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Key takeaways
- Links are still one of Google’s strongest ranking signals — but the bought, PBN and comment-spam links most Indian agencies sell are now a liability, not an asset.
- The shift that matters: stop buying links, start earning them. Digital PR, original data, expert commentary and genuinely useful assets are what real publications actually link to.
- One link from a relevant Indian publication or a respected industry site beats fifty ₹100-a-piece links from sites no real reader visits. Measure relevance and traffic, not just a DA number.
Every week a founder forwards me the same pitch: ‘100 high-DA backlinks, ₹15,000, results in 30 days.’ It’s the most expensive cheap thing in Indian SEO. Buying links doesn’t build authority — it builds risk. Here’s how Indian brands earn backlinks that actually move rankings: the digital-PR tactics that work, the shortcuts that backfire, and how to measure links by quality, not quantity.
Do backlinks still matter for SEO in 2024?
Yes — backlinks remain one of Google’s top-ranking signals in 2024. A link from another site is a vote of trust, and pages with relevant, authoritative links consistently outrank thin pages without them. But the rules changed: it’s now about who links to you and why, not how many links you can buy.
Google has been clear for years that links count. What founders miss is the second half of the sentence — the company has spent a decade getting better at ignoring the bad ones. Its link-spam systems now neutralise manipulative links algorithmically rather than just penalising sites, which means a thousand purchased links increasingly do nothing at all. You paid for influence and got static. Meanwhile, a handful of editorially-given links from sites your customers actually read still move the needle, because those are the votes Google trusts. The job in 2024 isn’t ‘get more links.’ It’s ‘earn the right links from places that matter to your category in India.’
Why is buying backlinks a bad idea now?
Because bought links are a liability you rent, not an asset you own. Google’s spam systems are built to detect and discount paid links, PBNs (private blog networks) and comment spam — so at best they do nothing, and at worst they drag your whole domain down. You’re paying real money for risk with no compounding return.
The Indian market makes this worse because the shortcuts are everywhere and cheap. You’ve seen the Fiverr and WhatsApp pitches — ‘100 backlinks for ₹500’, ‘guaranteed DA 50+ links’, ‘guest posts on 200 sites.’ Those links almost always come from the same network of low-quality, near-traffic-less sites that exist only to sell links. Google has seen those footprints a million times. Buy them and you’re not buying authority; you’re buying a pattern the algorithm already recognises as manipulation.
I’ll say it plainly: in our experience auditing Indian SMB sites, a bought-link profile is one of the most common reasons a site that ‘did SEO’ never ranked. The money would have bought one genuinely good piece of SEO and content work that earned links on its own. Instead it bought a cleanup job. Cheap-now, expensive-later — the same trap as a ₹3,000 logo, just with a search penalty attached.
Nobody who buys links is buying authority. They’re renting risk by the month — and the algorithm is the landlord that keeps raising the price.— Murtaza Udaypurwala, DESENO
What is digital PR, and how does it earn links?
Digital PR is earning coverage and links from real publications by giving journalists and editors something worth writing about — data, a story, an expert take. Instead of paying a site to place a link, you create something newsworthy, pitch the right reporter, and earn the link inside genuine editorial coverage. The link is a byproduct of being useful.
This is the single biggest mindset shift I push founders toward. PR and SEO used to live in different rooms; digital PR is where they meet. A data story that a journalist at a business or trade publication actually covers does three things a bought link never will: it earns a link Google trusts, it sends real referral traffic from readers, and it builds your brand’s name in the places your customers and peers already pay attention to. One good campaign can earn links from several relevant outlets at once — and because the coverage is editorial, it tends to get picked up, quoted and re-linked over time. You’re not buying a link. You’re building a reason for people to point at you.
Which link-building tactics actually work in India?
The tactics that work all share one trait: they give a real person a real reason to link to you. In India that means original data and surveys journalists can cite, expert commentary on stories they’re already writing, founder thought-leadership, genuine partnerships, relevant industry listings, and linkable assets — tools, guides and calculators worth referencing. Relevance beats volume every time.
Here’s what I’d actually invest in, roughly in order of return:
- Original data & research — a small survey of your customers or a number-led report on your category. Indian journalists are hungry for local data; ‘X% of Nashik SMBs say…’ is a headline they can use.
- Expert commentary — answering journalists’ queries (the HARO-style platforms, now run as Connectively, plus Indian reporters on social) with a sharp, quotable take earns links from outlets you could never pitch cold.
- Founder thought-leadership — a genuine point of view, published consistently, gets you quoted and cited. People link to people who say something.
- Linkable assets — a free calculator, a template, a definitive guide. Build the thing other writers need to reference and the links arrive without asking.
- Partnerships & co-marketing — joint content, events or studies with non-competing brands you genuinely work with. Natural, relevant, mutual.
- Listings & directories that matter — the few that real customers use (JustDial, Sulekha, IndiaMART for B2B, your Google Business Profile, credible industry associations) — not link directories nobody visits.
How do you do digital PR outreach without being cringe?
Make the journalist’s job easier, not harder. Good outreach is short, personal and useful: you know what the reporter covers, you have something genuinely relevant to their beat, and you hand them a ready-to-use angle, data point or quote. No flattery, no ‘hope this email finds you well,’ no mass blast. Relevance is the whole game.
The cringe comes from treating outreach like spam with a politer subject line. I’ve seen founders fire the same template at 300 contacts and wonder why nobody replies. Pick fewer, better targets — reporters and editors who’ve covered your space, niche industry blogs, regional business desks. Reference something specific they wrote. Lead with the value to their reader, not your link. And tell the truth: if your data is from a sample of 200, say 200. Indian newsrooms are small and reputations travel; one inflated stat and you’re on a quiet do-not-trust list. Earning a link is really just earning trust, one editor at a time — which is exactly why it’s slower, and exactly why it lasts.
What link-building tactics should you avoid?
Avoid anything that scales links without earning them. Bought links, PBNs, link exchanges at volume, comment and forum spam, irrelevant guest posts written only for a link, and exact-match anchor-text stuffing are all patterns Google’s spam systems are built to catch. They range from useless to actively dangerous — and none of them build a brand.
The table below is the conversation I have with almost every new client: a straight swap list of what to do instead of the shortcut they were about to buy.
| Avoid this | Why it backfires | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Buying links / ‘100 backlinks for ₹500’ | Detected and discounted; risks a sitewide hit | Earn links with a data story or linkable asset |
| PBNs & link networks | Known footprints; one network deindex can take you with it | Pursue editorial links from real, relevant sites |
| Mass irrelevant guest posts | Off-topic links signal manipulation, not authority | A few on-topic articles for sites your buyers read |
| Comment / forum / profile spam | Near-zero value, screams spam | Genuine expert commentary journalists actually quote |
| Exact-match anchor stuffing | Unnatural anchor patterns are a classic spam flag | Natural, varied, branded anchor text |
| Chasing a high DA number alone | DA is a third-party metric; spammy sites fake it | Judge relevance and real traffic, then authority |
Does Domain Authority matter, or is relevance more important?
Relevance and real traffic matter more than any Domain Authority score. DA is a third-party metric Google doesn’t use, and spammy sites routinely inflate it. A link from a mid-DA Indian site that’s genuinely about your industry — and gets real readers — is worth more than a high-DA link from a site no actual customer ever visits.
Chasing DA is how good budgets get wasted. I’ve watched brands pay a premium for ‘DA 60+’ links from generic sites that turned out to be link farms with bought authority and zero traffic. Google sees through that; your rankings don’t move. The questions worth asking about any link target are simpler and harder to fake: Is this site genuinely about my topic or my city? Does it get real, human traffic? Would a potential customer of mine ever actually read it? If yes, the link has value whether a tool says DA 30 or DA 70. This is also why local and industry relevance is such an edge for Indian brands — a link from a respected Maharashtra business outlet or a niche trade body signals exactly the kind of topical, regional trust that broad SEO tactics can’t buy, and that compounds across your whole integrated marketing presence.
How do you measure link-building quality, not quantity?
Stop counting links and start judging them. The metrics that matter are the relevance of the linking site, the real traffic it sends, the authority and trust of the domain, and whether the link is editorially given rather than paid. Five great links beat five hundred forgettable ones.
A practical way to grade your link profile: for each new link, check that it’s on a topically relevant site, that the site looks like real people read it, that the link appears inside genuine content (not a footer, a sidebar farm or a paid ‘sponsored’ block passing equity), and that the anchor text reads naturally. Track referral traffic in your analytics too — a link that sends real visitors is proof it lives where humans actually are. Over a quarter, the right scoreboard isn’t ‘we got 40 links.’ It’s ‘we earned coverage in six relevant Indian outlets, two of them sent real traffic, and our rankings for the pages they point to climbed.’ Quality is slower to report and far harder to fake — which is exactly why it works.
The bottom line
Links still matter, but the link-buying era is over — in India and everywhere else. The brands that win in 2024 earn their links by being worth linking to: original data, sharp expert takes, useful assets, and digital PR that makes a journalist’s job easier. It’s slower than buying a hundred links for ₹500, and that’s precisely the point. Earned links compound into authority, referral traffic and a brand people trust; bought links compound into risk. Build the thing worth pointing at, pitch the people who’d genuinely care, and measure relevance over raw numbers. If you’d rather earn authority than rent it, that’s the work we’d be glad to do — talk to DESENO.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Backlinks remain one of Google’s strongest ranking signals in 2024, in India as everywhere. What changed is quality control — Google’s systems now discount manipulative links automatically, so bought and spam links increasingly do nothing. Relevant, editorially-given links from real Indian sites your customers read are what still move rankings.
It isn’t illegal, but it violates Google’s spam policies and is genuinely risky for your rankings. Google’s link-spam systems are built to detect paid links, PBNs and link networks, then discount or penalise them. At best your money buys links that do nothing; at worst it triggers a drop that costs far more to recover from than the links ever cost.
Digital PR is earning links and coverage by giving journalists something genuinely worth writing about — original data, a story, or an expert quote — instead of paying for placement. You create something newsworthy, pitch the right reporter, and the link comes inside real editorial coverage. It blends PR and SEO, and the link is a byproduct of being useful.
Lead with expertise, not spend. Answer journalists’ queries on HARO-style platforms (now Connectively) and on social with sharp, quotable takes; publish a genuine point of view consistently; create one useful free guide or tool worth referencing; and get listed on directories real customers use, like JustDial, Sulekha or IndiaMART. Time and relevance replace budget.
It depends entirely on intent. A well-written article on a site your customers actually read, where the link is relevant and earned, is legitimate. A mass-produced guest post written only to drop a link on an off-topic, low-traffic site is exactly the pattern Google’s spam systems target. Relevance and quality decide it — not the format itself.
Not on its own. Domain Authority is a third-party metric Google doesn’t use, and spammy sites inflate it routinely. A relevant, real-traffic link from a mid-DA Indian industry site usually beats a high-DA link from a site no customer visits. Judge relevance and genuine traffic first, then consider authority — never DA alone.
