Link building for ecommerce is the work of earning links from other websites to an online store’s category pages, buying guides and best-selling products, without breaking Google’s rules on paid links. The tactics that work best for stores are specific to stores: supplier “where to buy” pages, reclaiming links that point at discontinued products, gifted reviews that are properly disclosed, and guides that people in your niche actually want to cite.
Which of those you should start with depends on what you sell. A brand that makes its own products has very different link options from a reseller carrying fifty other brands. Below I’ll show you how I sort a store into the right path, where each link should point, and the rules you can’t skip.
What Decides Which Tactics Work for Your Store?
I ask four questions before I suggest a single tactic. Each one changes the answer.
- Do you make the product or resell it? Brand owners can send samples and pitch their own story. Resellers lean on suppliers and content.
- How often do products disappear? Fast-turnover catalogs leak links every season, so reclamation moves up the list.
- Do you have something worth reporting? Original data, a founder story or an unusual product opens the door to digital PR. No story means guides first.
- Do you run an affiliate program? If yes, those links need tagging, and they won’t carry ranking credit anyway.
Honestly, most stores I look at skip these questions. They buy a “link package” and point every link at the homepage, which is the most expensive way to get the least value.
Category Pages or Product Pages: Where Should Links Point?
Most of your links should land on category pages and buying guides. Not on individual products. Products come and go, but a category like “trail running shoes” stays live for years and passes value down to every product it lists through internal links.
Product pages earn links on their own when they are unique. A hero product, a bestseller or something you designed in-house can deserve direct links. A SKU that vanishes in six months usually doesn’t. I explain how link value flows from homepage to category to product in my guide to ecommerce site structure, and the on-page side of those hub pages lives in category page SEO.
My rule is simple. Point external links at pages you’ll still have next year, then let your internal links do the rest.
The Main Path: Links Any Store Can Claim This Month
These four tactics fit almost every store, whether you make the goods or resell them. I start here because the links already half exist. You’re claiming them, not inventing them.
1. Get Listed on Supplier and Manufacturer “Where to Buy” Pages
Many brands keep a stockist or “where to buy” page that lists authorized retailers. If you carry their products, ask your account rep to add your store with a link. It’s a relevant link from the exact brand your buyers search for, and it costs you one email.
Check every supplier you buy from. When I audit a reseller, this is the first gap I look for, because it’s common for a store to carry a long list of brands and appear on almost none of their stockist pages, simply because nobody on the team ever sent the email. If a supplier won’t list resellers, ask whether they’d link to a page where you’ve written something genuinely useful about their range.
2. Turn Unlinked Brand Mentions Into Links
Bloggers, forums and local news often mention a store by name without linking it. Search for your brand name in quotes, minus your own domain, and set a Google Alert for new mentions. When you find one, a short, friendly note asking for a link to the right page works more often than you’d think.
Keep the ask small. Really small. Point them to the specific category or product they mentioned, not your homepage. And skip anyone who would want payment to add the link, because that turns a mention into a paid link.
3. Reclaim Links Pointing at Discontinued Products
This is the most store-specific tactic on the list, and in my experience the one with the fastest payoff on older stores. When a product is discontinued and its page returns a 404, every link pointing at it stops helping you. Pull your linked pages from the Search Console Links report, find the ones that now return errors, and decide what each URL should do.
If there’s a close replacement, a 301 redirect to it keeps the link working for shoppers and for search engines. If nothing replaces it, sending the link to the parent category often makes sense. I walk through each case, including seasonal and back-ordered items, in out of stock products SEO, and my backlink audit process shows how to find these broken pages first.
4. Build the Basic Foundation
Every store should have consistent brand profiles on the platforms its buyers use, plus listings in the few niche directories that serve its industry. These foundation backlinks won’t rank a category page alone. They confirm the business is real and make later links look natural.
Branch 1: You Sell Your Own Brand
Brand owners have more options. Lots more. You control the product, the story and the samples, so three extra tactics open up.
5. Send Products for Review, Within the Rules
Sending products to bloggers and creators is normal, but the rules are clear. Google’s spam policies list “sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link” as link spam. The fix is not to stop gifting. It’s to make sure any link given because of a free product is tagged rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”.
So what does that mean in practice? Send products for exposure, reviews and real customer reach, and tell the reviewer that any link to you should carry rel=”sponsored”. You lose the ranking credit from that link, but you keep the traffic and the trust.
What Do Google and the FTC Say About Gifted Products?
Two sets of rules apply at once. Google cares about the link. The US Federal Trade Commission cares about the reader. The FTC’s guidance on its Endorsement Guides, revised in 2023, says a free product given in the hope of promotion is a material connection that the reviewer must disclose clearly and conspicuously.
That means a visible line near the review, not a disclosure hidden behind a link. If you’re outside the US, check your own country’s advertising rules too. I’m not a lawyer, so for anything beyond a standard gifting program, ask one.
6. Publish Category-Level Guides Worth Citing
A product page rarely earns a link. A guide does. Think sizing charts, care guides, “how to choose” pages, comparison tables and original measurements of your own products. Then link from the guide to the matching category.
I build these around the category, not the single product, so the guide outlives any SKU. A page explaining how to pick a sleeping bag temperature rating will still be cited three years from now. A page about one bag in one colour won’t.
7. Use Digital PR When You Have a Real Story
Original data, a founder with expertise, or an unusual product can earn coverage on news sites and niche publications. That coverage brings the strongest links a store can get. But it only works if the story is real and newsworthy, so I’d wait until you have one. My comparison of digital PR vs link building explains when the switch makes sense.
Branch 2: You Resell Other Brands
Resellers can’t send their own samples or pitch a product story, so the path shifts toward relationships and content. Supplier “where to buy” pages become your single most important tactic. After that, focus on guides that compare the brands you carry, because you’re one of the few sites that can honestly compare them side by side.
If you also run a physical shop, local links work well. Sponsorships, local press and partnerships with nearby businesses all count, and I’ve covered how to earn them in local link building. Just remember that a sponsorship link given in return for money is still a paid link, so it needs the same tagging.
How Should Affiliate Program Links Be Tagged?
Many stores run an affiliate program, and those links point straight at product pages. Google’s July 2021 Search Central post on qualifying links asks sites in affiliate programs to tag those links with rel=”sponsored”, whether the links are created manually or by a script. Google also says it may take manual or algorithmic action when sites fail to qualify affiliate links.
My take: affiliate links are fine as a sales channel, but they are not a link building tactic. Count them as revenue, not as SEO. Most affiliate networks route links through redirects and tracking domains anyway, so the honest expectation for SEO value is close to zero.
What About Paying for Links?
Here’s Google’s rule, stated plainly, because I get asked this on almost every store call I take. Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit breaks Google’s spam policies. A paid link is allowed only when it’s tagged rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”, which means it can send traffic but shouldn’t pass ranking credit.
That covers sponsored posts, paid listicle placements and “link insertions” too. If a vendor promises dofollow links for a fee, you’re buying the risk along with the link. My breakdown of white hat vs black hat link building shows where the line sits, and my scorecard for how to evaluate backlink quality helps you spot link-selling sites before you contact them.
Edge Cases That Change the Plan
- Marketplace-only sellers. If you sell only on Amazon or Etsy, links to your listing help that marketplace more than they help you. Build links to your own site first, if you have one.
- Huge catalogs with constant churn. Reclamation becomes a monthly job, not a one-off. Fix the redirect rules before chasing new links.
- Dropshippers. You usually have the same products and descriptions as hundreds of other stores. Guides and original photos are the only real way to earn links, so start there.
- Seasonal stores. Keep seasonal category URLs live all year, so the links you earn in December still count next December.
Link Building for Ecommerce: Decision Matrix
| If your store… | And… | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Resells other brands | Carries 10+ suppliers | Where-to-buy listings, then comparison guides |
| Makes its own products | Has no news story yet | Category guides, then gifted reviews tagged rel=”sponsored” |
| Makes its own products | Has original data or a founder story | Digital PR pointed at category pages and guides |
| Discontinues products often | Has an older domain with links | Reclaiming broken product links first |
| Is brand new | Has no links at all | Foundation profiles, supplier listings, then guides |
| Has a physical shop | Is active locally | Local sponsorships and press, tagged where paid |
When Should You Bring In Help?
If your store has thousands of products, a migration in its history or a backlink profile you didn’t build yourself, I’d get a second pair of eyes before you chase new links. Starting a store from zero is its own path, which I cover in link building for new websites.
At Skyranko, our foundation link building covers brand profiles, business listings and niche directories, and our ecommerce SEO work handles category structure and reclaiming lost product links. Not sure where to start? Ask for a free SEO audit and I’ll tell you which path your store is on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should Backlinks Go to Product Pages or Category Pages?
Mostly category pages and buying guides. They stay live for years and pass value to every product they list through internal links. Point links directly at a product page only when it’s a long-term bestseller or a product you make yourself, so you won’t lose the link when the item is discontinued.
Is It Allowed to Send Free Products for Reviews?
Yes, but with two conditions. Google treats a link given in exchange for a product as link spam unless it’s tagged rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”. The FTC also expects US reviewers to disclose clearly that they got the product free. Ask reviewers to do both.
Do Affiliate Links Help Ecommerce SEO?
Not directly. Google asks sites to tag affiliate links with rel=”sponsored”, and most run through tracking redirects. Treat your affiliate program as a sales channel. The real SEO value comes from editorial mentions those partners might give you separately.
How Do I Get Backlinks to Product Pages Without Buying Them?
Start with supplier where-to-buy pages, unlinked brand mentions and links pointing at discontinued products you can redirect. Then build guides that link into the product’s category. If a product is truly unique, those guides and honest reviews can earn it direct links too.
Last updated: October 2026 by Mizanur Rahman
