Link Building

    Tiered Link Building

    Quick definition

    Tiered link building is a strategy where lower-quality links (Tier 2, Tier 3) are pointed at higher-quality links (Tier 1) to boost their authority.

    The theory: build great Tier 1 links to your money page, then build cheaper Tier 2 links (web 2.0s, social profiles, directories) at those Tier 1 pages to amplify their equity.

    Aggressive tiered link building is widely considered grey- or black-hat. It can produce short-term ranking gains, but spam patterns at Tier 2/3 often surface up to your money site over time.

    A cleaner modern interpretation: support truly editorial Tier 1 placements (digital PR, top guest posts) with high-quality internal links and a few legitimate citations — not spun web 2.0 spam.

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    Related terms

    PBN (Private Blog Network)
    A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a network of websites built or acquired solely to link back to a target site and manipulate its rankings.
    Link Velocity
    Link velocity is the rate at which a website acquires new backlinks over time.
    Black Hat SEO
    Black Hat SEO refers to practices that violate search engine guidelines to manipulate rankings — such as cloaking, PBNs, paid link schemes, and keyword stuffing.
    Skyscraper Technique
    The Skyscraper Technique is a link-building method where you find a high-performing piece of content, create something significantly better, then ask its backlinkers to link to your version instead.
    Resource Page Link Building
    Resource page link building is the tactic of getting your content added to curated 'best of' or resource list pages on authoritative websites.

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    Top-of-Funnel (TOFU)