Ask affiliates about backlinks and you’ll hear the same story. The emails go unanswered, the replies that do come back quote prices that don’t make sense, and half of the offers on the table are private blog networks dressed up as editorial placements. A recent GPWA forum thread pulled in a mix of answers. Several members said cold outreach died in this niche years ago, because site owners are buried in spam and have no reason to open a message from a stranger. Others argued the difficulty is self-inflicted: if you’re paying for links rather than earning them, you’re competing on budget alone, and someone always has a bigger one. A few described moving away from the backlink count altogether, towards author and brand authority that attracts links on its own, with visibility in AI search now part of the calculation. The takeaway: the tactics that worked in 2012 are long gone, and paying to replace them gets expensive fast. The members seeing results are either earning links through work worth linking to, or buying carefully with relevance as the first filter rather than domain rating. Excerpts of the thread are below, but to view the thread in its entirety, visit gpwa.org/499. To read thousands of other forum posts like this one, plus industry news and complete archives of our weekly GPWA newsletters and GPWA Times Magazine, please visit GPWA.org. or Not Worth It Earned, Bought, FROM THE FORUMS This thread was edited for clarity and length. Illustration by TarikVision/Shutterstock 14 GPWAtimes.org
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