time, you’re safe (search engines can tell this is natural).
Additionally, when you offer solutions to the problems facing consumers or audiences through regular blogging, you’re going to earn organic backlinks faster than other companies positioned at a similar level of competition in their respective industries.
The risk of penalties is high when aggressively building lots of low-quality links yourself (PBNs and mass web 2.0s).
If we publish limited content or don’t have enough support articles, backlinks become crucial for maintaining stable keyword rankings. If that is the case, consistent efforts will be needed to build backlinks (Web 2.0s, classified submissions, social bookmarking, guest posting, link insertions, etc.). However, your method of link building should not be aggressive; rather, create backlinks gradually each day from high-quality websites, having low spam score and high domain authority.
There Isn’t a ‘Magical’ Number For Backlinking & What Matters
There is no official daily limit on backlinks published by search engines like Google (yet). What is more important are:
1. Natural Growth Rate
Your backlink growth pattern must appear to be organic (like the growth patterns of other sites in your industry). For instance, if you see huge spikes in your backlink growth over a short period of time, that may raise suspicion.
2. Authority & Age of Websites
Newer websites should have a slow start.
Established websites may be able to handle more backlinks, especially when those backlinks are high quality and relevant.
3. Quality > Quantity
A few high quality, relevant backlinks, from authoritative sites, are worth more than multiple low quality, irrelevant backlinks. A lot of low quality backlinks can negatively affect your search engine rankings, which is why we use only low spam score sites (less than 5%) in building backlinks for our clients.
We also try to only use niche specific and country appropriate sites to increase relevancy and better SEO outcomes.
4. Diversity of Links (Link Variety)
You should have backlinks coming from a variety of sources and domains: blogs, news agencies, forums, directories, social signals, classified websites, etc… This gives your link profile a more natural appearance.
5. Different Types of Anchor
Text (Anchor Text Variability)
Use a variety of anchor text types (branded, generic, partial match, exact match). Too many exact match anchors may appear to be artificially created.
General Guidelines (not Rules)
Here are general SEO recommendations based on industry research and general SEO practices, just like every site is unique.
For New Websites (0-6 months):
You should start with 1-5 quality backlinks per day, if you are actively trying to build a backlink profile.
For most of your growth, you can expect to derive from outreach, content marketing, and natural mentions.
For Growing Websites (6-24 months):
You should aim to create 5-10 quality backlinks per day as you grow both your traffic and your authority. If they are high-quality and relative sites, you could create a lot of additional links.
For Established Websites (greater than 2 years):
If you have a high authority website (e.g. an established blog or news site), you could receive anywhere from 10 – 50+ backlinks per day.
You can either create a lot of links through digital PR or through organic sharing or partnerships.
Important! Keep in mind that these ranges are a guideline – they are not hard and fast rules. In most cases, you want to see gradual, rock-solid growth without an enormous spike at one time.
When using backlink growth patterns, it may assist to consider using “Weekly” or “Monthly” growths, as backlinks are not typically indexed when created and search engine crawlers may crawl your site and index your links at different speeds.
Using “Weekly” or “Monthly” numbers will help to create an even baseline for “link velocity” so that it appears both natural and smooth.
Top Strategies Backlinks Are Really Safe
These are some of the top elements that you can use to create links without any problems on your website:
Create Authoritative and Appropriate Links from Places that Are Relevant to Your Niche.
One good link from an authoritativeness site related of your niche will be more beneficial than several low-quality links on your website.
Develop Link-Worthy Content.
If you create well-researched content such as guides, case studies, etc at some point the content will get referenced by Others as long as it is significantly different from others content.
Get Links from Many Different Sources (Not Just 1 Source)
Try to get backlinks from:
- Blogs
- News Companies
- Niche Forums
- Social Profiles
- Directories
- Guest Blogs Related to Niche
- Classified Directory
- Infographic Submissions
- Link Insertion
- PowerPoint Presentations
- PDF Document Submission
The combination of all these types of backlinks indicates Natural Link Growth.
Use Natural Anchor Text
Use multiple different types of anchor text, including brand, URL, partial keyword(s), and generic terms such as “click here”.
Also, avoid engaging in black-hat tactics such as:
Purchasing links from link farms Automated tools to build backlinks Spam-like directories
These types of tactics could result in penalties being assessed against your website.
Monitoring Your Backlink Profile
There are tools available to help you track the health of your link profile, including:
- Google Search Console (no cost)
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Moz
Each of these tools has the ability to help identify potentially toxic backlinks and monitor backlinking growth trends.
Takeaways
1. There is no specific number for “safe” quantity of backlinks to be obtained per day for any website but what’s most important is the appearance of your link profile throughout time.
2. Concentrate on the quality, relevancy, variety, and consistency of growth of your backlinks.
3. Avoid obtaining artificially excessive or “spiked” numbers of backlinks unless they were achieved purely naturally (e.g., viral exposure).
