Look, I'm going to be blunt. This industry has a problem.

For every legitimate link building agency doing proper work, there are five outfits running glorified scams. They'll take your money, deliver garbage, and disappear—or worse, stick around collecting monthly fees while your rankings go nowhere.

I've been in this business long enough to see the same patterns repeat. Clients come to us after getting burned elsewhere, and the stories are depressingly similar. The warning signs were there. They just didn't know what to look for.

So here's what to look for.

They Won't Tell You Where the Links Come From

This is the biggest red flag, and it's non-negotiable.

If an agency won't tell you exactly where your links will be placed—or at minimum, what types of sites and the general approach—walk away. 'We have proprietary methods' is code for 'we're doing something we don't want you to see.'

Yes, legitimate agencies protect their networks and don't broadcast every detail publicly. But there's a difference between discretion and secrecy. A real agency will explain their process to paying clients. They'll show you examples of past placements. They'll provide reports showing where your specific links went.

If they're cagey about this before you've paid, imagine how cagey they'll be after.

The Prices Are Suspiciously Low

Quality link building costs money. There's no way around it.

If someone's offering you 50 'high DA' links for £100, something's wrong. Either those links are worthless—spam sites, PBNs with obvious footprints, hacked sites—or the metrics are fake. Probably both.

Think about what legitimate link building actually requires: researching prospects, outreach, content creation or placement fees, quality control, reporting. That takes time and skill. Nobody's doing that properly for pennies per link.

I'm not saying you need to spend a fortune. But if an offer looks too good to be true, it is. The cheap links either won't help you or will actively hurt you. Either way, you've wasted money. We've written about the real cost of cheap PBN links separately—it's worse than most people realise.

Guaranteed Rankings

Run.

Nobody can guarantee rankings. Google's algorithm considers hundreds of factors, many of which are outside anyone's control. An agency can guarantee their deliverables—we'll build X links from Y type of sites—but they cannot guarantee where you'll rank.

Anyone promising 'page one guaranteed' is either lying or planning to rank you for useless long-tail keywords that nobody searches for. 'Congratulations, you're #1 for [your brand name] + [obscure phrase]!' Great. That's worthless.

Legitimate agencies talk about improving rankings, building authority, increasing visibility. They set realistic expectations. They explain that SEO takes time. They don't promise the moon.

No Interest in Your Actual Business

Before building links, any decent agency needs to understand what you're trying to achieve. What keywords matter? What pages need authority? Who are your competitors? What's your current backlink profile look like?

If an agency jumps straight to 'give us money and we'll build links' without asking these questions, they're not building a strategy. They're running a link factory.

Link building without strategy is just activity. You might get lucky. More likely, you'll get links that don't move the needle because they're not pointed at the right pages, not using appropriate anchors, not relevant to your niche. It's like throwing darts blindfolded and hoping you hit something useful.

We work with plenty of SEO agencies who already have strategy handled. But even then, we need to understand the plan to execute it properly. Anyone who doesn't ask questions is just going through the motions.

Metrics That Don't Add Up

DA 60! DR 55! TF 40!

Metrics are easy to manipulate. A site can have impressive-looking numbers while being completely worthless—or actively dangerous—as a link source.

How? Fake links pumping up the metrics. Expired domain with legacy authority but current spam content. A site that's already been deindexed but the third-party tools haven't caught up yet. There are loads of ways to make garbage look good on paper.

Dodgy agencies love metrics because they sound impressive and most clients don't know how to verify them. They'll show you a spreadsheet full of big numbers and assume you'll be dazzled.

Ask to see the actual sites. Check if they have real traffic (use SimilarWeb or SEMrush estimates). Look at the content—is it real articles or AI-generated garbage? Check if the site is actually indexed in Google. Look at who else is linking from the site. If a 'DA 60' site is also linking to casinos, pills, and essay mills, that should tell you something.

Instant Results Promises

'See results in 7 days!'

No.

Link building takes time to impact rankings. Google needs to discover the links, crawl them, process them, and incorporate them into ranking calculations. Even in the best case, you're looking at weeks. Realistically, significant results take months.

Anyone promising fast results is either lying or using tactics so aggressive they'll blow up in your face. Black-hat shortcuts can produce quick gains followed by devastating penalties. We've seen sites go from page one to page nowhere after Google caught up with their 'quick results' provider.

Proper link building is a long game. The compounding effect means patience pays off exponentially over time. Quick fixes mean quick failures.

No Reporting or Terrible Reporting

You're paying for links. You should know what you're getting.

At minimum, you need: the URL where your link was placed, the anchor text used, the target page it points to, and when it went live. Basic stuff. If an agency can't or won't provide this, how do you even know they did anything?

Worse is vague reporting that sounds informative but isn't. 'We built 15 contextual links this month.' Cool. Where? What sites? What anchors? To which pages? Without details, that statement is meaningless.

Good agencies provide detailed reports because they're proud of their work and want you to see it. Bad agencies avoid details because they're hiding something.

They Disappear When There's a Problem

You won't know this until it happens, but responsiveness before you pay often predicts responsiveness after.

How long do they take to respond to enquiries? Do they answer questions thoroughly or give vague deflections? Is there a real person you can talk to, or just a contact form that goes into a void?

If they're slow or evasive before you've given them money, imagine how they'll behave when something goes wrong and they already have your payment. Good agencies communicate proactively. They address problems openly. Bad agencies ghost you.

What to Do Instead

Finding a legitimate link building partner isn't complicated, but it requires actually vetting them rather than just picking whoever's cheapest or whoever's ads you saw first.

Ask for case studies or examples of past work. Not just 'we ranked this client'—show me actual links you built. Real agencies have portfolios of real work.

Start small. Test with a modest order before committing to ongoing monthly spend. See what they actually deliver. Verify the links exist and meet the promised specifications.

Ask questions. Legitimate providers will answer them patiently and thoroughly. They know that educated clients are better clients. Dodgy providers get annoyed by questions because questions expose their weaknesses.

Trust your gut. If something feels off—if they're pushy, if the promises seem excessive, if they can't explain their process clearly—it probably is off. There are enough legitimate options that you don't need to take chances on sketchy ones.

Final Thought

The link building industry deserves its dodgy reputation to some extent. There are genuinely a lot of scammers and low-quality operators out there.

But good providers exist too. They're just harder to find because they're not spamming your inbox with wild promises. They're busy doing actual work for actual clients who found them through referrals, reputation, and results.

Take your time. Vet properly. Ask hard questions. Start small. The right partner is worth finding—and the wrong one can set you back months or years.