The Reason They Got the Link

The link I asked for and didn't get

I spent an afternoon last month trying to copy a backlink. A parenting blog had linked to a competitor's story app from inside a sentence — not a listicle, not a directory, just a writer mentioning a thing she actually used. I wrote and asked for the same, for LittleStory. No reply, which was fair.

It took me longer than it should have to see why. She did not link to them because they asked. She linked because one of their pages answered a question she already had.

Ask why, not where

Bing's backlink report gives you three things per link: the source page, the target page, and the anchor text. The middle column is the one that earns its keep, because it tells you what the other site chose to point at.

Once you can see the target, the question changes. It is no longer where do I get links. It is why did this site decide that page was worth one. In practice there are only four answers: the tool was listed somewhere, an article was quoted, the data was worth citing, or there is a relationship. Only the last is about people, and it is the one you cannot automate.

Three steps, in order

First, read your own structure. Before looking at anyone else, sort your existing links by target page. You are looking for the page strangers already picked — that is your strongest asset, whether you planned it or not.

Then add two competitors your own size. Not the household name. Comparing a young site to a giant only returns opportunities you could never execute.

Then go line by line through what they have and you do not. Is the topic related, is the page actually indexed, does the content read like a person wrote it, does the link sit inside the body text rather than a footer, does the site look like it sells links. Most rows fail one of those and stop being interesting.

Two things the number won't tell you

Bing does not show every link, and neither does anyone else. Different crawlers, different databases, different update schedules — so the count differs by tool, and that is normal. Read the trend and the sources, not the total.

And quantity is not quality. A thousand links from a single domain and a hundred links from a hundred real sites look similar in a column and are not remotely the same thing.

The reason was never me

The page I wanted for LittleStory was never going to win by asking. It won because a parent somewhere had a question — how do I make bedtime easier without buying another subscription — and the page about recording your own voice happened to answer it.

Nobody links to a front door. They link to the reason they were already looking.