Outreach means contacting people who run websites and asking them to link to something. Done properly, it is public relations with a narrower objective: a genuine pitch to a specific person about something they might actually want to publish. Done at scale, it is bulk email offering payment, sent in your name to thousands of sites. The two are sold under the same label at very different prices, and the difference is visible in the emails.
Ask to see the actual emails
This is the single most informative request you can make. A pitch that names the recipient, references a specific page of theirs and offers something genuinely relevant is the work. A template with merge fields, a generic compliment and an offer of a guest post is bulk mail, and thousands of them will be sent with your business named in them.
Establish whether money changes hands
Paying for a link that passes ranking credit is against published guidance and treated as a link scheme. Many outreach services quietly include payment to publishers, described as an administration or editorial fee. Ask directly whether any placement involves payment, get the answer in writing, and make a breach a termination event.
Judge the targets, not the volume
A supplier proposing a fixed number of links per month is describing a procurement process rather than a pitching one, because genuine outreach has an unpredictable success rate. Ask instead for the target list and the criteria used to build it: would any of these sites send you a customer, and would you be pleased to be mentioned there?
The asset decides the response rate
Outreach for a thin page fails regardless of how it is written. Outreach for original research, a genuinely useful tool, or a resource that fills a gap works because the recipient gains something by linking. If a supplier does not ask what you have worth linking to, they are planning to compensate with volume.
Questions people ask about link outreach services
How many links should we expect?
Genuine outreach produces an unpredictable number, and any guarantee implies either payment or a low bar for what counts. A supplier who explains their expected response rate and its variability is describing real pitching; one who quotes a fixed monthly number is describing purchasing.
Is guest posting acceptable?
A genuine contributed article to a publication your audience reads is ordinary publishing. Guest posting at scale primarily to acquire links is treated as a link scheme. The distinction is intent and scale, and a supplier's own description of the programme usually settles which it is.
Whose reputation is being used?
Yours. The emails carry your business name, and site owners who receive poor outreach remember it and discuss it publicly. That is an argument for inspecting the emails before the campaign rather than after somebody posts a screenshot.
What should outreach cost?
It is labour: research, writing and follow-up per target. Price it as hours rather than per link, because per-link pricing creates pressure toward whichever placements can be obtained reliably, and reliable placements are usually purchased ones.