Backlink statistics (2026)

Backlink statistics from the studies, surveys and Google documents that published them. Most link data comes from SEO tool vendors such as Ahrefs and Backlinko, because they run the crawlers; each row names the sample and year.

Backlinks and rankings

Top-ranking pages have more links and more linking domains than the pages below them. These are correlation studies, so they cannot prove links caused the ranking.

• 3.8xmore backlinks for the #1 Google result, on average, than for positions 2 to 10.Backlinko, Google ranking factors study of 11.8 million results2020 data
• 3xmore referring domains for the #1 result than for positions 2 to 10.Backlinko, Google ranking factors study of 11.8 million results2020 data
• 54.8%of 131 SEOs put backlinks in Google's top three ranking factors, second only to relevance at 57.1%.Zyppy, Google ranking factors expert survey2026
• 0.255Spearman correlation between referring domains and top 20 rankings, across the top 1 million US keywords.Ahrefs, 1,000,000 SERP links study2025
• 0.248correlation for the number of backlinks, and 0.131 for Domain Rating, in the same study.Ahrefs, 1,000,000 SERP links study2025
• 0.33correlation between links and rankings for local queries, the highest of any query group Ahrefs tested.Ahrefs, 1,000,000 SERP links study2025
• 43.7%of 112,440 top 10 ranking pages have some reciprocal links.Ahrefs, Reciprocal links study2020
• 73.6%of 140,592 domains with 10,000+ monthly Google visits have reciprocal links.Ahrefs, Reciprocal links study2020
• 5 yearsis the average age of a #1 ranking page, up from 2 years in Ahrefs' 2017 study.Ahrefs, How long does it take to rank in Google2025
• 13.7%of pages in the top 10 were less than a year old.Ahrefs, How long does it take to rank in Google2025

Which pages earn links

Most pages and most content earn no links at all. Length and format line up with the links that do get earned; social shares do not.

• 96.55%of pages in Ahrefs' 14 billion page sample get no traffic from Google.Ahrefs, Search traffic study2023
• 2,997of roughly 20 million pages with no referring domains get more than 1,000 search visits a month.Ahrefs, Search traffic study2023
• 66.31%of pages in Ahrefs' index of over 1 billion pages had zero backlinks.Ahrefs, Search traffic study, 2020 edition2020
• 95%of all pages in Backlinko's ranking study had zero backlinks.Backlinko, Google ranking factors study of 11.8 million results2020 data
• 94%of 912 million blog posts got zero external links.Backlinko and BuzzSumo, Content study2019
• 2.2%of content earned links from more than one website.Backlinko and BuzzSumo, Content study2019
• 93%of B2B content got zero links from other websites, and 3% was linked from more than one site.Backlinko and BuzzSumo, Content study2019
• 75%of a random sample of 100,000 articles had zero external links.Moz and BuzzSumo, analysis of 1 million articles2015
• 77.2%more referring domains for content over 3,000 words than for content under 1,000 words.Backlinko and BuzzSumo, Content study2019
• 25.8%more referring domains for "why" posts, "what" posts and infographics than for how-to posts and videos.Backlinko and BuzzSumo, Content study2019
• 0.078correlation between social shares and backlinks, which Backlinko read as no correlation.Backlinko and BuzzSumo, Content study2019
• 52.7%of SEOs say service and product pages matter most for links, ahead of blog posts at 38.4% (518 respondents).Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026

Link rot and link lifespan

Links disappear. Pages move, sites close and editors remove references.

• 56%of 865,000 monitored backlinks are still live and correct.Linkody, Link building statistics from its monitored backlinks2026
• 52%of links that died were gone within a year, and the average lifespan before death was about 20 months.Linkody, Link building statistics from its monitored backlinks2026
• 33%of links from sites under Moz DA 10 are still live.Linkody, Link building statistics from its monitored backlinks2026
• 66.5%of links pointing to 2,062,173 sampled websites since January 2013 have rotted.Ahrefs, Link rot study2024
• 74.5%of links in the study count as lost once temporary errors and links that no longer count for ranking are added.Ahrefs, Link rot study2024
• 47.7%of lost links were dropped with their page, and 34.2% were removed from a page that still exists.Ahrefs, Link rot study2024

What a link profile looks like

Linkody's 2026 data shows the mix of attributes and anchors across 865,000 real backlinks its users monitor.

• 77%of links are dofollow and 23% nofollow.Linkody, Link building statistics from its monitored backlinks2026
• 1.4%of links carry rel=ugc, and 0.25% rel=sponsored.Linkody, Link building statistics from its monitored backlinks2026
• 56%of anchors are keywords or phrases, 18% branded, 15% naked URLs and 1% generic text such as "click here".Linkody, Link building statistics from its monitored backlinks2026
• 9%of active sites in the sample have at least one disavow rule.Linkody, Link building statistics from its monitored backlinks2026
• 39%of SEOs use Google's disavow tool (518 respondents).Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 41.7%of SEOs prioritise partial-match anchor text, 25.1% exact match and 20.5% branded.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026

What link building costs

Prices vary with the authority of the linking site and the tactic. Buying links that pass ranking credit breaks Google's spam policies; these figures describe the market as it exists.

• $461is the average guest post price through a vendor, against $295 bought direct from the site.BuzzStream, Link building pricing analysis2026
• $179is the average price of a link insertion in an existing article.BuzzStream, Link building pricing analysis2026
• $1,250 to $1,500per unique link from digital PR, excluding syndicated links.BuzzStream, Link building pricing analysis2026
• 1.37%of a vendor database of over 500,000 sites met BuzzStream's quality bar of DR or DA over 65 and 10,000+ monthly organic visits.BuzzStream, Link building pricing analysis2026
• $508.95is what SEOs consider an acceptable price for one high-quality backlink (412 respondents).Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• $8,406a month is the average minimum budget respondents gave for a highly competitive niche.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 32.1%of the SEO budget goes on link building at agencies, and 36.03% for in-house teams.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 61%of SEOs name gambling and iGaming as the industry with the highest link building budgets, ahead of finance at 18.4%.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 80.9%expect link building to get harder and more expensive over the next 2 to 3 years.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• $361.44was the average price for a paid link placement when Ahrefs contacted 450 sites in nine niches.Ahrefs, How much does it cost to buy backlinksUpdated 2024
• 12.6%of the sites Ahrefs contacted were willing to sell a link.Ahrefs, How much does it cost to buy backlinksUpdated 2024
• $77.80was the average guest post fee on sites with "write for us" pages.Ahrefs, How much does it cost to buy backlinksUpdated 2024

How SEOs build links

Editorial.Link surveyed 518 SEO professionals in 2026, mostly agency staff in Europe and the US; BuzzStream surveyed link builders in 2025. Both companies sell link building services or software.

• 48.6%of SEOs rate digital PR the most effective tactic, ahead of guest posting at 16% and linkable assets at 12%.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 57.1%expect link building to show results within 1 to 3 months, and 33% within 3 to 6 months.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 55.2%say link building is the hardest part of SEO, and 75.1% name the high cost of premium links as a challenge.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 56%outsource at least part of their link building.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 91.9%believe their competitors buy backlinks, and 56% doubt Google can spot and discount paid links.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 64.9%of SEOs say a website can rank high on Google without backlinks.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 78.8%believe nofollow links affect rankings.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 56%of link builders plan to invest more in link building, and 9% plan to invest less.BuzzStream, State of link building report2025
• 29%of link builders call their link building successful, and 32% follow a documented process.BuzzStream, State of link building report2025
• 8.5%of 12 million outreach emails got a response.Backlinko and Pitchbox, Email outreach study2019
• 65.8%more replies came from sending one follow-up email.Backlinko and Pitchbox, Email outreach study2019
• 30.5%higher response rate for personalised subject lines, and 32.7% more replies for personalised email bodies.Backlinko and Pitchbox, Email outreach study2019

What Google says about links

Google's documentation confirms links still count, and that it tries to discount links that were bought or traded.

• PageRank, one of Google's original core ranking systems, "continues to be part of our core ranking systems."Google Search Central, Ranking systems guideCurrent
• Prominent websiteslinking to content is, in Google's words, "generally a good sign that the information is trustworthy."Google, How Search works: ranking resultsCurrent
• December 2022: Google's SpamBrain began detecting sites that buy links or pass outgoing links, and neutralizing those links.Google Search Central Blog, December 2022 link spam update2022
• September 2019: Google added rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" and began treating all three link attributes as hints for ranking.Google Search Central Blog, Evolving nofollow2019
• March 1, 2020: nofollow also became a hint for crawling and indexing.Google Search Central Blog, Evolving nofollow2019

Links and AI search

Domain Rating, a link-based score, correlates with visibility in Google's AI Overviews, and mentions of a brand correlate more strongly than raw link counts.

• 0.664correlation between branded web mentions and brand visibility in Google AI Overviews, across 75,000 brands.Ahrefs, AI Overview brand correlation study2025
• 0.527correlation for branded anchor text, the strongest link-based factor in the study.Ahrefs, AI Overview brand correlation study2025
• 0.218correlation for the number of backlinks, against 0.295 for referring domains.Ahrefs, AI Overview brand correlation study2025
• 0.326correlation between Domain Rating and AI Overview visibility.Ahrefs, AI Overview brand correlation study2025
• 76.1%of 1.9 million AI Overview citations point to pages ranking in Google's top 10, and 14.4% to pages outside the top 100.Ahrefs, AI Overview citations and search rankings2025
• ~0.65correlation between ranking on Google's first page and being mentioned by an LLM, in 10,000 GPT-4o answers; the backlink effect was weak or neutral.Seer Interactive, What drives brand mentions in AI answers2025
• 73.2%of SEOs believe backlinks influence the chance of appearing in AI search results.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 80.9%of SEOs believe unlinked brand mentions affect organic rankings.Editorial.Link, Link building statistics survey2026
• 68%of link builders expect link building to matter more over the next two years because of AI.BuzzStream, State of link building report2025

What this means for site owners

• Publish what people cite: original data, tools and complete answers. See anchor text best practices.
• Study the pages you need to beat with a competitor analysis and keyword difficulty.
• Protect the links you have by redirecting old URLs and reclaiming broken links.
• Get your brand named on trusted sites, or through citation building if you are local. The free Rank.ai AI grade shows how often AI assistants name you.
• Skip paid link schemes. Google says SpamBrain neutralizes bought links.

Sources and method

We used the largest published link studies (Ahrefs, Backlinko, Moz, Linkody), Google's own documentation, and recent practitioner surveys, each labelled with its year; correlations are reported as correlations, and every figure was checked against its source on 2026-10-16. Related reading: SEO statistics and Google search statistics.