Editorial links: how to earn them

Most links you can buy. Editorial links you have to earn, and that single distinction is why they sit at the top of every serious link builder’s wishlist. An editorial link is a link a writer, editor or journalist chose to give you because your page genuinely helped their reader, not because money, a swap or a pitch changed hands. Google’s own spam policies define link spam as links created primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings, which is the precise opposite of how an editorial link comes to exist.

This guide explains what an editorial link is and what it is not, why it carries more weight than any other backlink, how it differs from paid and self-placed links, the tactics that genuinely earn it, and how earned coverage now feeds the answers AI search engines give. If you want the wider context first, our link building strategy sets out where editorial links fit in a full program.

What an editorial link is, and what it is not

An editorial link is an inbound link that a publisher places inside their content of their own accord, because the page they are linking to helps the reader understand, verify or act on something. It is sometimes called an earned link or a natural link. The defining feature is consent on the publisher’s side combined with no inducement on yours. Nobody paid for it, swapped for it or, in the strictest sense, asked for it.

It helps to be clear about what an editorial link is not.

• Guest post links. It is not a link you placed yourself in a guest post you wrote.
• Paid insertions. It is not a link you paid a site owner to insert into an existing article.
• Exchanges and directories. It is not a link added in exchange for a free product, a reciprocal link or a directory submission.

Each of those can be useful and legitimate in the right context, and we cover them in our overview of the backlink categories, but none of them is editorial. The moment you control whether the link appears, it stops being an editorial endorsement and becomes a placement.

The classic examples are a journalist citing your survey data with your brand as the getting anchor text right, an industry blogger recommending your free tool to their audience, or a writer linking to your definitive guide because it explains a concept better than anything else they could find. In every case the link exists because it serves the reader, not because it serves you. That is also why product and checkout pages rarely earn editorial links on their own. They sell rather than inform, so writers have little reason to cite them.

Why editorial links carry the most weight

Search engines were built on the idea that a link is a vote of confidence. The problem is that votes can be rigged, which is why Google spends so much effort identifying links that were cheaply manufactured, traded or mass-produced. An editorial link is the one type that needs no defending, because the publisher had nothing to gain from giving it. That is what makes it the gold standard, and it is why understanding backlinks and rankings starts with understanding editorial links.

The scarcity is real. Ahrefs found that 66.31% of pages have no backlinks at all, and 96.55% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google. Earning even a few genuine editorial links therefore puts a page ahead of the overwhelming majority of the web. The correlation with rankings is just as stark. Backlinko’s analysis of search results found that the number one result has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than positions two to ten. Editorial links are how the strongest pages build that gap, because they tend to come from trusted domains and sit inside relevant content.

There are two further reasons editorial links outperform. First, they carry context. A link surrounded by a paragraph about your subject tells the search engine what your page is about, which reinforces topical relevance. Second, they tend to be the nofollow question placed within the main body of an article rather than in a footer or author bio, so they pass equity where it counts. A single editorial link from a respected publication can move rankings that a dozen low-quality placements never would, which is the heart of what a good link looks like.

How editorial links differ from paid and self-placed links

It is worth being honest about the spectrum of links available, because the differences are practical rather than moral.

• Editorial links. At one end, given freely by the publisher.
• Self-placed links. In the middle sit guest posts and niche edits, where you create or negotiate the placement.
• Paid links. At the other end, money changes hands for the link itself.

Self-placed links are not inherently bad. A well-researched guest post on a relevant site can deliver real value to readers and a legitimate link, and a contextual insertions or guest posts can do the same. The distinction is control and disclosure. With a guest post, you decide the anchor and the target. With an editorial link, the publisher does. Google’s guidance is blunt about the paid end of the spectrum, listing exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links, and exchanging goods or services for links as examples of link spam. Paid links that pass ranking signals without a sponsored or nofollow attribute breach those policies.

The reason this matters for strategy is that editorial links are the only category you cannot scale by spending more. You can buy more placements, commission more guest posts and run more outreach, but you cannot buy a journalist’s genuine recommendation. You can only earn it. That is what gives editorial links their durability. They are rarely removed, rarely devalued in an algorithm update, and they keep sending referral traffic long after the campaign that prompted them has ended.

The tactics that actually earn editorial links

Editorial links feel like luck, but the businesses that earn them consistently are running a system. The system has one job: give writers a reason to cite you. Everything below is a way of manufacturing that reason. For the full toolkit, see our guide to winning links.

Build linkable assets

Build linkable assets. A linkable asset is a page created to be referenced rather than to sell. Definitive guides, free calculators, interactive tools and well-designed infographics all qualify. The test is simple. Would a writer covering this topic find it easier to link to your page than to explain the point themselves? If yes, you have an asset. Detailed guides and tools tend to accumulate links over years because publishers prefer to point to one authoritative resource rather than assemble their own.

Publish original data

Publish original data. Nothing earns citations like a number that did not exist before you created it. Original surveys, proprietary studies and analyses of your own platform data give journalists something they cannot get elsewhere, and a citation almost always comes with a link to the source. A single strong data study can earn dozens of editorial links over its life.

Run digital PR

Run digital PR. links from digital PR is the discipline of turning a story, rather than a link request, into media coverage. You pitch a newsworthy angle, often built on your own data, and the resulting articles link back to you as the source. Done well, one campaign produces many editorial links at once. Our guide to press outreach covers how to pitch journalists without sounding like a link beggar.

Offer expert commentary

Offer expert commentary. Journalists constantly need named, credible sources. Responding quickly and substantively to reporter requests on journalist request platforms, or building direct relationships through blogger outreach, positions you as the person they quote, and quotes come with attribution links. Fix what is broken. the broken link tactic, where you find a dead resource a site is linking to and offer your live equivalent, earns editorial links because you are solving the publisher’s problem, not asking for a favor.

How AI search rewards earned media

The case for editorial links used to rest entirely on traditional rankings. It no longer does. As people increasingly ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini for recommendations instead of typing queries into a search box, the question becomes which sources those systems trust enough to cite. The answer points straight back to earned media.

Muck Rack’s What Is AI Reading? study, published in May 2026, analyzed more than 25 million links from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini responses across 17 industries. It found that earned media accounts for 84% of all AI citations, with journalism alone making up 27% of cited sources. Paid and advertorial content accounted for just 0.3%. Those figures have held steady across three editions of the study going back to mid-2025, which suggests they reflect how these systems source information rather than a temporary quirk.

The implication is direct. If your brand is cited in the trusted outlets that AI models read, you are far more likely to appear in the answers they generate. Editorial links and the coverage that produces them are the mechanism by which that happens, because they are the trail that connects a credible publication to your site. The same study found that each platform behaves differently, with ChatGPT citing sources in 96% of responses, so breadth of genuine coverage matters more than a single placement. Earning editorial links is now a visibility strategy for both search engines and the answer engines sitting on top of them.

How to measure editorial links

Because editorial links are scarce and high value, measuring them by volume alone is misleading. A report that celebrates hundreds of new links while ignoring where they came from tells you nothing useful. The metrics that matter reflect quality, relevance and outcome.

Referring domains over raw link counts

Referring domains over raw link counts. Ten links from one site count far less than ten links from ten different trusted sites. Track the number of unique referring domains earning editorial links over time, using a tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz. Relevance and authority. A link from a respected publication in your sector is worth more than one from an unrelated high-authority site. Assess each linking domain for topical relevance and genuine organic traffic, not just a single authority score.

Anchor text and placement

Anchor text and placement. Healthy editorial links use natural, varied anchors, often your brand name or a descriptive phrase, and sit within the body of an article. A sudden spike in exact-match commercial anchors is a warning sign, not a win. Rankings and traffic of the linked pages. The real test of an editorial link is whether the page it points to climbs in search results and attracts more organic visitors. Compare the performance of pages that have earned editorial links against those that have not.

Finally, watch the leading indicators that precede links: unlinked brand mentions, branded search volume and direct referral traffic from coverage. These show your reputation growing before the links catch up, and they often reveal opportunities to convert a mention into a link with a polite request. If you want the wider numbers behind all of this, our roundup of the numbers behind links sets the benchmarks, and what to track covers reporting in full.