Service · Link Building Agency
No PBNs. No farms. No "guest post networks". Every link is placed on a real, operating brand site or a vetted editorial publisher — earned through long-running relationships, not transactional outreach. Every prospect runs through The Provenance Score — a 50-point rubric across 5 categories, with a 14-point Triage that runs first. Roughly 8 in 10 sites are rejected.
The state of link building · 2026
Search isn’t one engine anymore. It’s Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews — each interpreting authority differently, each rewarding different signals. Every link we place is built to strengthen visibility across all of them.
Eight years of relationships. A 50-point quality rubric. ~80% of prospects don’t pass it. Three specialist teams, 50+ link builders, ~600 placements a month. The system below is what makes that possible.
Every placement engineered to register in Google’s ranking systems and the citation graphs LLMs use to choose who they cite.
We score the publisher, not just the metrics. A site can have DR 70 and still fail — because authority is bigger than a number.
Three specialist teams — relationship building, GEO and Digital PR. Every campaign run by people who own the outcome, not a rotating offshore queue.
Our in-house link building teams
Each one specialised. Each one senior-led. End-to-end ownership, never outsourced. Relationship Link Building runs every placement through the Provenance Score before it ships; the GEO and Digital PR teams hold to their own equivalents. Different shapes of work, identical quality floor.
The core programme. Long-term relationships with editors, journalists and publisher contacts — built across 8 years and ~600 placements a month. Covers branded mentions, guest posting and editorial cross-links. Most accounts run primarily on this team.
The dedicated team for clients running GEO programmes. Sources placements on pages already being cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews — so each link compounds in both engines simultaneously. Every placement ships with a screenshot of the host page being cited as proof.
The team that runs Tier 1 editorial campaigns in major national mastheads, broadcasters and trade titles. Story-led, journalist-relationship-led, with original data and exclusive angles. The link is the by-product of real coverage, which is why it's the strongest LLM trust signal there is.
Operations · Predictive throughput
Most agencies only know whether they’ll hit their monthly link target in the final week. We don’t leave that to luck. Every active campaign runs on a Placement Variance Index — a live forecast showing whether the month is on track to hit, miss or exceed target, recalculated every time a prospect lands, replies, stalls or drops.
When the PVI flags a bottleneck early — an unresponsive publisher, a softening vertical, or an outreach round converting below baseline — we trigger a Variance Pivot: reallocating prospects across alternate teams, formats or angles before the dip becomes a miss.
That reliability is why many SEO agencies choose to white label our link building services.
Live view of one campaign’s monthly trajectory. Every active client has one.
Reporting · Classification
Every placement we ship gets tagged against the same six-category framework. The taxonomy runs end-to-end — it’s what our prospectors hunt against, what our QA team checks against, and what shows up tagged in your live tracking sheet. Digital PR runs as its own dedicated team and produces some of the highest placements in the mix.
A link from a recognisable, operating brand's website. These carry significant weight with Google's ranking systems and help build the brand authority signals that AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews increasingly factor into their answers.
Links from real brands, with anchor text calibrated to your existing link profile. The dependable volume layer that does most of the day-to-day work of helping your pages rank in Google.
A link on a website that AI tools — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews — already trust enough to cite in their answers. Builds presence in Google search and AI search at the same time.
A link on a specific page that already ranks and has a high amount of traffic — the destination URL itself carries authority, not just the domain. Pursued only when a big opportunity arises — rare, but each one carries far more weight than a standard placement.
When a publisher writes about your brand without linking, we follow up and turn the mention into a working link. The credibility is already pointed your way — we just complete the connection.
Earning your brand a place in “best of” and “top X” articles across the leading publications in your category — typically the lists where your competitors already feature. The articles buyers and AI tools both rely on when category decisions get made.
Genuine news coverage with a link as part of the story — run by our dedicated Digital PR team using story angles, exclusive data and real journalist relationships. The highest-quality category of link, and the strongest signal of brand credibility.
Live Reporting · In Real Time
No custom dashboard. No locked exports. Your link tracking sheet is a shared Google Sheet that updates in real time — every secured placement, every live link, every classification, dated and visible the moment it lands. Open it any day of the month, filter by anything, see exactly what’s been delivered. Digital PR campaigns run on a separate Digital PR report.
Anonymised preview · Real sheets show your brand, your placements, and update in real time as links go live or move between approval, pending and live tabs.
Reporting at the cadence each level of the conversation needs — from operational signal to programme strategy.
Monday morning. Two paragraphs in your inbox — what landed, what’s pending, anything blocked. No login required.
Full ledger, classified mix, Provenance averages, anchor distribution — followed by a 30-minute call with your strategist to read between the numbers.
Step back. What’s working, what’s the next 90-day shape, where do we shift weight between the three teams. Strategic, not operational.
The floor · niche-calibrated
Thresholds shown reflect US/global publishers. AU campaigns run a calibrated AU/US mix — .com.au equivalents sit one tier lower on DR/traffic to reflect the smaller market, not a softer quality bar.
Above the floor · the rubric
+ 10 further triage signals
Every prospect runs through Triage and all five scoring categories. Here's what an audit looks like.
Sample view of the internal Provenance Score tool. Every prospect is scored before outreach begins.
Delivery maths · original framework
The framework
A multiplier on your active pipeline that accounts for delivery lag, editorial attrition and rejection variance. PVI tells you how deep your pipeline must run to reliably hit a monthly live-link target — instead of best-case maths that breaks the moment a publisher delays.
Where the links land
A representative slice · Request a sample target list for your brand →
Earned Media operates with a forward-looking perspective. They conducted detailed research to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving search and LLM landscape, successfully advising us on how to optimise for AI Overviews and LLMs.
"Exceptional expertise in SEO — high-quality content that consistently adheres to our brand guidelines."
"Impressive ability to secure high-value links from authoritative websites, bolstering our domain equity."
"Incredibly reliable. They integrated seamlessly with my team and consistently delivered on time, to an extremely high standard."
Free portfolio audit
CSV or list of URLs is fine. We'll run the 50-point Provenance Score on each, and send back a written audit telling you which would pass, which we'd kill, and why — with the receipts.
You'll know in 48 hours whether your current provider is doing real work or quietly failing.Not yet a customer? Send us up to 3 competitor domains instead — we’ll Provenance-score the links they’ve earned in the last 90 days and show you what’s actually behind their authority. Audit my competitors instead
FAQs
LLMs use “Retrieval-Augmented Generation” (RAG). Your Provenance Rubric specifically targets the “Authority Nodes” that these models use to cite sources. If a site has low Provenance, the AI won’t trust it as a source for your brand.
Yes. While Google still weighs “Raw Power” (DR/DA), LLMs prioritise “Entity Association.” Our software identifies the difference so your links work for both the current SERPs and the future of AI search.
Most agencies use a single metric; our Data Science team identified 50 variables (across 6 categories) that correlate with long-term ranking stability and safety from “Spam Updates.”
This is where we use our Placement Variance Index (PVI). Our engineers built a predictive model that monitors outreach “velocity.” If the data shows a potential shortfall, the PVI triggers a strategy pivot to pre-vetted backup targets to ensure we hit your KPIs every single month.
We are built like a Software Lab. While we have veteran SEO strategists, our core engine is maintained by our Software Engineers and Data Science graduates who ensure our methodology stays ahead of search engine algorithm updates.
No. Because we employ Data Scientists and Engineers to vet every placement, our overhead is higher than “database-style” agencies. We don’t sell “links”; we sell engineered authority. If you are looking for $50 guest posts, we aren’t the right fit.
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