What are link building communities?

Communities for SEOs and marketers focused on earning high-quality backlinks. Slack is the main platform, with curated communities facilitating crowdsourced SEO workflows and direct outreach between site owners looking to build mutually beneficial link relationships.

Where do most link building communities live?

Slack is the most common platform in this report (45% of 11 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

73% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical link building community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 13K members and the median is 6K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (64%). Others that show up often include live chat and requires application.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Link Building topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Link Building Communities Report: Stats, Platforms,...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 11 link building communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: In this smaller sample, link building has many smaller groups and a few very large outliers pulling averages up.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated periodically

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Communities: 11
Platforms: 4
Avg members: 13K
Median members: 6K

Where Link Building Communities Are Hosted

Slack
5(45%)
Facebook
3(27%)
LinkedIn
2(18%)
Reddit
1(9%)

Format mix

Chat communities
5(45%)
Forum / feed-based
4(36%)
Other platforms
2(18%)

Chat communities is most common (45%), but forum / feed-based is also well represented (36%).

Slack leads (45% of listings).

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
0(0%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
2(18%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
3(27%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
4(36%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
0(0%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

2 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (13K vs 6K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Link Building Differs From Other Categories

Link Building is less free-to-join, smaller, and more paid or gated, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Link Building	Hive Index average
Free to join	73%	84%
Median members	6K	25K
Average members	13K	668K
Paid or apply-to-join	27%	16%
Live chat	45%	41%
Topic pageviews / mo	677	842

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
64%
Live Chat
45%
Requires Application
18%

Niche Features

Job Board
9%
Member Perks
9%
Paid Community
9%

Forum appears on 64% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 181

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Slack	5	45%	146	84%
Facebook	3	27%	13	7%
LinkedIn	2	18%	13	7%
Reddit	1	9%	2	1%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Slack hosts 45% of listings and 84% of clicks, so supply and interest line up.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
146(84%)
Forum / feed-based
15(9%)
Other platforms
13(7%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
146(84%)
Forum
106(61%)
Requires Application
106(61%)
Member Perks
78(45%)
Job Board
7(4%)
Paid Community
7(4%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Medium
98(56%)
Huge
24(14%)
Large
17(10%)

Top-clicked listings

Growth Partners
78(45%)
BackLinks
28(16%)
Link Building - ML
20(11%)

Most clicks go to chat communities and forum / feed-based communities.

Trends

Founded year

Not enough founding-year data to chart yet.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 3 communities have ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

4.8 average rating across 3 communities.

Rated examples

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Link Building. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•We only have a handful of listings so far, so treat these numbers as directional.

FAQ

: Communities for SEOs and marketers focused on earning high-quality backlinks. Slack is the main platform, with curated communities facilitating crowdsourced SEO workflows and direct outreach between site owners looking to build mutually beneficial link relationships.
: Slack is the most common platform in this report (45% of 11 listings).
: 73% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 13K members and the median is 6K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (64%). Others that show up often include live chat and requires application.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Link Building topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

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All Link Building communities

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