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Link Building Agency Groundwork In Your Agent OS: Sort Backlinks, Shortlist Sites And Vet Proposals
Before you hire a link building agency, your Agent OS can do the groundwork: sort your current backlinks, shortlist relevant sites and check any proposal against Google's rules.
That way you walk into the first call knowing what you have, what you need and which promises to ignore.
When the research is done, book a free strategy session and hand the findings to a team.
Quick Start: Three Files Your Agent Needs
- A CSV export of your current backlinks from whichever backlink tool you use.
- A list of the three to five pages you want links pointed at.
- A short note on your business: what you sell, who buys, and which towns or niches you serve.
Drop all three into one project folder and point your agent at it.
Set every prompt below to draft only, so nothing is sent, published or changed without you.
Name the files plainly, such as backlinks.csv, targets.md and business-note.md, so the prompts can find them.
Plan on one focused session for the first run, then a shorter check each month.
The Rules Your Agent Should Work From
Give the agent Google's own wording rather than forum advice.
The spam policies say a link is spam when it exists mainly to manipulate rankings, and they list paid links that pass credit, heavy link swaps and automated link tools as examples.
The same policies allow paid placements once the link carries a sponsored or nofollow value, and the page on qualifying outbound links prefers sponsored.
Bing's webmaster guidelines add link buying and private networks to the list of schemes to avoid.
Prompt 1: Sort Your Existing Backlinks
Read backlinks.csv in this folder.
For each referring domain, label it: editorial, directory,
partner, paid, forum/comment, or unknown.
Flag any link that looks paid but has no rel="sponsored"
or rel="nofollow" value.
Flag any domain that looks like a link farm or private
blog network (thin content, unrelated topics, many outbound
links per page).
Output a table: domain, label, rel value, flag, reason.
Draft only. Do not contact any site.The flagged rows become your fix list, and the editorial rows show what already works for you.
Check a handful of flags by hand before acting, because an agent can mislabel a genuine niche blog as thin.
Where a partner or sponsor links to you without a sponsored tag, ask them to add one.
Prompt 2: Shortlist Relevant Prospects
Using business-note.md, research websites my customers
already read: trade blogs, local news, associations,
supplier pages and podcasts with show notes.
For each site give: URL, topic match (high/medium/low),
signs of real readers, whether it links out editorially,
and one article where our target page would genuinely help.
Ignore any site that sells links openly without marking them.
Return 30 rows, ranked by topic match.
Draft only. Do not send any email.Relevance first, metrics second.
Open the top ten sites yourself and delete any your customers would never read, however strong they look on paper.
Google's page on hiring an SEO notes it does not endorse third-party SEO tools, so treat authority scores as a tiebreaker.
📞 Free SEO strategy session
Bring your sorted backlinks and prospect list, and Julian's team will tell you which targets are worth pitching. Book a free SEO strategy session in the calendar.
Prompt 3: Draft One Pitch Per Prospect
For the top 10 prospects, write one outreach email each.
Name the exact article on their site.
Offer one concrete addition: a statistic, a quote,
an expert, or a fix for a dead link.
Keep each email under 120 words, plain text, no flattery.
Never make the link a condition of the content.
Use descriptive anchor text, never exact-match keywords.
Save as drafts in pitches.md. Do not send.Read every draft yourself and rewrite the opening line in your own voice.
Cut any draft where the offer is weak; a short list of strong pitches beats a long list of generic ones.
Google lists automated link building on its spam list, so a person stays on every send.
Prompt 4: Vet An Agency Proposal
Read proposal.pdf from the agency.
Check it against these rules and quote the line that
breaks each one:
1. Paid placements must use rel="sponsored" or "nofollow".
2. No private blog networks or link farms.
3. No guaranteed rankings, DR or DA numbers.
4. Every live link URL must be reported.
5. No requirement that we link back to the agency.
Then list 8 questions I should ask on the call.
Draft only.Google's hiring guidance backs every rule on that list, including the warning that you are responsible for what a hired firm does.
If the agent finds nothing to flag, ask it to list what the proposal leaves vague, such as how sites are chosen or who writes the content.
Vague answers are worth a question on the call, not an automatic no.
Prompt 5: Check Live Links Each Month
Read live-links.csv (URL, target page, date, rel value).
Fetch each URL. Confirm the link still exists as a normal
<a href> element in the page, points to the right target,
and has the rel value we recorded.
Flag anything removed, redirected or changed.
Output a short summary I can send my agency.
Draft only.Google's link best practices explain that it can only reliably follow links written as an anchor element with an href.
Keep live-links.csv as the single record you and any agency share, and add each new placement the day it goes live.
A Small-Business Workflow, Step By Step
Here is how a local roofing firm might run this over one afternoon.
- Export backlinks and run Prompt 1; two old directory links get flagged.
- Run Prompt 2 with "storm damage guide" as the target page; the agent returns local news, a home-improvement blog and a housing association newsletter.
- Run Prompt 3 and rewrite the three best drafts by hand.
- Send those three personally, then log any replies.
- Run Prompt 4 on the agency quote that arrived last week.
The next month, the firm reruns Prompt 5 on any links that went live and adds the results to its log.
After a quarter, it has a clear record of which kinds of site replied, which linked, and which pages gained.
Members of the AI Profit Boardroom get the Agent OS these prompts run in.
A gift shop or a bookkeeping practice can follow the same five steps with its own target page.
🔥 Learn AI SEO yourself, inside the AI Profit Boardroom
Get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step trainings on outreach research and AI search, and four live coaching calls a week to review your drafts.
Reading The Results Before You Act
Agent output is a starting point, so give each file a quick human pass.
- Backlink table: confirm three or four flags by visiting the sites.
- Prospect list: check the named article really exists and still loads.
- Pitch drafts: make sure every claim about your business is true.
- Proposal review: read the quoted lines in context before you raise them.
- Live-link check: recheck any removed link by hand, since some pages block automated visits.
Keep a short log of what you changed and why.
That log becomes the brief you hand to a team later, and it saves the first week of any engagement.
It also helps you spot patterns, such as one type of site that always replies.
What Your Agent Should Never Do
- Send outreach in bulk.
- Publish pages at scale to attract links; Google calls mass low-value pages scaled content abuse.
- Buy, swap or request links that pass ranking credit.
- Promise a ranking to anyone.
Your agent speeds up research and drafting; the judgement stays with you.
If a tool or service offers to automate any of the list above for you, treat that as a reason to walk away rather than a time-saver.
Learn the full setup in the AI Profit Boardroom.
When To Hand It To A Pro
Hand over once the research shows real gaps and you lack the hours to write assets and pitch every week.
Other signs it is time: competitors keep winning press coverage you never hear about, or your pitches get polite replies but no placements.
Goldie Agency is Julian Goldie's SEO, GEO, AEO and link building agency, and it describes its method as manual outreach, no PBNs.
On Julian's about page, his self-reported track record runs to more than 240 clients and upwards of a thousand campaigns.
A good team takes your Agent OS findings as a head start, so you are not paying anyone to repeat the research.
Ask them to keep using your live-links.csv format, so your monthly Prompt 5 check still works after the handover.
For agencies reselling links, our guide to white-label link building covers the extra checks.
📞 Hand your groundwork to Julian's team
Share your Agent OS findings and get an outreach plan for the next quarter. Book a free SEO strategy session or use the link below.
🎁 Two free resources
Download the 200+ AI SEO Prompts and the free link building book to extend these prompts.
Ready to pick a time? Book a free SEO strategy session.
Also On Our Network
FAQ
Can my Agent OS replace a link building agency?
It can handle research, sorting and first drafts. Writing assets, building editor relationships and sending each pitch still need a person or a team.
Why are all the prompts set to draft only?
So nothing is sent or published without your review. Google lists automated link building as link spam.
What file does the agent need first?
A CSV export of your current backlinks, plus a list of target pages and a short note on your business.
Can the agent check an agency's proposal?
Yes. Prompt 4 checks it for unmarked paid links, PBNs, guaranteed scores and missing live-link reporting, then suggests questions for the call.
Final word on Link Building Agency Groundwork In Your Agent OS
Run the five prompts, keep them draft only, and book a free strategy session when you are ready to brief a link building agency.
About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an AI entrepreneur, SEO expert and the founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
My YouTube channel has 400,000+ subscribers, and I run Goldie Agency, a seven-figure SEO agency.
Related guides on agentos.guide
→ Backlink Services: Do The Groundwork In Your Agent OS
→ White Label Link Building Groundwork In Your Agent OS
→ Hire SEO Agency Prep: Do The Groundwork In Your Agent OS
→ Outsource SEO Services: Do the Groundwork In Your Agent OS
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