Your website’s link profile in SEO plays a major role in how Google sees and ranks your site. Think of it as your online reputation—built from the quantity and quality of other websites linking back to yours.
A strong link profile can boost your visibility, increase traffic, and improve credibility, while a weak or toxic one can do the opposite.
In this guide, we’ll break down exactly what a link profile is, why it matters, how to analyse it, and five proven ways to build a stronger one for better search performance in Singapore’s competitive digital space.
What Is Link Profile In SEO?
Imagine you’ve just opened a new café in Singapore. If well-known food bloggers, local news sites, and popular neighbourhood guides all start writing about how great your coffee is and telling people where to find you, your reputation would soar.
People would trust those recommendations and be more likely to visit. In the digital world, your website’s link profile works in exactly the same way.
Think of your link profile as the complete collection of all the hyperlinks pointing back to your site from other websites. In SEO terms, these are called “backlinks” or “inbound links”. It’s not just a simple list, though.
Search engines like Google analyse this profile with incredible detail to judge your website’s credibility, trustworthiness, and authority. It’s one of the most powerful factors that determines whether you show up on page one or page ten of the search results.
To truly understand it, let’s break down what Google looks at when evaluating your link profile:
- Quality of Linking Websites: This is the most critical factor. A single backlink from a highly trusted and authoritative source, like The Straits Times, a government agency website, or a top university, is worth more than hundreds of links from unknown, low-quality blogs. Google sees links from reputable sites as strong votes of confidence.
- Relevance of Linking Websites: The context of the link matters. If you run a renovation company in Singapore, a link from an interior design blog or a real estate portal is highly relevant and valuable.
A link from a random online gaming forum? Not so much. Google wants to see that you are respected by others in your specific industry.
- Number of Referring Domains: This refers to the number of unique websites that link to you. It’s far better to have 10 links from 10 different quality websites than it is to have 100 links all from the same website. A diverse range of sources suggests a broader, more genuine reputation.
- Anchor Text: This is the actual clickable text of a hyperlink (e.g., “click here to learn more”). Search engines use this text to understand what the page you are linking to is about. A natural link profile will have a wide variety of anchor text, including your brand name, the URL itself, and generic phrases.
- Link Type (“Dofollow” vs. “Nofollow”): A standard link is a “dofollow” link, which essentially tells Google, “We endorse this site and pass our authority to it.”
A “nofollow” link, often found in blog comments or on social media, tells Google, “We are linking to this site, but we aren’t passing on any authority.” A healthy profile has a natural mix of both.
Ultimately, Google uses your link profile as a proxy for your real-world reputation. Since it can’t personally vet every business, it relies on the collective judgment of the internet.
When many credible and relevant websites link to you, it sends a powerful signal that your site is a trustworthy authority in its field, making Google more confident in showing your business to its users.
The Difference Between A Strong vs. Weak Link Profile In SEO
Not all links are created equal. Just like in business, your online reputation is defined by the company you keep. A link from a trusted industry leader is a powerful endorsement; a link from a dodgy, irrelevant website is a red flag.
Understanding this distinction is crucial. A strong, healthy link profile is what propels you up the Google rankings, signalling trust and authority. A weak or “toxic” one, however, can hold your site back, or worse, get you penalised by Google, making you virtually invisible in search results.
Let’s break down exactly what separates the good from the bad.
What A STRONG Link Profile Looks Like (The Goal)
A strong link profile looks like it has been earned naturally over time through genuine merit. It’s a sign that you are a respected authority in your field.
- Links from High-Authority & Trusted Sources: These are your crown jewels. Think of links from major news outlets like CNA or Today, well-respected industry blogs, government websites, or educational institutions like NUS or NTU. These sites have strong reputations, and by linking to you, they are passing on some of that credibility.
- Contextual Relevance is Key: The links come from websites related to your industry. If you’re a financial advisor, a link from a site like Seedly or a major bank’s resource page is far more potent than a link from a pet grooming blog. It shows Google you are an expert in your specific niche.
- Natural Anchor Text Distribution: The clickable text of your backlinks looks varied and organic. Most of your links will use your brand name (e.g., “BestSEO”), your website URL (e.g., “www.bestseo.com.sg”), or generic phrases like “click here.” Only a small percentage will be exact-match keywords like “best SEO company in Singapore.”
- Steady, Organic Growth: The number of websites linking to you grows at a steady, believable pace. A gradual increase month-on-month shows Google that you are consistently producing valuable content and earning recognition naturally.
- Diverse Link Sources: Your backlinks come from a variety of different types of websites—blogs, news articles, resource pages, and reputable local directories. This diversity signals a broad and authentic reputation.
What A WEAK Or TOXIC Link Profile Looks Like (The Danger Zone)
A weak profile often looks artificial and manipulative. It’s characterised by attempts to trick search engines rather than earn genuine trust.
- Links from Spammy, Low-Quality Sites: These are links from websites that exist purely to sell links, often called “link farms” or Private Blog Networks (PBNs). They have no real audience, provide no value, and are a massive red flag for Google.
- Massive Number of Irrelevant Links: The links have no connection to your industry. This includes links from foreign-language sites, online casinos, or other dubious niches that have nothing to do with your business in Singapore.
- Over-Optimised Anchor Text: A huge red flag is when an unnatural percentage of your backlinks use the exact same keyword-rich anchor text. If 50% of your links say “best chicken rice in Singapore,” it looks like you’re trying to manipulate the system, not earn links naturally.
- Sudden, Unnatural Spikes in Links: Gaining thousands of links overnight is highly suspicious unless you’ve just launched a viral marketing campaign. This often indicates that low-quality links have been purchased in bulk, which can trigger a penalty from Google.
- Paid Links That Violate Guidelines: Whilst advertising is fine, paying for a link that is intended to pass authority and isn’t marked as “sponsored” or “nofollow” is against Google’s guidelines. If discovered, this can lead to penalties.
In short, the difference is one of trust versus manipulation. A strong profile is built on the foundation of earning genuine endorsements, whilst a weak profile is built on a house of cards, using shortcuts that will eventually come crashing down.
How To Analyse Your Website’s Link Profile?
If you want to improve your link profile, you can’t just start building new links blindly. The first, most crucial step is to get a clear picture of what you currently have.
Think of it as a health check-up for your website’s reputation. Running a proper backlink audit will help you spot valuable opportunities you might have missed and identify serious problems that could be holding you back. Here’s how you can do it properly.
Choose The Right SEO Tool
To see your backlinks, you need the right equipment—in this case, an SEO tool. These platforms crawl the web constantly, indexing links between websites so you can analyse them. There are many options out there, but they generally fall into two categories.
- The Free Essential: Google Search Console If you haven’t set this up yet, do it now. It’s a free service directly from Google that gives you invaluable data about your website’s performance.
Its “Links” report will show you a sample of which sites are linking to you and which of your pages are being linked to the most. While it doesn’t show every single backlink, the data comes straight from the source, making it an essential and trustworthy starting point.
- The Professional Toolkits: Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz For a much deeper and more comprehensive analysis, you’ll want to use a professional SEO tool. These are paid subscription services, but their insights are often worth the investment.
- Ahrefs: Widely considered the gold standard for backlink analysis. It has a massive, frequently updated index of links, making it fantastic for in-depth research and finding every possible link.
- SEMrush: An excellent all-in-one SEO platform. Its backlink tools are very powerful, and it includes a “Toxicity Score” which helps you quickly identify potentially harmful links. It’s a great choice if you want a tool that does more than just backlink analysis.
- Moz Pro: Known for its user-friendly interface and its proprietary “Domain Authority” (DA) metric, which is a popular way to quickly gauge a website’s authority.
Generate A Backlink Report
Once you’ve chosen your tool, the next step is to pull a complete list of your backlinks. The process is generally straightforward: you enter your website’s domain name (e.g., yourbusiness.com.sg) into the tool’s search bar and navigate to the backlink analytics section.
Look for options like “Backlinks” or “Referring Domains”. “Referring Domains” is often the more useful starting point as it shows you a list of the unique websites linking to you, which is a better measure of quality than the total backlink count. From there, you should see an option to export the data, usually as a CSV or Excel file.
When you open this report, you’ll see several columns of data. The key metrics to focus on initially are:
- Referring Domain: The root URL of the site linking to you.
- Domain Rating / Domain Authority (DR/DA): The tool’s score (usually 0-100) for the linking website’s overall authority. A higher score is generally better.
- URL of the Backlink: The exact page where your link is located.
- Anchor Text: The clickable text used for your link.
Assess Link Quality
This is where your human judgment comes in. The report gives you the data, but you need to interpret it to understand if a link is actually valuable. Go through your list of referring domains and ask yourself these questions for each one:
- Is it relevant? Click on the linking website. Does it have anything to do with your industry in Singapore? A link from a local business partner or an industry blog is a strong, relevant signal. A link from a random American political blog is not.
- Does it look authoritative and trustworthy? Does the website look professional and well-maintained, or is it cluttered with ads and poorly written content? Trust your gut. If a site looks dodgy, Google probably thinks so too.
- Where is the link placed on the page? A link that is editorially placed within the main body of an article is a powerful endorsement. A link that is buried in the footer or a long sidebar list of other links is far less valuable, as it’s clear it’s not a genuine recommendation.
Your goal is to get a feel for the overall quality. Are most of your links coming from relevant, decent-looking sites, or are they from sources you wouldn’t want your customers to see?
Identify Toxic Or Harmful Backlinks
Some backlinks aren’t just unhelpful; they can be actively harmful to your SEO. These “toxic” links are often the result of outdated SEO practices or, in rare cases, a negative SEO attack from a competitor. You need to be able to spot them.
Look for these common red flags in your backlink report:
- Obvious Spam Sites: Links from websites related to casinos, payday loans, or adult content (unless that’s your industry) are classic signs of toxicity.
- Irrelevant Foreign Language Sites: If your business serves Singapore, having hundreds of links from Russian or Chinese websites you don’t recognise is a major red flag.
- Low-Quality Directories: These are sites that are nothing more than a massive list of hundreds or thousands of unrelated links. They offer no value to users and are often flagged by Google.
- Over-Optimised Anchor Text: If you see a large number of links all using the exact same keyword-heavy anchor text (e.g., “cheap corporate web design Singapore”), it looks highly manipulative.
- Site-wide Links in Footers/Sidebars: A link to your site from the footer of every single page of another website often indicates a paid link scheme that violates Google’s guidelines.
Make a separate list of any links that fall into these categories. Identifying them is the first step towards cleaning up your profile and protecting your site’s reputation.
Review Anchor Text Distribution
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. It’s a crucial signal that tells both users and search engines what the destination page is about. When analysing your profile, you need to check if your anchor text distribution looks natural and diverse, or if it looks suspiciously over-optimised.
Most SEO tools provide a report that shows a pie chart or a list of your most common anchor texts. A healthy, natural profile will have a mix of the following types:
- Branded Anchors: This is when your brand name is used as the link text (e.g., “BestSEO,” “My Singaporean Cafe”). In a healthy profile, this should be the largest category. It shows that people are linking to you because they recognise your brand.
- Naked URL Anchors: The link text is simply your website’s URL (e.g., “.sg,” “”). This is a very common and natural way for people to link to a site.
- Generic Anchors: These are non-descriptive, common phrases like “click here,” “read more,” “visit their website,” or “find out more.” While they don’t provide much context, they are a normal part of the web.
- Exact-Match/Keyword Anchors: The anchor text is the specific keyword you want to rank for (e.g., “best corporate lawyer in Singapore,” “cheap aircon servicing”).
The Red Flag: If your report shows that a huge percentage of your links are exact-match keyword anchors, it’s a major warning sign. It suggests that you (or a previous SEO agency) have been trying to manipulate search rankings by building artificial links.
A natural profile might only have a very small percentage (e.g., 1-5%) of these. Your goal is to look like you’ve earned your links, not built them to a formula.
Benchmark Against Competitors
Want to know how you stack up? One of the most powerful things you can do is to reverse-engineer the link profiles of your direct competitors. This isn’t about copying them exactly, but about understanding their strategy to find gaps and opportunities for your own business.
Here’s how to do it:
- Identify Your Top Competitors: Choose 2-3 businesses that consistently rank above you for your most important keywords in Singapore.
- Analyse Their Backlinks: Using a tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush, enter your competitor’s domain name instead of your own. Generate their backlink report just as you did for your site.
- Look for High-Quality, Replicable Links: Scan their list of referring domains. Do you see any patterns?
- Are they featured on specific local news sites or blogs?
- Are they listed in reputable industry-specific directories?
- Have they sponsored any local events or charities that resulted in a link?
- Did they write a guest post for a well-known publication?
- Find the “Link Gap”: This is the goldmine. Create a list of all the high-quality websites that link to one or more of your competitors, but not to you.
This list becomes your initial target for your own link-building outreach. If these sites were willing to link to your competitors, there’s a good chance they’d be willing to link to you too, provided you can offer them something of value.
Monitor Link Growth And Trends Over Time
Your link profile is not static; it’s constantly changing. Websites add links, remove them, and go offline. That’s why monitoring your profile over time is essential to understand if your efforts are working.
Your SEO tool will have reports for “New” and “Lost” backlinks. You should check these at least once a month.
- Tracking New Links: A healthy website should be steadily acquiring new backlinks over time. Seeing a consistent, gradual increase in referring domains is a fantastic sign that your authority is growing. It tells you that your content is resonating and your marketing efforts are paying off.
- Tracking Lost Links: It is perfectly normal to lose links. Don’t panic if you see a few disappear. However, if you notice a sudden, large drop, you should investigate. Was a page that had many links taken down? You might be able to reclaim those lost links by redirecting the old URL or reaching out to the webmaster.
- Watch for Sudden Spikes: As mentioned earlier, a sudden, massive spike in new links can be a red flag for a negative SEO attack or the discovery of a low-quality link network. Monitoring your growth helps you catch these issues early before they can do serious damage.
Take Action Based On Insights
An audit is useless without action. Now that you have gathered all this information, it’s time to use it to build a stronger, more resilient link profile. Your actions will fall into two main categories: cleaning up the bad and building up the good.
1. Dealing with Toxic Links: For the list of harmful backlinks you identified, you have two options.
- Manual Removal Outreach (Preferred): The first step should always be to try and get the link removed.
Find the contact information for the spammy website and send a polite email asking them to remove the link to your site. This doesn’t always work, but it’s the cleanest method when it does.
- Using the Google Disavow Tool (Use with Caution): If you can’t get the links removed manually, your last resort is Google’s Disavow tool. This allows you to upload a list of domains or URLs that you want Google to ignore when assessing your site.
This is a powerful tool and should be used with care, typically only when you have a significant number of toxic links that you believe are actively harming your site’s performance.
2. Building a Smarter Link-Building Strategy:
- Use the “link gap” analysis from your competitor research to create a target list of high-quality websites for outreach.
- Review your most-linked pages. What makes them successful? Create more content like that to attract even more links.
- Use your newfound understanding of a healthy profile to guide your future efforts. Focus on earning links from relevant, authoritative sites and forget about low-quality shortcuts.
5 Ways On How To Improve And Build A Stronger Link Profile
Now that you’ve analysed your link profile, it’s time to take the next step—strengthening it. A healthy link profile doesn’t just happen by accident. It requires a mix of strategy, creativity, and consistency.
Below are five proven ways you can build high-quality backlinks that improve your SEO rankings, boost domain authority, and help your business grow online—especially in a competitive market like Singapore.
1. Create “Link-Worthy” Content Assets
The single most effective way to earn high-quality backlinks is to create content that is so genuinely helpful, insightful, or unique that other people want to link to it. Instead of just asking for links, you give them a reason to link to you. This is the foundation of modern, sustainable SEO.
So, what kind of content earns links?
- Original Research & Local Data: Conduct a survey or study specific to the Singaporean market. For example, a property agent could publish a report on “The Most Undervalued HDB Estates in 2025,” or a marketing agency could release data on “Singaporean Consumer Trends on TikTok.” Journalists and bloggers love citing original data, and they will link back to you as the source.
- The Ultimate Guide: Create the most comprehensive, detailed guide available on a topic relevant to your audience. Think “The Ultimate Guide to Registering a Business in Singapore” or “A Complete Guide to Halal-Certified Catering for Corporate Events.” Your goal is to create the definitive resource that others will use as a reference.
- Free Tools & Templates: Develop a simple, practical tool that solves a common problem. This could be a “CPF Contribution Calculator” for a financial advisor, a “Renovation Budget Template” for an interior design firm, or a “Press Release Template” for a PR agency. Tools are incredibly linkable because they provide direct, immediate value.
2. Master The Art Of Broken Link Building
This is a clever and highly effective technique because it’s mutually beneficial. You are helping another website owner fix an error on their site, and in return, you get a relevant backlink. It’s a true win-win.
Here’s the process, step-by-step:
- Find Relevant Pages: Look for resource pages or blog posts on authoritative Singaporean websites in your niche. For example, if you sell organic skincare, you might search for blog posts like “best natural beauty products in Singapore” or “local eco-friendly brands.”
- Scan for Broken Links: Use a free browser extension like “Check My Links” to automatically scan the page for any links that lead to a “404 Not Found” error. These are dead links.
- Offer a Replacement: When you find a broken link, check what the original content was about. If you have a relevant article or blog post on your own site, it’s a perfect replacement. If you don’t, you can quickly write one.
- Craft a Polite Outreach Email: Send a friendly email to the website owner. It could go something like this:
- Subject: Found a broken link on your page
- Hi [Name], I was just reading your excellent article on [Article Topic]. I noticed that the link to [Broken Link Topic] seems to be broken. Just thought you’d like to know! By the way, I’ve actually published a detailed guide on that very topic here: [Link to Your Content]. It might be a helpful replacement for your readers. Cheers, [Your Name].
This approach works because you are leading with value instead of just asking for a favour.
3. Strategic Guest Blogging On Relevant Sites
Guest blogging isn’t about spamming hundreds of sites with low-quality articles. It’s a strategic way to get your brand in front of a new, relevant audience, build your reputation as an expert, and earn a high-quality backlink in the process.
The key word here is strategic.
- Find the Right Platforms: Don’t just look for any site that accepts guest posts. Identify well-respected blogs and online publications in Singapore that your target audience actually reads. A single guest post on a highly relevant, authoritative site is worth more than ten on irrelevant, unknown blogs.
- Pitch a Valuable Idea: Don’t send a generic email asking if you can write for them. Do your research. See what topics they usually cover and pitch a unique, specific, and valuable article idea that would genuinely interest their readers. Show them you’ve done your homework.
- Write Your Best Content: When your pitch is accepted, don’t treat it as a second-class piece of content. Write an exceptional, insightful article that you would be proud to publish on your own site. The goal is to impress their audience.
- Place Your Link Naturally: Within the body of the article, find a natural, contextual opportunity to link back to a relevant resource on your own website. The link should add value to the reader, not feel like a forced advertisement.
4. Proactive Outreach & Digital PR
Sometimes, the best links come from simply asking for them—but it has to be done the right way. This involves actively promoting your best content to people who are likely to find it valuable and share it with their audience.
This is essentially a simplified form of Digital PR:
- Identify Your Best Asset: Choose one of your “link-worthy” content assets from step one (e.g., your original data study or ultimate guide).
- Find People Who Link to Similar Content: Use your SEO tool to find articles on similar topics. Look at the backlink report for those articles to see exactly who has linked to them. These are journalists, bloggers, and site owners who have already shown an interest in your topic.
- Craft a Personalised Pitch: Do not send a generic, copy-pasted email. Address the person by name, mention the specific article where you saw they linked to a similar resource, and briefly explain why your content is a better or more up-to-date alternative.
- For example: “I saw you linked to [Competitor’s Article] in your post about [Topic]. It’s a great piece, but I noticed the data is from 2022. We actually just published a similar study with fresh 2025 data for the Singapore market, which you can see here. Thought it might be a useful update for your readers.”
5. Conduct A Backlink Audit And Disavow Toxic Links
Finally, building a strong profile isn’t just about adding new links; it’s also about pruning the bad ones. As we covered in the analysis section, toxic links from spammy or irrelevant sites can actively harm your reputation with Google. Regularly cleaning up your profile is essential housekeeping.
The process is straightforward but should be handled with care:
- Regularly Audit Your Profile: At least once a quarter, run a backlink report to check for any new, suspicious-looking links that have appeared. Look for the red flags: irrelevant foreign sites, spammy directories, or links with over-optimised anchor text.
- Attempt Manual Removal First: For any toxic links you find, the best course of action is to contact the website owner and politely request that they remove the link. This is the cleanest solution, though often unsuccessful as these sites are hard to contact.
- Use the Google Disavow Tool as a Last Resort: If you have a significant number of toxic links that you believe are negatively impacting your site and you cannot get them removed manually, you can use Google’s Disavow tool. This tool allows you to submit a text file listing the domains or pages you want Google to ignore when evaluating your site.
A word of caution: The Disavow tool is a powerful, advanced feature. Google is already quite good at ignoring most spammy links on its own.
You should only use this tool if you are confident you have a serious problem with toxic links that are affecting your rankings. When in doubt, it’s best to consult with an SEO professional.
Conclusion About Link Profile In SEO
By now, you should have a clear understanding of what a link profile in SEO really is—and more importantly, why it matters for your website’s long-term success.
A strong link profile isn’t just about chasing backlinks; it’s about building credibility, relevance, and trust online. Whether you’re fixing toxic links, studying your competitors, or crafting content worth sharing, each step you take strengthens your digital footprint and boosts your visibility on Google.
That said, SEO doesn’t work overnight. It’s a long game—but one that pays off in leads, traffic, and actual conversions when done right.
If you’d rather spend your time growing your business than trying to figure out backlinks, leave it to the experts. At BestSEO, we help Singapore SMEs like yours dominate online using tried-and-tested strategies in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Social Media Marketing, Online Reputation Management (ORM), E-Commerce Web Design, SEO Copywriting, and Local SEO.
Whether you’re struggling with poor rankings or just starting out, our team offers a free consultation, a non-obligatory quotation, and a clear breakdown of how we can drive actual results—not just clicks. No fluff. Just measurable growth, more inbound leads, and conversions you can count on.
Stop searching and start scaling. Contact BestSEO today to finally build the online presence your business deserves.
Frequently Asked Questions About Link Profile In SEO
How Quickly Should I Build Backlinks To My New Website Without Looking Spammy?
There’s no magic number, but the key is natural growth. A new website suddenly acquiring hundreds of links looks suspicious to Google. Focus on a steady, consistent pace of earning a few high-quality links each month rather than chasing a large volume in short bursts.
Are ‘nofollow’ Links Completely Worthless For My SEO Link Profile?
Not at all. Whilst ‘nofollow’ links don’t directly pass ‘SEO juice’ or authority, they are a vital part of a natural link profile. They can still drive significant referral traffic, build brand awareness, and a healthy profile will always have a mix of both ‘dofollow’ and ‘nofollow’ links.
How Do Internal Links (Links Between Pages On My Own Site) Contribute To My Website’s Link Profile?
While your external backlink profile signals overall domain authority to Google, your internal linking structure helps distribute that authority throughout your site.
Good internal linking helps Google understand your site’s hierarchy, identify your most important pages, and improve user navigation, which are all positive SEO signals.
Is It A Good Strategy To Try And Replicate A Competitor’s Entire Link Profile?
Analysing a competitor’s profile is brilliant for finding opportunities, but you should never aim to simply copy it. Aim to acquire their best, most relevant links whilst also finding unique, new opportunities they have missed. Your goal is to build a better and more diverse profile, not an identical one.
Yes, significantly. A contextual link placed within the main body of an article, surrounded by relevant text, carries far more weight than a link placed in a website’s footer or sidebar alongside dozens of other links. Google understands that editorially-placed links are a stronger vote of confidence.
