How are you guys building backlinks after Google officially said random and low quality backlinks are useless?

If I want real, authentic links, I have to pay. I'm stuck with backlink building.
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I'm an SEO Analyst, and one of my main responsibilities is backlink building.

Recently, after reading Google's official guidance that low-quality, unrelated backlinks (like random blog submissions, directory submissions, bookmark sites, etc.) don't provide value anymore, I completely stopped building those kinds of links.

Now I'm stuck. Whenever I try to build genuine, relevant backlinks, almost every website owner asks for payment. Very few are willing to link for free.

So I'm confused:

If I build random backlinks, it feels like a waste of time.

If I focus on high-quality, relevant backlinks, most opportunities are paid.

How are you all handling this in 2026? Are you paying for placements, relying on digital PR, creating linkable assets, or using another strategy? I'd love to hear what actually works today.

I would split the work between linkable assets and targeted expert contributions. Publish something based on first-party knowledge, then approach pages that already cover the exact problem it solves.

A few relevant backlinks on real traffic sites are still worth

In 2026, focus less on link quantity and more on earning genuinely relevant links.Prioritize digital PR, original research/data, linkable assets, and expert contributions.Avoid random directories, bookmarks, and unrelated guest posts they rarely add real value.Paid placements can exist, but your long-term strategy should be earning links, not buying them.

I do not reject every paid placement. If the website is relevant and has real traffic, I first check its AS, DA, DR, Spam Score, domain age, traffic and top traffic country. After checking the quality, I negotiate the price as much as possible. A high DR alone is not enough to justify a high price. For me, both the quality of the website and the final price should make sense.

It depends on your goal, I think. Paid placements are part of SEO now, especially in competitive niches. We usually focus on relevant guest posts, niche edits, digital PR, and brand mentions for effective results. The goal is to get links from sites that have real relevance and provide long term value to our website.

yeah, this is the frustrating part of link building now. genuinely good sites rarely give links away for free.

i'd focus on digital PR, useful assets, expert quotes, partnerships, and targeted outreach. paid placements can be fine for exposure, but paying specifically for ranking credit is against Google's guidelines.

In my experience, a few highly relevant mentions beat a pile of random links.

I think the best approach is to focus on relevance first Digital PR genuine outreach and useful resources can still earn good links but they take more effort I'd rather get a few relevant links than build hundreds of random ones