Types of Backlinks and Strategies to Acquire Them in 2026

20-Second Summary

This guide has been designed to explain the types of backlinks essential for a website’s rankings and for boosting its domain authority. 

We will explain how social backlinks and the natural and relevant backlinks, including editorial, guest post, UGC, HARO/PR, business directory, resource page, image, and testimonial backlinks, strengthen a healthy backlink profile and improve search engine rankings.

We will also discuss the following important aspects around the backlinks:

• Do-follow vs nofollow backlinks.
• High-quality backlinks vs Spammy backlinks.
• Tips on safely building backlinks.

This is an all-in-one blog to help you build a backlink profile with different types of backlinks that will not only be secure but also help you improve your search rankings.

Types of Backlinks Every Website Owner Should Know

When it comes to backlinks, there are too many types, and it can be confusing sometimes. To end the confusion, we are going to separate them into two broad categories:

1. Natural and Relevant Backlinks.
2. Social Backlinks.

We are categorising social backlinks from natural and relevant types of backlinks, because these can be nofollow, which means they usually do not pass link juice directly, but Google may still use them as signals.

Natural and Relevant Backlinks: How High-Quality Inbound Links Boost SEO

Natural and relevant backlinks provide the most value because they are earned without having to manipulate the search engines, and you earn them through relevance, authority, and content value.

These backlinks are usually from high-authority and reputable websites in the niche your business is working in, and they give strong signals of trust to Google about your business.

Having a high authority website linking to your content not only strengthens the value of your site but also helps you with the search engine rankings, based on a healthy backlink profile.

Below, we are discussing the 8 most quality natural and relevant backlinks that a business can acquire for strong SEO growth and rankings, avoiding penalties.

1. Editorial Backlinks

These gold standard backlinks are earned from other reputable websites in your niche, and you get them for providing high-value and useful content. These signal a strong trust in your website for the search engines and boost your SEO.

These keywords are naturally embedded in the content of other websites.

They usually come from reputable news websites, your niche industry websites, or from the research platforms.

Strategy to Earn the Editorial Backlinks

• Provide original research and statistics about the topic.
• Provide free and valuable tools like calculators that can be used.
• Use infographics within the content based on the statistics.
• Write detailed tutorials and guides.
• Provide unique insights on the topic, initiating new interest in the topic.
• Keep a watch on the competitors’ backlinks and create better research and data on topics they are linked to.
• You can also connect with other creators and journalists or work with the PR professionals to get their reviews, and feature your stats on their platforms. 

2. Guest Post Backlinks

Guest post backlinks are the inbound links that you generate by writing for other websites in your niche industry. These are really valuable backlinks that provide you with increased authority, ranking, and traffic.

But when contributing to another website where you are guest posting, ensure that you are adding value to their readers, and the audience that will eventually be passed down to your website via link juice.

Strategy to Earn the Guest Post Backlinks

• Research and find quality websites in your niche, and connect with them to offer guest posting services.
• Create value-adding content and ensure you are placing contextual links in the content, or highlight your website in your author bio.
• Ensure you are following the guidelines of your guest blog or website.
• In order to avoid any penalties, ensure that the website you are writing for is not linked to spammy backlinks and has a healthy backlink profile.

3. UGC Backlinks

UGC backlinks are the links that can be seen in the forums, comments sections, and also in product reviews online, linking back to your website. These might not add a direct SEO value to your website (nofollow backlinks, but add significant value with word-of-mouth), but they are effective backlinks to get your website referral traffic and signal your authority to search engines.

• These links add value by enhancing engagement for your business and by providing you with a diverse link profile.
• As their value depends on the quality of the source, UGC links from authoritative user-generated websites can provide a significant SEO value, signalling your likeness and authority to search engines.
• Mostly, people confuse the UGC backlinks for social media user-generated content only, but it is a broad term and contains the links on non-social platforms across the web.
• Website owners can add the rel=”ugc” HTML attribute to user-generated links (like comments) to signal to search engines that users, not the website owner, placed these links.

Strategy to Build the UGC Backlinks

• Encourage your customers to share reviews around your products and services by running contests with brand mentions (brand hashtags).
• Be active on forums where your products are being discussed and participate in discussions, or create your own forums where users can talk about your products and services, naturally creating a UGC backlink profile.
• Develop infographics or guides that users naturally link and share on platforms.
• Collaborate with the creators and ask them to either write for your blog, or outreach famous creators in your niche and ask them for expert quotes, or send your products for review.
• When you allow users to post links (e.g., in comments), add rel=”ugc” to the <a> tag to identify it as user-generated.

4. HARO / PR Backlinks

HARO stands for “Help a Reporter Out.” The HARO or PR backlinks are acquired by providing expert insights, personal stories, or data to journalists who are requesting the expert’s input on specific topics.

HARO stands as a great strategy for building the domain authority and strength. Your website can get highly valuable backlinks from websites like Forbes and The New York Times.

Strategy to Build HARO/PR Backlinks

• Register and sign up on the HARO website.
• You will get daily emails from the journalists who need expert advice on your niche topics.
• Pitch to those emails with valuable insights and data-backed studies.
• Provide compelling and straightforward answers, and respond quickly to the prompts in your niche because your competitors will be pitching too.

5. Business Directory Backlinks 

Business directory backlinks come from the major directories’ catalogues to your website. These records your business, not only acting as a digital vote of your business presence, visibility, and website trust, but also help with your business’s local SEO.

• They help to increase the discoverability of your business.
• Enhance your SEO, improving your site’s authority and rankings.
• Builds your authority in your locality.
• If you are a new business, index your website on directories to help the search engines find and crawl your website.

Strategy to Build Business Directory Backlinks

• Focus on registering with the reputable, high-authority, and relevant directories. The key major directories include: Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Yelp, Apple Maps, Facebook Pages, and LinkedIn.
• For more local and general directories, look for: Foursquare, Angi, Superpages, Merchant Circle, Yellow Pages, Manta, Hotfrog.
• You must also consider looking into niche-specific directories. If you have a tourism company, then signing up with TripAdvisor can be of value for getting backlinks.
• Keep your business name, address, and phone number updated and similar on all the listings.
• Do not go for building links on low-quality directories.

6. Resource Page Backlinks

Resource page backlinks are basically the pages with curated lists of the best tools, guides, and references. These are known as the high-authority link sources, and a white-hat SEO strategy for building the authority of your website by getting your content listed on these pages for your target audience.

This practice is still highly effective in 2026, and will remain a backlinks building practice for improving your domain authority and rankings.

Strategy to Build Resource Page Backlinks

• Find resource pages on your topic.
• Ensure that the resource pages come from websites that do not have any kind of spammy links mentioned in their resources or backlinks.  
• Analyze competitor backlinks for resource pages.
• Check industry association sites.
• Reach out to page owners.
• Keep pitch brief and personal.
• Offer genuine value to their list to get accepted to the list.

7. Image/Visual Backlinks

These are the backlinks that you can earn when someone uses the infographics, charts, or data visualizations within your content and sources them with your content links.

By providing high-quality and value-providing visuals, you help your website gain more backlinks for building authority, get increased traffic, and search rankings.

Strategy to Build Visual Backlinks

• Create data visualizations from original research.
• Build infographics on popular topics.
• Create shareable charts and graphs.
• Embed code in your visual content for easy linking.
• Optimize the images for multiple formats.
• Distribute the visuals to design communities.
• Promote your visuals on social media along with a link to your website to increase their reach and visibility.

8. Testimonial Backlinks

Testimonial backlinks are the high-quality backlinks that you receive when you provide a positive review of the products and services of a company. In return, the company publishes your testimonial on their website and links back to your website.

• This win-win situation helps you to get authoritative links, helping with your social proof and SEO.
• This link-building technique is based on creating a genuine experience, and it gains you relevant traffic from users who trust the website that is linking to you. 

Strategy to Build Testimonial Backlinks

• Use tools and services you will genuinely recommend to your audience.
• Email the business introducing yourself, then share your experience with their product, and ask them if they will publish the testimonial on their website.
• Leave detailed and honest testimonials.
• Ask the website or business owner if they link back from the testimonial page.
• Build relationships with tool providers.
• Focus on industry-relevant tools only, so that you get links from the same industry, building genuine authority for your website.

Social Backlinks: Using Social Media for SEO Signals

Social backlinks are the links that you acquire from social media. These are often “nofollow” backlinks, but they still signal your brand authority on the internet. 

By using them, you can build a diverse backlink profile for your website and get referral traffic and engagement. 

Why Social Backlinks Matter?

• Google considers them ranking signals.
• They build topical authority for your website.
• They help to make your diverse link profile look natural.
• They drive significant traffic, which is mostly referral.

Platforms that Matter in 2026 for Gaining Social Backlinks:

• LinkedIn for building professional authority.
• Reddit (high-authority domains)
• Twitter/X (real-time engagement)
• Industry-specific forums
• Quora (Q&A platform with high authority)

Strategy to Build Social Backlinks

• Share valuable content consistently on all the social media platforms, including your personal brand accounts on Instagram and TikTok as well.
• Engage authentically in communities.
• Answer questions on Quora/Reddit.
• Do not just promote your content, but also engage in discussions.
• Build a genuine following based on your engagement and social sharing.
• Create value by providing shareable content.
• Encourage social sharing.
• First, create a connection with people on the platform by providing value through content and engagement, and then slowly start sharing the links.
• Follow the community guidelines for the platforms where you will be sharing content. 

Dofollow vs Nofollow Backlinks: Passing Link Juice Safely

Do-follow backlinks pass direct authority and link juice, and ranking signals to search engines to help with your SEO. Whereas, the nofollow backlinks give social signals to search engines, help to prevent spam by managing the paid links, and maintain a natural link profile for your website.

Below, we have curated a table to show their side-by-side comparison:

High-Quality Links vs Spam Links: How to Protect Your Website

While building backlinks, you must consider how you are building them. Because sometimes you can unknowingly create spammy backlinks, affecting the ranking and authority of your website.

To avoid this, you just need to consider the difference between the high-quality and low-quality backlinks. We have given this as a checklist and a comparison in the table given below, to make it easier for you to identify good backlinks out of bad links. 

How to Build Backlinks Safely

When building backlinks for your website, consider one golden rule in mind: “Quality is greater than Quantity when it comes to backlinks.”

To build the backlinks safely, consider the following practices:

• Create high-quality and genuine content attracting natural and relevant backlinks.
• Do not ask for links; rather, build relationships with businesses for consistent value and link building.
• Never opt for paid backlink schemes.
• Do not over-optimise your anchor texts.

• Avoid automation and link wheels.
• Don’t over-optimize anchor text.
• Build a diverse link profile by building different types of links.
• Build the backlinks slowly.
• Avoid Private Blog Networks.
• Avoid footer or sidebar links from unrelated sites.

Last but not least, monitor your backlink profile constantly, and keep an eye on the backlinks’ health. If you find any spammy links, remove them.

Final Remarks

Building backlinks is still a crucial practice for creating the confidence vote for your website and signal to the search engines for your authority and ranking, but they must come from relevant sources, and not be outsourced using any black-hat SEO strategy. 

This blog has outlined 8 important and healthy backlink types that you can consider for your website in 2026, along with key strategies to build them and tips on how to build a safe backlink profile.

For more such valuable information for the growth of your website and business, keep visiting The Digital Advice. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the different types of backlinks, and why are they important for SEO?

There are 8 main types of backlinks: editorial, guest post, UGC, HARO/PR, directory, resource page, image, and testimonial backlinks. They’re important because they are one of Google’s top 3 ranking factors, and they help you to rank and build authority for your website. 

How do natural and relevant backlinks improve search engine rankings?

Natural and relevant backlinks improve rankings because they are a signal to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. Google uses them as ranking factors, and they pass link juice to your website.

What is the difference between dofollow and nofollow backlinks?

Dofollow links pass “link juice” and directly help rankings. Nofollow links don’t pass link juice directly, but Google may consider them as ranking signals. Both are valuable for SEO and ranking.

Are social backlinks valuable for SEO, and how should they be used?

Links from social media are usually nofollow and don’t pass direct link juice, but they’re valuable for brand signals, referral traffic, and helping Google understand your content. You can use them to diversify your link profile.

How to build backlinks safely?

You can build backlinks safely by: creating valuable content, earning links naturally, building relationships, avoiding paid links, monitoring your profile, and disavowing bad links.