The best link building platform for agencies I have actually used during my agency time is WhitePress. Off-page SEO is everything that happens outside your own website, mostly links and brand mentions, and WhitePress I would genuinely recommend for building across a lot of clients.
So this isn’t some roundup I ripped from other blogs. These are the link building platforms and services I’ve actually used in my agency work – with my completely honest take on each.
A word on doing it the old way
Before platforms existed, buying links meant sending out link lists to random sellers you knew nothing about. You’d get a spreadsheet full of domains, prices, and terms like “100 percent upfront” and “no guarantee the link stays live”, along with a disclaimer saying they won’t take any responsibility if the site disappears. Then you’d have to verify everything yourself – are the metrics legit? Has the traffic suddenly dropped off a cliff? Is the referring domain some dodgy site?
It was a nightmare: slow, nerve-wracking, and it didn’t scale at all. And don’t even get me started on markets I didn’t know: the algorithm, laws, media, everything’s different there. Manual outreach still has its place, but for agency work with tons of clients it’s just not worth the hassle. That’s why I switched to platforms and these are the ones I’d actually recommend.
1. WhitePress
After testing many, WhitePress is the link building platform I used the most in my agency work. WhitePress is a self-serve marketplace that’s got over 144,000 vetted publishers across 34 languages, and they’re still adding more all the time. You can sign up for free, filter through to get exactly what you need, and see the metrics and price on every publisher before you even commit to buying from them. That kind of control is a big plus for me.
What I really like about WhitePress is that you know who you’re working with. I’d used SEO Vibes in Helsinki and Stockholm and knew some of the link building experts in the Finnish and Swedish markets, we’d even chat about SEO from time to time. So WhitePress has local experts in 34 different markets, which is a huge plus.Tthey know what works in each market, they’ve got relationships with publishers, and they know which off-page strategies play well in each place.
That meant I could get help when I needed it, or go look for publishers myself when I felt like it. And if a client needed some digital PR, I could outsource that to WhitePress since I wasn’t exactly an expert in that area back in my agency days.
Inside the WhitePress platform, I could check the traffic and referring domains for my own peace of mind before committing, and when I wanted, get some actual human help to find decent publishers and come up with a proper link strategy. Every placement is monitored and comes with a 36-month visibility guarantee, just in case a link quietly vanishes after a month.
For agencies specifically, you can set up your own workflow and separate projects per client with over 50 filters, white-label exports, bulk orders, and an optional managed service for when you just want to hand a campaign over. It also scales easily into new markets, which for me was a huge plus since building local authority from scratch is basically impossible.
2. RhinoRank
RhinoRank is a two-product outfit. Curated Links is where they put your link inside an existing, aged, already-indexed article on a relevant site, rather than publishing a brand new post, the idea being that established content with some authority and history carries more weight than a fresh page. They also do Guest Posts, where they outreach to site owners, write a niche-relevant article and publish it with a contextual dofollow link back to you, with the higher tiers targeting sites with more authority and organic traffic. Either way, the main thing to get is that it’s a done-for-you service, not a self-serve marketplace.
You hand over a target URL and anchor and pick a range based on site metrics, a referring-domains band for example, and they go find the placements for you. You don’t get to choose the specific sites upfront, you just review them in a dashboard once they’re secured, so you’re basically trusting their sourcing. Turnaround time is around two to three weeks. It’s a solid option for topping up a link profile at scale, but that lack of control and visibility is the trade-off – and to be honest, that’s the main reason I’d rather use platforms where I can pick the publisher myself.
3. Digital Web Solutions
Digital Web Solutions is a digital marketing agency that does managed link building and outreach as part of a bigger package deal, not some self-serve marketplace. It’s for the situations where an agency just can’t be bothered with the whole thing and wants someone else to run the whole show.
I used to work alongside them and my friend Victor used to work there. I’d even been on their podcast.
How to choose a platform for your agency
If you’re picking one for your agency, this is the short checklist I run through, basically all the mistakes I made doing it myself:
- Does the link actually stay live if you order it, and is that some kind of guaranteed promise?
- Can you see the publisher, the real metrics and the price before you commit?
- Is the traffic stable with no sudden drop-offs, and are the referring domains actually decent sites with some genuine quality?
- Can you separate clients out into their own projects and export reports under your own brand name?
- Can it scale across markets and languages without you having to go back to university to learn it all from scratch?
Get those five right and the platform will handle most of your agency’s off-page work.
Where off-page SEO is heading
Last thing, because things are shifting. Off-page SEO used to be all about backlinks and rankings. Still matters, but there is a second game now: brand mentions and entity authority, the signals that help Google and AI models understand who you are and what your brand is about. From what I’ve seen, the brands that get mentioned loads in relevant contexts are the ones showing up loads in AI Overviews, and even nofollow links in AI search seem to count, so a nice, mention-rich profile matters more than ever. The platforms worth your time are the ones that help you build both links and mentions at scale. Which is where I think agency off-page is heading next.
FAQ
What are the risks of using a backlink marketplace?
Main risks are quality and control. Some marketplaces are just listing sites without even bothering to verify who owns them, show traffic from some third-party tool without even checking it’s legit, and promise the link will stay live after you pay, with no guarantees. Support can also be pretty thin. Always check the traffic, the referring domains and how likely the link is to stay live before you trust a marketplace with a client’s links.
What are the best websites for link building and guest posts?
Actually, there is no one-size-fits-all list. The best sites are the ones relevant to your client’s niche, with organic traffic that is stable and not just some bunch of dodgy tools, a clean referring-domain profile and a decent chance the link will stay indexed. Rather than chasing after some specific domains, I use a platform’s filters to find sites that match those criteria for each client, then verify the metrics myself before ordering.
What features should you look for in a link building platform?
Five things, most of them learned the hard way: does the link stay live, ideally with some kind of guarantee? Can you see the publisher, the real metrics, and the price before you commit? Is the traffic stable and are the referring domains the real deal? Can you separate clients into their own projects and export reports under your own brand name? And can it scale across markets and languages without you having to become a language expert?