What is the most difficult thing in link building that needs to be solved for everyone?

Is there anything that every link builder wants? We have some marketplaces now where we can buy links, we have outreach tools, we have ahrefs for prospecting. Is there anything which we don't have to do our work easily?

for me its finding good sites that actually have real traffic, not just high DA, thats still the hardest part imo.

Finding the best relevant sites with good metrics, traffic is and always will be king.

Quality, relevancy and good metrics...

nobody has solved keeping the links alive. buying them is easy now, finding the sites is easy enough, but a year later half the pages you paid for are out of the index and no tool tells you. i run a crawl against my own placements every month because nothing off the shelf does it properly. the other half, finding targets for the lower tiers, i stopped doing myself years ago, scraping is a wasted weekend when a verified list costs less than the proxies. the top tier is still manual work and i dont think that part gets solved

I don't think we will need a standalone app but for me I want more engines like sernuke / serengines and maybe a custom engine designer for existing tools like GSA.

Jesuous said:

I don't think we will need a standalone app but for me I want more engines like sernuke / serengines and maybe a custom engine designer for existing tools like GSA.

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That is true, additional support for the engine would be much more helpful than the additional application. The engine builder that will help to modify the footprint for GSA will be particularly helpful.

medusa90 said:

probably a reliable way to tell which links will actually move rankings before buying them, thats still pretty hard to predict tbh.

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Yeah, that's the tricky part. I usually check the traffic, indexing, relevancy, and ranking of the link page before deciding on the placement. But even after doing all of that, you never know what will happen.

sarat said:

Yeah, that's the tricky part. I usually check the traffic, indexing, relevancy, and ranking of the link page before deciding on the placement. But even after doing all of that, you never know what will happen.

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So, what do you think will solve that. A tool which provides ranking content on a keyword maybe?

A reliable way to see which sites actually keep paid links live would help a lot. Marketplaces show dr and traffic but rarely tell you if a publisher removes links after 3 months or quietly changes for them to nofollow

the hardest part still finding sites that have real visitors and relevant to the niche.high da looks good on paper but not mean much if nobody actually visits the site or the audience has nothing to do with your topic.

LinkSieve said:

Is there anything that every link builder wants? We have some marketplaces now where we can buy links, we have outreach tools, we have ahrefs for prospecting. Is there anything which we don't have to do our work easily?

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Tools cover prospecting and sending emails. Marketplaces cover buying. What’s still hard is consistently landing good placements that actually move rankings, with decent response rates, without the process falling apart as you scale. Most people still end up doing a lot of manual filtering, personalization, and follow-ups.

Finding relevant domains whether they are pbns, expired or bought. Also too per the strategy building out tons of web 2.0s can be very annoying if you know how to use them. Someone will contradict me here I am super sure. I have yet to find a 200-1k paid backlink that a cheap backlink with some traffic cant match if the niche is local.

for me hardest part is still finding sites that have real traffic and relevant to niche.good metrics useful but quality and relevance matter more when audience has nothing to do with your topic.

For me, it’s finding genuinely relevant sites that are willing to link without charging a fortune. Tools make prospecting easier, but judging link quality and building real relationships still take time. A reliable way to measure actual link value would help a lot, too.

LinkSieve said:

Is there anything that every link builder wants? We have some marketplaces now where we can buy links, we have outreach tools, we have ahrefs for prospecting. Is there anything which we don't have to do our work easily?

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making sure you get decent reliable traffic to your sites

LinkSieve said:

Is there anything that every link builder wants? We have some marketplaces now where we can buy links, we have outreach tools, we have ahrefs for prospecting. Is there anything which we don't have to do our work easily?

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We don't have willing web masters to guest post at. I mean if everyone and everyone's mother get backlinks from the same sites, how can you differentiate your SEO and link building?

LinkSieve said:

Is there anything that every link builder wants? We have some marketplaces now where we can buy links, we have outreach tools, we have ahrefs for prospecting. Is there anything which we don't have to do our work easily?

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Honestly, finding sites with real traffic and reliable contact details in one place would make things much easier.

LinkSieve said:

Is there anything that every link builder wants? We have some marketplaces now where we can buy links, we have outreach tools, we have ahrefs for prospecting. Is there anything which we don't have to do our work easily?

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A tool that tracks link quality, indexation, and lost backlinks in one place would make link building much easier.

The biggest challenge is finding sites that are genuinely relevant and trustworthy, with real audiences. Tools make prospecting easier, but verifying link quality and getting fair pricing still takes a lot of manual work.

Good question, and I agree with a lot of what's been said here — especially the point about vetting the page instead of the domain.

From where I sit, the still-unsolved problem is the full lifecycle after you find the site. Prospecting and buying are mostly solved problems. What keeps costing people money is everything after: vetting the actual placement page and keeping the link alive.

Two habits that changed my results:

1. Vet the page, not the domain. A high-DR site means very little if your link lands on a page with no traffic, no internal links pointing to it, and an outbound link profile that is 100% paid placements. Before I commit to a placement I check: is the page itself indexed and getting real visits, and does the site link out to genuine external content — or is every outbound link a sponsored one? Pages in that second category tend to get devalued over time, and the link decays along with them.

2. Steward the links you already have. Links quietly disappear — pages get pruned, anchors get changed, sites get redesigned. I keep a simple tracker with the live URL of every placement and re-check monthly. The moment one drops, you reach out while the relationship with the webmaster or seller is still fresh. Most people only audit their backlink profile after rankings have already fallen.

So if I had to name one thing nobody has truly solved: an affordable, reliable workflow that vets the placement page (not just the domain metrics) and monitors every link over time in one place. Outreach is solved. Stewardship isn't.