Link building statistics for 2026

96.55% of pages in a ~14 billion page index get zero organic search traffic from Google.

Analysis of ~14 billion pages in Ahrefs' Content Explorer index

Only about 1 in every 6,671 pages with no referring domains gets more than 1,000 monthly search visits.

Analysis of ~14 billion pages in Ahrefs' Content Explorer index

Approximately 95% of pages in an analysis of 11.8 million Google results had zero backlinks.

Correlation analysis of 11.8 million Google search results

94% of blog posts have zero external links pointing to them.

Analysis of 912 million blog posts with BuzzSumo data

Content longer than 3,000 words earns an average of 77.2% more referring domain links than content under 1,000 words.

Analysis of 912 million blog posts with BuzzSumo data

The median web page includes just six outbound links to other websites, and 25 at the 90th percentile on desktop.

HTTP Archive crawl of millions of desktop and mobile web pages

Only 1 in every 2,229 search results had every top-10 page holding at least one backlink from a page with search traffic.

Top 10 ranking pages for 44,589 non-branded keywords, Spearman correlations

92.3% of new domains that held top-100 Google rankings for 13 straight months had at least one backlink.

28,000 new domains tracked for 13 months in Semrush's US database

The #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than pages ranking in positions #2 to #10.

Correlation analysis of 11.8 million Google search results

Backlink metrics correlate at 0.22–0.24 with Google rankings for low-volume queries, down from up to 0.29 in an earlier Ahrefs study.

Spearman correlations for low-volume queries, compared with an earlier Ahrefs study

Most #1-ranking pages gain followed backlinks from new referring domains at a pace of 5% to 14.5% per month.

Top 20 ranking pages for 10,000 non-branded keywords, followed referring domains

96.5% of senior SEO professionals see a moderate or strong correlation between backlinks and search rankings.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

55.1% of new domains that never reached Google's top 10 had no backlinks at all.

28,000 new domains tracked for 13 months in Semrush's US database

Number of referring domains is the 12th most influential Google ranking factor among the factors measured in a large correlation study.

Semrush 2024 ranking factors study of top Google search results

Top-10 domains aged 15+ years typically have 128x more backlinks and 27x more referring domains than top-10 domains under two years old.

Analysis of domains ranking across 100,000 Google SERPs

Domains under two years old hold only 2.03% of Google top-10 results and 1.42% of top-3 results.

Analysis of domains ranking across 100,000 Google SERPs

48.6% of SEO professionals consider digital PR the most effective link building tactic.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

91.89% of SEO professionals believe their competitors buy backlinks.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

55.2% of SEO professionals consider link building the most challenging part of SEO.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

About 80% of digital PR professionals say they never buy links.

Survey of 150+ digital PR professionals

Only 29% of link builders consider their link building efforts successful.

Survey of SEO and link building professionals, run with Citation Labs

87.1% of senior SEO professionals would keep building links even if Google stopped using them as a ranking signal.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

53.4% of senior SEO professionals say digital PR delivered their strongest link building results in the past 12 months.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

34% of SEO professionals name digital PR their best-performing link building tactic, nearly twice the share for guest posts (18%).

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

43.8% of SEO professionals use link exchanges, yet none named it their best-performing tactic.

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

73% of link building professionals plan to use digital PR as a key link building tactic in the coming year.

Censuswide survey of 536 SEO and marketing professionals who build links

62% of SEO professionals prioritize link quality over volume, while only 9% still chase link volume.

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

$508.95 is the average price SEO professionals consider acceptable for acquiring one high-quality backlink.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

80.9% of SEO professionals believe link building will become harder and more expensive over the next 2–3 years.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

75.1% of SEO professionals say the high cost of premium backlinks is their biggest link building challenge.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

10.2% of digital PR teams report an average cost per link of $750 or more, up from 3% a year earlier.

Survey of 150+ digital PR professionals

76% of SEO professionals would pay $300 or more for a single high-quality link placement, and 31% would pay $500–$1,000.

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

The average link insertion (niche edit) costs $225, compared with $459 for an average guest post.

Price analysis of 52,671 publisher websites selling guest posts and link insertions

Each additional 10 points of Domain Rating increases a publisher's backlink price by about 32% on average.

Price analysis of 52,671 publisher websites selling guest posts and link insertions

Backlink prices on websites with Domain Rating 61–90 rose by 21-46% in one year, the strongest growth of any tier.

Price analysis of 52,671 publisher websites selling guest posts and link insertions

Buying a link insertion on an existing page cost $361.44 on average across 450 sites in nine competitive niches.

Ahrefs outreach asking 450 sites in nine competitive niches to sell a link

Only 12.6% of site owners contacted were willing to sell a link on their site.

Ahrefs outreach asking 450 sites in nine competitive niches to sell a link

Only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response, meaning 91.5% are ignored.

Analysis of 12 million outreach emails sent via Pitchbox

Sending just one additional follow-up email can boost outreach replies by 65.8%.

Analysis of 12 million outreach emails sent via Pitchbox

Emailing more than one contact at a target organization improves outreach response rates by 93% compared with a single contact.

Analysis of 12 million outreach emails sent via Pitchbox

Outreach emails with personalized message bodies receive 32.7% more replies than non-personalized emails.

Analysis of 12 million outreach emails sent via Pitchbox

The average cold email sequence reply rate is 4.5%, meaning only 45 of every 1,000 recipients reply.

31 million cold emails sent by Hunter users in 2025, plus recipient surveys

Digital PR cold email campaigns get a 13% average response rate, versus 3% for sales outreach sequences.

31 million cold emails sent by Hunter users in 2025, plus recipient surveys

Cold email sequences without open tracking see a 7.4% reply rate, compared with 4.4% for sequences with tracking enabled.

31 million cold emails sent by Hunter users in 2025, plus recipient surveys

Sending three cold email messages instead of one increases total replies by 106%.

31 million cold emails sent by Hunter users in 2025, plus recipient surveys

Cold emails with two custom personalization attributes get a 5.6% reply rate, versus 3.6% with no personalization.

31 million cold emails sent by Hunter users in 2025, plus recipient surveys

Cold emails sent from a custom domain get a 108% higher reply rate than those sent from free email providers.

31 million cold emails sent by Hunter users in 2025, plus recipient surveys

Specific subject lines on digital PR pitches get about 24% higher open rates than vague ones (43% vs 34.6%).

~148,000 digital PR story pitches across 39 million emails

66% of journalists rely on PR-provided content such as press releases, pitches and media kits for story ideas.

Survey of 1,899 journalists across 19 markets, January–February 2026

72% of journalists say fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant.

Survey of 1,899 journalists across 19 markets, January–February 2026

53% of journalists oppose AI-generated pitches over concerns about accuracy and personalization.

Survey of 1,899 journalists across 19 markets, January–February 2026

86% of journalists say they will immediately reject a pitch that is not aligned with their beat or audience.

Survey of more than 3,000 journalists across 19 global markets

72% of journalists cite press releases as the most useful resource PR teams can offer.

Survey of more than 3,000 journalists across 19 global markets

85% of journalists say the best way to build a relationship is to introduce yourself by email, even without a story to pitch.

Survey of more than 3,000 journalists across 19 global markets

60.8% of digital PR professionals say finding relevant journalists for campaigns has become harder in the last 12 months.

Survey of 150+ digital PR professionals

Only 48% of digital PR professionals always personalize their email pitches to journalists.

Survey of 150+ digital PR professionals

81% of digital PR professionals say they secure first coverage within a week of the initial pitch.

Survey of 150+ digital PR professionals

Press release wire sites account for 1% of links cited by AI models, up from 0.2% about six months earlier.

1 million+ links cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity

One agency's 67 digital PR campaigns over a single year earned 1,386 links, averaging 23 placements per campaign.

One agency's 67 digital PR content campaigns run in 2025

Placements earned by one agency's digital PR campaigns over a single year averaged a Domain Authority of 56.

One agency's 67 digital PR content campaigns run in 2025

86% of journalists say at least some of their stories originate from PR pitches.

Survey of 1,044 journalists, January–March 2026

A guest post costs $295 on average when bought directly from a site, versus $461 through a vendor.

Pricing data for 257,000+ guest post sites listed by link vendors

Only 1.37% of sites selling guest posts on link marketplaces qualify as high-quality or top-tier.

Pricing data for 257,000+ guest post sites listed by link vendors

A high-quality guest post costs $3,130 on average through a vendor, and a top-tier placement costs $6,018.

Pricing data for 257,000+ guest post sites listed by link vendors

40.5% of senior SEOs name guest posting as the tactic with the widest gap between how often it is used and how well it works.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

Guest posting is the most-named dead or dying link tactic, cited by 19.4% of senior SEOs who answered.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

42.4% of SEO professionals use guest posts, but only 18% rate guest posting as their best link building method.

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

The average guest post price rose 7.5% in one year, from $427 to $459.

Price analysis of 52,671 publisher websites selling guest posts and link insertions

Websites with 10,000 monthly organic visits charge about 21% more for a guest post than sites with 1,000 visits.

Price analysis of 52,671 publisher websites selling guest posts and link insertions

Branded anchor text correlates at 0.527 with a brand's visibility in Google AI Overviews, more than backlink counts do.

Correlation study of 75,000 brands' mentions in Google AI Overviews

41.7% of SEO professionals prefer partial-match anchor text, ahead of exact-match (25.1%) and branded anchors (20.5%).

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

Nearly 80% of SEO professionals believe nofollow links affect search rankings.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

58.6% of senior SEOs say topical relevance of the linking page is the single factor that matters most when judging a backlink.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

Nofollow backlinks correlate with AI mentions at 0.340, nearly identical to the 0.334 correlation for followed links.

1,000 random domains' backlink signals versus mentions across five AI platforms

32.3% of web pages use the rel=nofollow attribute on links, nearly unchanged from the previous year.

HTTP Archive crawl of millions of desktop and mobile web pages

Only 0.5% of web pages use the rel=sponsored link attribute, and 0.5% use rel=ugc.

HTTP Archive crawl of millions of desktop and mobile web pages

The SpamBrain spam-detection system found 50 times more link spam sites in its latest link spam update than in the previous one.

Google's annual webspam report on SpamBrain detection

89% of link building professionals say link relevance is important when evaluating a link.

Censuswide survey of 536 SEO and marketing professionals who build links

62.9% of senior SEOs say Domain Rating is not a primary factor in a backlink's return on investment.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

66.5% of links pointing to a sample of over 2 million websites over nine years have rotted.

Links pointing to 2,062,173 sampled websites since January 2013

74.5% of backlinks acquired over nine years are considered lost for SEO purposes once crawl errors and other issues are counted.

Links pointing to 2,062,173 sampled websites since January 2013

38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible a decade later.

Sample of webpages from Common Crawl snapshots 2013–2023, plus news, government and Wikipedia pages

25% of all webpages collected between 2013 and 2023 were no longer accessible as of October 2023.

Sample of webpages from Common Crawl snapshots 2013–2023, plus news, government and Wikipedia pages

23% of news webpages contain at least one broken link, as do 21% of government webpages.

Sample of webpages from Common Crawl snapshots 2013–2023, plus news, government and Wikipedia pages

54% of Wikipedia pages contain at least one reference link pointing to a page that no longer exists.

Sample of webpages from Common Crawl snapshots 2013–2023, plus news, government and Wikipedia pages

11% of all reference links cited on English-language Wikipedia pages are no longer accessible.

Sample of webpages from Common Crawl snapshots 2013–2023, plus news, government and Wikipedia pages

32% of links on news site pages redirect to a different URL than the one they originally pointed to.

Sample of webpages from Common Crawl snapshots 2013–2023, plus news, government and Wikipedia pages

5% of all links on news site pages point to pages that are no longer accessible.

Sample of webpages from Common Crawl snapshots 2013–2023, plus news, government and Wikipedia pages

$8,406 is the average minimum monthly link building budget SEO professionals say is needed to compete in highly competitive niches.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

Agencies allocate an average of 32.1% of their overall SEO budget to link building, while in-house teams allocate 36.03%.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

56% of SEO professionals outsource at least part of their link building, while 44% handle it entirely in-house.

Survey of 518 SEO professionals (agency, in-house, freelance)

About 60% of digital PR teams have a monthly digital PR budget under $10,000, and 25.7% have under $5,000.

Survey of 150+ digital PR professionals

56% of link builders plan to invest more in link building over the next 12 months.

Survey of SEO and link building professionals, run with Citation Labs

75% of link builders are given six months or less to prove the value of their link building efforts.

Survey of SEO and link building professionals, run with Citation Labs

58% of SEO professionals increased their link building budget year over year, while 14% cut back.

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

64% of SEO professionals spend $3,000 or more per month on link building, and 38% spend $6,000 or more.

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

47% of link building professionals spend more than £600 a month on link building, and 14% spend more than £1,500.

Censuswide survey of 536 SEO and marketing professionals who build links

54% of link building professionals believe they will need more staff to keep up with link building over the coming year.

Censuswide survey of 536 SEO and marketing professionals who build links

Only 43% of SEOs say rankings are a main KPI for measuring their link building ROI.

Censuswide survey of 536 SEO and marketing professionals who build links

Brand web mentions correlate at 0.664 with brand visibility in Google AI Overviews, versus 0.218 for number of backlinks.

Correlation study of 75,000 brands' mentions in Google AI Overviews

Of ChatGPT's 1,000 most-cited pages that also rank in Google, 65.3% sit on domains with a Domain Rating of 81 or higher.

Analysis of ChatGPT's 1,000 most-cited pages in Ahrefs Brand Radar

Just 11% of link builders have a repeatable process for getting cited in AI-generated answers.

Survey of SEO and link building professionals, run with Citation Labs

81.9% of senior SEO professionals believe backlinks influence whether AI engines cite a brand.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

46.6% of senior SEOs say they have seen a specific backlink lead to an AI citation, with before-and-after evidence.

Survey of 116 SEO professionals, mostly heads of SEO

74% of SEO professionals believe backlinks affect AI search visibility, but only 24% are tracking it.

Survey of 500 SEO professionals in Q1 2026

A backlink-based domain authority score shows a 0.65 Pearson correlation with how often a domain is mentioned in AI-generated answers.

1,000 random domains' backlink signals versus mentions across five AI platforms

Sites with over 32,000 referring domains are 3.5x more likely to be cited by ChatGPT than sites with up to 200.

129,000 domains and 216,524 pages across 20 niches, ChatGPT citations

Websites with more than 350,000 referring domains receive 8.4 ChatGPT citations on average, versus 1.6–1.8 for sites with up to 2,500.

129,000 domains and 216,524 pages across 20 niches, ChatGPT citations

Brands ranking on page 1 of Google show a ~0.65 correlation with LLM mentions, while backlinks showed weak or neutral impact.

10,000 questions from 300,000+ keywords run through ChatGPT

About 25% of links cited by AI models come from journalistic sources, and most citations are non-paid coverage.

1 million+ links cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity

Domains with a Domain Trust score above 90 earn almost 4x more ChatGPT citations than domains scoring below 43.

129,000 domains and 216,524 pages across 20 niches, ChatGPT citations

Half of all AI responses include at least one citation of earned media.

Hundreds of thousands of prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, July 2025

In a 200-website study, sites with a Domain Rating of 30 or more got 29× more AI citations than sites under DR 10 (median 100 vs 3.5).

200 websites; AI citations from Ahrefs (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode) matched with Search Console.

Websites with 150+ verified backlinks got 16× the AI citations of websites with fewer than 10, and had a median Domain Rating of 30 vs 6.

200 websites; AI citations from Ahrefs (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode) matched with Search Console.

Websites with a Domain Rating of 30 or more got 18× the Google impressions of websites under DR 10 in a 200-website study.

200 websites; AI citations from Ahrefs (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode) matched with Search Console.

Google impressions are the strongest single predictor of how often AI assistants cite a website, with a rank correlation of 0.80.

200 websites; AI citations from Ahrefs (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode) matched with Search Console.