Does traditional link building still have real SEO value today?

[SaulCode]

Do free do-follow backlinks such as those from social bookmarking sites citations from fiverr guys , classified ads, or profile submissions actually contribute to rankings, or are they mostly just used to demonstrate link-building activity to clients?

 

[Guestwriting]

Stuff like free bookmarking, profiles, and classifieds all that is mainly there to diversify your link profile and keep link velocity looking natural. They don’t pack much punch when you’re going after tough keywords. A lot of people don’t really get the purpose, so sellers on Fiverr hype it up as some “big daddy” package for cheap.

I’d say they’ve got some value, but you’re right, folks misuse them.

Here’s where they’re actually useful:

• Indexation/Crawling: Helps Google find and index your pages quicker.
• Pillow links → Make your link profile look natural instead of just guest posts, PBNs, or niche edits.
• Local / Citations → For local SEO, citations from solid directories can still do some good.

But if you really want to move rankings, it’s the contextual, niche-relevant stuff (guest posts, niche edits, authority mentions) that does the heavy lifting.

 

[MediaForgePR]

Yes traditional links works but not as much as it did before. So, We should not stop doing it but we should not rely on it as we do.

There are some possibilities to increase the entity by doing these kinds of links. But you need to have a consistent approach for that.

 

[HenryObi]

Do free do-follow backlinks such as those from social bookmarking sites citations from fiverr guys , classified ads, or profile submissions actually contribute to rankings, or are they mostly just used to demonstrate link-building activity to clients?

No, those type of links you mentioned are largely not strong enough to help you rank. They could contribute in other aspects of SEO.

 

[SaulCode]

Google Search is moving towards the AI mode , so we better build links that can be cited and not the directory listings right?

 

[savitaprasad]

Do free do-follow backlinks such as those from social bookmarking sites citations from fiverr guys , classified ads, or profile submissions actually contribute to rankings, or are they mostly just used to demonstrate link-building activity to clients?

Techniques like profile submissions have almost no effect now.

 

[ibetseo]

I still build a foundation of social/bookmark/profile links for every site, but I treat them as supporting signals, not ranking weapons. The heavy lifting is always done by higher authority backlinks.

So short answer: they’re not just “for show” - they play a role in building trust and crawl frequency.

But you won’t rank for tough keywords with only those.

 

[tsunaniB]

They add little to no ranking value mostly used to show clients “link-building activity” rather than actually boosting SEO.

 

[sipoa]

Do free do-follow backlinks such as those from social bookmarking sites citations from fiverr guys , classified ads, or profile submissions actually contribute to rankings, or are they mostly just used to demonstrate link-building activity to clients?

relevant backlinks pages are top traffic host which effect in SEO to survive search traffics reachout on website page.
link building is an aspect of page ranking/index with logical methods to impress serp example: Pbn pages,Do follow with no follow pages and bookmarking pages.

 

[savitaprasad]

They add little to no ranking value mostly used to show clients “link-building activity” rather than actually boosting SEO.

That is cheating.

 

[InfinityPeace]

Google Search is moving towards the AI mode , so we better build links that can be cited and not the directory listings right?

It's more like Google is REPLACING search with AI. The "search" that is intended is increasingly within Google's AI for information, not searching that will land someone on an optimized site. The profile, social and other diversity linking still serves the secondary purpose of promoting the impression the site is naturally developing links, or prompting crawls. One other practical factor is that acquiring such links is easier and faster than getting the harder links from top authority sources, which may take weeks or months. Clients see something quickly that has some value, instead of links slower to acquire, that have the most value.

 

[breado]

depends... building links with guestposting from relevant blogs seems like an ok strategy long term

 

[MdShariful Islam]

Classified Ads is worst