Resolve CEO Maps Which Link Building Tactics To Bury For 2027

A link report can look healthy while the outreach behind it gives publishers little reason to care, and that gap is where Michael Johnson, CEO and founder of Resolve, drew the line in the October 21 Search Engine Journal webinar "The Link Building Graveyard: What To Bury & What Still Wins," hosted by Loren Baker with a Q&A on publisher quality, listicles and digital PR.

Johnson's central test was practical: a worthwhile link should benefit the brand, the publisher, and the publisher's audience. His keep-or-cut framework applied that test to both search rankings and AI visibility, without treating a higher link count as the goal.

Why Domain Metrics Should Not Decide Placements

Johnson argued against making Domain Authority or Domain Rating the primary measure of a placement. A high score did not establish topical expertise, a useful audience, or a sensible reason for the publisher to link to a brand.

"These are third-party metrics. They're not Google signals, and they're easy to inflate," Johnson said (see the on-demand clip at 20:18).

During the Q&A, he made the qualification process concrete: check topical relevance first, then look beyond an estimated traffic total to the keywords a site actually ranked for. A supposed technology publication attracting unrelated celebrity searches deserves a closer look, regardless of its domain score. His point was not to discard metrics entirely, but to use them after judging whether a site has real subject expertise and an audience the brand wants to reach.

What To Bury And What Still Wins

The cut list included private blog networks, link-swap schemes, forced commercial anchors, and generic requests to be added to roundups. Johnson also challenged directing most outreach toward product pages when a guide, dataset, or tool would give an editor a stronger reason to cite the site.

The distinction matters. He did not argue that genuine partners should never link to each other, or that a product page could never earn a useful backlink. He objected to making an artificial pattern the foundation of the program.

Familiar approaches stayed on his keep list when execution served readers:

• Guest contributions: offer subject expertise and useful resources, not a thin article built around a commercial anchor.
• Broken-link and resource-page outreach: help a publisher repair or improve a resource with an asset that genuinely fits its audience.
• Unlinked mentions: find existing coverage where adding a link helps readers find the brand already being discussed.
• Expert commentary: respond to journalist requests only with relevant, substantive expertise.

In one client example, Johnson converted existing product-related brand mentions into links to the relevant product page. The opportunity came from the context of the coverage, not from forcing a product URL into unrelated content (on-demand clip at 27:54).

How To Earn A Spot In Roundups

Johnson drew a sharp line between asking for a placement and improving a publisher's list. A generic request to add another brand does neither the editor nor the audience a favor. His approach begins with studying the companies already featured: what qualified them, and what useful distinction could the missing brand contribute? A relevant feature, fresh data, or a helpful tool could create a case for inclusion; wanting the backlink is not that case.

Baker asked whether a roundup still offers AI-search value when its links point through an affiliate program or to an Amazon product page. Johnson's view: the brand mention could still matter. He emphasized earning a legitimate recommendation rather than treating every roundup as an equally valuable target (clip at 8:57).

Assets Give Outreach Something To Offer

For digital PR, Johnson favored original research that gives journalists a story they cannot obtain elsewhere. He walked through campaigns built around workplace AI concerns and travel costs to show how a dataset becomes a timely headline. He also demonstrated an interactive news-desert map built from public data and paired with an explanatory guide, giving journalism programs a relevant educational resource to link to. AI-generated prospect lists still needed human qualification, he noted (see his guest-post advice at 57:17).

On inconsistent newsjacking returns, Johnson contrasted reacting to someone else's news cycle with developing a proactive research program. Earned campaigns are not guaranteed to succeed; the case for repeating them rests on building a useful system, not promising every pitch will land.

What Does This Change For Practitioners?

Johnson organized the work into a 90-day sequence: audit the existing program, establish a baseline for relevant AI buying prompts, identify worthwhile publishers and resource pages, create the assets those audiences need, and pitch them. The first phase covers current spending and opportunities; the next covers research, asset creation and outreach; the final phase covers reviewing placements and developing the next asset.

To start, take a small set of decisions:

• Review where the current link budget goes and flag placements with weak topical fit or no credible audience.
• Build a target list from relevant AI citations, competitor coverage, and audience-specific resource pages.
• Choose a dataset, tool, guide, or expert contribution that improves those publishers' coverage.
• Track relevant referring domains and linked or unlinked brand mentions alongside AI visibility and organic rankings.

Search Engine Journal's next webinar, "Live Website Audit: SEO Fixes for AI Search Visibility in 2027," will feature founder Loren Baker auditing a real website live and explaining how he decides what to fix first.