Four underused link building tactics worth trying now

Executive overview

Most link building advice recycles the same playbook. These four tactics exploit gaps others overlook — outdated guest posts, misrouted redirects, product trials, and paid search to seed organic links.

Links from already-authoritative pages beat links from new pages every time.

Guest post updates

• Pitch site owners to let you update an existing page — not write a new one.
• Cherry-pick pages that already have strong backlink profiles; a link from them passes more PageRank.
• Use Content Explorer to find pages with 50+ referring domains and DR 40+, filtered by year in the title (2017–2020).
• Look for pages whose traffic peaked then dropped — a sign the content is stale but the links are real.
• Find the head of content via the team page or LinkedIn, then pitch a mutual benefit: you refresh the content, they get revived traffic.

Redirect link building

• Find competitor pages that 301-redirect to an irrelevant destination — the backlinks pointing at them are now contextually orphaned.
• Use Site Explorer > Best By Links, filter HTTP code to 301, and compare the redirected URL slug with the destination slug.
• Verify the mismatch in archive.org; check anchor text of linking pages to confirm topic relevance.
• Reach out to those linking pages and offer your content as a more contextually relevant replacement.
• Opportunities are plentiful because many site owners "fix" broken pages by redirecting them carelessly.

Product feedback technique

• Find listicle pages ranking for "best [your product category]" where your product is absent.
• Reach out offering a free trial — not a link exchange — framing it as a feedback request.
• If they respond with reasons for exclusion, that's actionable product intelligence.
• If they try the product and like it, ask if they'll consider adding it to their roundup.
• Only viable if you genuinely believe your product is competitive; weak products produce weak results.

Google Ads to seed link bait

• Stats and statistics pages earn links naturally because writers cite data when they publish content.
• Organic link earning requires visibility; ads let you buy visibility while the page is too new to rank.
• Find target queries using Keywords Explorer with modifiers like "stats", "statistics", "facts" in a niche-relevant seed list.
• Run search ads on those queries to get your stats page in front of writers and researchers.
• Once the page earns enough links to rank organically, the cycle is self-sustaining.