In SEO, there’s a saying: content is king, but links are the queen that rules the game. In 2026, this is more relevant than ever.
I’ve been heavily involved in promoting my projects over the past few months and tried different ways to get links. Here’s what came of it.
Manual outreach is pain
Sounds great: find relevant sites, write to owners, offer collaboration. In practice, out of 50 emails, 5 reply, 2 agree, and they want money. Time investment — enormous, results — minimal. If you don’t have a full-time assistant — forget it.
Rating: 4/10 — too slow and unreliable.
Link exchanges — garbage
Classic exchanges offer links from doorway pages, MFA sites, and other junk. Google ignores such links and may penalize you. I spent money on one exchange — wasted. Zero results.
Rating: 2/10 — don’t waste your money.
Link swapping
Works if you negotiate with relevant projects. But finding them is hard, convincing them is even harder. Good as an additional source, not primary.
Rating: 6/10 — works as a supplement.
What actually works: Serpzilla
Found the Serpzilla platform. Was skeptical, but decided to try on a small project.
Serpzilla is a marketplace where you can buy links and guest posts on legitimate sites. Over 150,000 sites, the database is genuinely clean — no doorways or junk.
What I liked:
- Link rental from $1/month. You can start with a small budget and test.
- Guest posts from $5. Write an article, pay, it gets published on a real site with your link.
- Automation. Pick a site, pay — within a few hours the link is live. No emails or negotiations.
- Languages. Equal amounts of Russian-language and English-language sites.
What I didn’t like:
- Quality varies — you need to filter manually
- High DR (70+) is expensive everywhere, not just here
Comparison
| Approach | Time | Cost | Quality | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manual outreach | Months | Free | Medium | Low |
| Link exchanges | Days | Low | Low | High |
| Link swapping | Weeks | Free | Medium | Low |
| Serpzilla rental | Hours | $1+ | Medium | Low |
| Serpzilla guest post | Hours | $5+ | High | Low |
Verdict
Serpzilla is a genuinely working tool for projects that need quality links fast.
👉 Try Serpzilla (referral link)
How do you get links? Share your experience!