Links can grow your business.
They can also burn it.
That’s the part most SEO sales calls skip.
Google still uses links to work out which pages it can trust.
The problem is, there are only a few safe ways to earn good links — but there are a thousand shady shortcuts that look good in a report and put your site at risk.
If you’re paying an SEO consultant or agency to “do link-building,” you don’t need to become an SEO expert.
You just need to know how to check whether what they’re doing is safe, sustainable and genuinely useful — or if they’re flooding your site with junk you’ll be cleaning up later.
This guide walks through how I’d audit a consultant’s link-building from the outside.
The questions to ask.
The kinds of links to look for.
The red flags that say “this is risky.”
And the signs you’re dealing with a professional who actually cares about protecting your domain, not just hitting monthly numbers.
1. Why link-building risk matters more than you think
Bad links don’t always blow your site up overnight.
The damage can be slower and harder to spot.
Risk shows up as:
- rankings that climb for a bit, then slide and never fully recover
- pages that bounce in and out of the search results
- a site that can’t seem to grow past a certain point, no matter how much content you publish
- manual actions or “unnatural links” warnings in Search Console
The bigger problem?
Cleaning up bad link-building from years ago is expensive, slow and boring.
You end up paying a second SEO to fix what the first one broke.
So the real goal is simple: stop risky link-building from happening in the first place.
2. How safe, modern link-building actually works
Before you can spot bad links, it helps to know what good links usually look like.
Safe link-building in 2025 tends to fall into a few buckets:
Digital PR and content-led links
Your consultant earns links by pitching useful, newsworthy or genuinely interesting content to journalists, bloggers and niche sites.
That could be:
- data studies
- original research
- strong, opinionated guides
- expert commentary on stories in your industry
The sites linking to you have real audiences.
They publish their own work.
They aren’t built just to sell links.
Industry and community links
These come from:
- partners and suppliers
- associations or trade bodies
- local business groups
- events, sponsorships, podcasts, interviews
Think “we exist in the same ecosystem” rather than “we bought this link from a list.”
Content that naturally attracts links
Sometimes the play is to create genuinely helpful content that people in your space want to reference:
- definitive guides
- frameworks and templates
- glossaries for technical industries
- resource pages people bookmark and share
Your consultant may nudge this along with outreach, but the content holds up on its own.
Careful use of guest posting
Guest posting is still fine when it’s done like this:
- the site is relevant to your niche
- the article is genuinely helpful and well written
- the link makes sense in context
- the site has its own audience, not just SEO clients
What it isn’t: publishing the same recycled article on 50 random blogs with exact-match anchor text.
3. Questions to ask your SEO consultant about their link-building
You don’t need technical language here.
You just need a few direct questions and clear, human answers.
“Where do you usually get links from?”
A good consultant will explain:
- the types of sites they target
- how they find them
- why those sites make sense for your industry
If the answer sounds like “we have our own network” or “we place links on our partner sites” without more detail, that’s a warning sign.
That kind of language can hint at private blog networks or paid link farms.
“Can you show me 5 – 10 examples of links you’ve built for similar clients?”
This is a big one.
Look at those sites and ask:
- Would a real person ever read this page?
- Does the site look like a genuine business or publication?
- Is the content coherent, or is it stuffed with random topics?
- Is the link to the client natural in the text?
If you’d be embarrassed to share those sites with your customers, they’re probably not the kind of links you want.
“How do you choose anchor text?”
Anchor text is the clickable text of a link.
Consultants who over-optimise this can cause problems.
Healthy answers include:
- “We mix branded, URL and descriptive anchors.”
- “We avoid forcing exact-match anchors over and over.”
- “We follow what looks natural in the sentence first.”
Answers to worry about:
- “We always use your target keyword as anchor text.”
- “We control the anchor text completely across our sites.”
“Do you pay for links?”
Some industries still involve sponsorships, admin fees or “editorial” charges.
What you’re listening for here is honesty and judgement.
Reassuring responses might sound like:
- “We sometimes pay for placements, but only on high-quality, relevant sites we’d be happy to put our own brand on.”
- “We turn down low-quality paid lists, directories or obvious link farms.”
Worrying responses:
- “We have packages of 50, 100, 200 links a month.”
- “We guarantee X number of DA 50+ links every month.”
Guarantees and bulk deals are usually a sign that quality control isn’t the priority.
4. How to review the links they’ve already built
If you’ve been working with a consultant for a while, you can ask for a recent link report and sanity-check it.
Start with a small sample.
Ten to twenty links tells you a lot.
Step 1: Check the site itself
Open the linking page in a normal browser — like a regular reader, not an SEO.
Ask yourself:
- Does this site have a clear purpose?
- Would my potential customers plausibly end up here?
- Are there normal pages — about, contact, team, services, categories?
- Does the content look human, or auto-generated?
Warning signs include:
- sites covering everything from casino reviews to home insurance to dental implants
- a “blog” made of thin, generic posts packed with outbound links
- no real branding, author info or business behind the site
Step 2: Check the link placement
Find your link on the page.
Then ask:
- Is the link included naturally in a sentence that makes sense?
- Is it one of dozens of links crammed into a single paragraph?
- Is the surrounding content relevant to your industry?
- Does the article read like it was written for people or just for SEO?
If the whole article feels like it exists purely to carry links, this isn’t great.
Step 3: Look for patterns
Patterns tell you more than any single link.
Look across the sample and check:
- Are most links coming from the same small group of sites?
- Do many sites have similar layouts and writing style?
- Is your exact target keyword used as anchor text again and again?
- Are most sites outside your industry or country with no obvious connection?
If it feels manufactured, it probably is.
5. Red flags that your consultant’s link-building might be spammy
Some warning signs show up in the links themselves.
Others appear in how the consultant communicates.
Red flags in communication
- They dodge questions about where links come from.
- They talk about “our network” but won’t name any sites.
- They guarantee specific numbers and metrics every month.
- They downplay risk or dismiss Google’s guidelines entirely.
- They prioritise link quantity over relevance.
Red flags in the links
- Most links come from low-quality blogs with thin content.
- The sites are clearly built to host guest posts and nothing else.
- Irrelevant sites — cryptocurrency, casino, essay writing, loan sites — link to your local or B2B business with no logic.
- Exact-match anchor text is repeated far too often (“best payroll software for small business” over and over).
- There’s an unnatural spike in new links from weak domains in a short timeframe.
Red flags in reporting
- Reports talk only about “DA 50+” or similar metrics, not relevance or context.
- You get a list of URLs with no explanation of how they were earned.
- The same sites and patterns keep repeating month after month.
No single red flag proves anything on its own.
Several together, though, tell you it’s time to ask harder questions.
6. What safe, grown-up link-building looks like in practice
Safe link-building often feels slower and more boring on paper.
That’s usually a good sign.
Here’s what it tends to look like when it’s done well:
- Fewer links, but from clearly relevant, high-quality sites.
- Links from publications, partners, directories and organisations people in your industry actually know.
- Consultant explaining each campaign or tactic in plain English.
- Link-building tied to content — not happening in a vacuum.
- Anchor text varied and natural.
- Honesty about what’s possible, how long it takes, and where it’s hard.
The sales pitch might be less flashy.
The work tends to age much better.
7. What to do if you’re worried about the links you’ve already got
Maybe you’ve looked at a few reports and felt your stomach drop.
Maybe you’ve seen your domain in places you’d never want your brand to appear.
You’ve got a few options.
1. Ask your consultant for a straight answer
Show them a few examples and ask:
- “Why did we get a link here?”
- “How was this link earned?”
- “Is this kind of site typical of your strategy?”
Their reaction tells you a lot.
A good consultant will either justify the link with a clear reason or agree it isn’t ideal and adjust the approach.
2. Get an independent opinion
If you’re not confident in the answers, ask another SEO to do a quick backlink review.
This doesn’t have to be a huge project — even a small sample can show whether you’re dealing with a few rough edges or a deeper problem.
3. Decide whether to stop, adjust, or clean up
Depending on how bad things look, the next step is either:
- pausing all link-building to avoid further risk
- switching to a more conservative, content-led approach
- starting a cleanup process (disavow + future-proof strategy)
Cleanup isn’t fun, but it’s better than letting bad links pile up until they cause real damage.
Final thoughts
You don’t need to know every detail of how link algorithms work.
You just need enough context to spot when something feels off.
Safe link-building is:
- transparent
- explainable in normal language
- rooted in relevance, not volume
- slower than you might like, but much safer over time
Spammy link-building is the opposite.
Secretive.
Overpromised.
Hard to explain.
Full of strange sites and convenient guarantees.
If you’re paying someone to build links for you, you’re also trusting them with your domain’s long-term health.
That trust is worth protecting.
Ask the questions.
Look at the examples.
Pay attention to how they respond.
Good consultants won’t be rattled by scrutiny.
They’ll welcome it.