Have i been asked recently if it's important? My answer is: 100 percent is important. But the wrong way to do it is to spend as much money as possible。
Let us share today some of the ideas i have built over the years in the hope of helping you to make less of a turn and less of a waste of money。
What is the essence of the outer chain
A lot of people understand the outside chain as "buy a link," which is a big mistake. The essence of the outer chain is that other websites vote on your trust. Google judges by pagerank algorithm: if the authoritative website is linked to you, it means you can be trusted。
In ahrefs's study, we found that the overall link weight (dr) and ranking of the website are highly relevant. To put it simply, the more chains the better? Wrong! Quality is 10,000 times more important than quantity。
What kind of outer chain is that
The core is two: relevance + authority
Relevance: a hvac company takes a link from a technology blog, which is more useful than a local site. Google will judge whether the source of the link is relevant to your industry。
Authoritative: forbes, dr90, a small blog with 100 links > dr30. That's why i spend more than $100,000 a month on an extra-chain budget, because high-quality extra-chains are really expensive, but worth it。
The correct position of the outer chain
A lot of people come up and say, "how many extra chains do i need to be first?"
Dude, that's a wrong question. The right question is: what kind of chain does my competition have
My approach is this:
Using ahrefs to analyze the top three competitors
Look at their dr, referring domains, anchor text distribution
Compute the difference between yourself and them
Develop targeted outer-chain strategies
For example, if the competition has 200 dr50+ extra-chains and you have only 20, you know what the gap is
I'm the most used way to access the outer chain
Guest post (visiting blog): this is the most stable method. Find industry-related blogs and provide high-quality content in exchange for a link. Cost: $200-400/link
Digital pr: media coverage through haro, press releases, etc. This link has a high weight but a long cycle。
Resources page lInk building: find an industry resource page and recommend your content. The success rate is low but free。
Broken lInk building: find the dead chain and provide your content as an alternative. It takes patience, but it works。
Don't step on the pit
Buying five thousand extra-chain bags on the fiverr
Over-optimizing anchor text - google would think you were cheating if 100 extra-chains were matched with "best hvac service."
- dr90 food blog links are less useful than dr40 industry websites
- new station suddenly adds 100 chains a month? Google: you think i'm stupid
New trends in 2025
Now you can't just stare at google. With the rise of the ai search, you need to consider:
How many authorities have your brand been mentioned
Are these references positive
Will ai recommend you
So now my strategy is: seo + reddit + youtube + media exposure, multi-channel brand influence。
What about the budget constraints
If you have a small budget, my advice is:
Let's do the site optimization and content first
Focus on 10-20 high-quality outer chains
Use of free methods (haro, resource pages, etc.)
Think about finding a good outsourcing team
Remember: 10 high-quality outer chains > 1,000 out of garbage chains
Finally:
The outer-chain construction is a long-term project, and one month is not expected to see results. In general, it is only three to six months before visible change is observed。
But once your outer chain system is in place, it's the compound effect. I've got a client who's been on the outer chain for two years, and now saves $200,000 a month for advertising, all by natural flow。
Seo has no secrets, and the core is: find the right way + keep it running + be patient enough
