Editorial link
An editorial link is a link another site gives you because its writer chose to, without being paid, asked to swap or otherwise rewarded.
An editorial link is a link to your site that someone added because they wanted to. A journalist cites your survey, a blogger recommends your product, a university course lists your guide. Nobody paid for it, traded for it or wrote it in themselves.
These are the links search engines value most, because they're the closest thing to an honest recommendation. They're also the hardest to get, which is why they're worth more than any link you could arrange.
Editorial links vs arranged links
The line is about who decided. If a writer chose to link to you on the merits, it's editorial. If the link exists because you paid, swapped, or wrote the post it sits in, it isn't. Google's spam policies treat buying or trading links for rankings as link spam, and ask for paid links to be marked sponsored.
A link you asked for can still be editorial. Pitching a journalist a story, or telling a blogger about a new guide, is fine, as long as they decide whether and how to use it.
How brands earn them
Give people something worth citing. Original data, a clear explanation, a useful tool or a strong opinion all get linked to. Then make sure the right people hear about it.
For example, Kestrel Roasters publishes a yearly survey of 2,000 home coffee drinkers. Food writers quote its numbers every year, and each article links to the survey. Kestrel didn't ask for most of those links.
Editorial links and AI answers
The pages that give editorial links are often the same pages AI platforms read when they answer: reviews, news articles, roundups and guides. What matters most for AI answers is what those pages say about you. A writer who recommends you in the text gives an answer something to repeat, with or without a link.
In AnswerOrbit
Sources shows the sites the answers read for your prompts, and the Gaps tab lists those that name a competitor and not you, each with a suggested way in. We never recommend links you pay or trade for. See Sources and Recommendations.