Hello, today we have with us the founder of the link building agency MonsterPBN, Oleg Malkov, an SEO expert with 16 years of experience working in highly competitive niches such as insurance, loans, furniture, and others.
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’ve been working on?
I became interested in creating websites back in 2006. I enjoyed working with CMS to build community and informational websites. A bit later, I discovered that getting traffic only required some basic on-page optimization and acquiring backlinks. That’s how I started earning through affiliate programs and Google AdSense contextual advertising.
How many years of experience in digital marketing do you have?
It’s hard to remember exactly, but I think I got into SEO around 2007, and later I completely shifted from development to analytics.
I enjoyed conducting experiments to find correlations. At that time, Google’s algorithms were quite primitive: you had to include keywords in the meta keywords tag and maintain a certain percentage of keyword density. I even had a special test website with 10 pages, each ranging from 1% to 10% keyword density. This allowed me to see how Google’s requirements changed with each algorithm update.
Nowadays, the algorithms have become much more advanced, so you need to take hundreds of various factors into account.
How long has your agency offered link building services?
In January 2021, two link building enthusiasts from Georgia, Oleg Malkov and Daniil Markelov, created a link building agency that follows a different path to competitors in the sector – MonsterPBN .com was conceived to provide a user-friendly service that details the key benefits for different businesses.
I founded MonsterPBN because I got tired of searching for and purchasing backlinks on the market — there were too many issues with quality and execution.
The main problem I faced was that most link building agencies were simply link sellers. They didn’t understand Google’s current algorithms, didn’t know how to select the right sites for placing backlinks, and weren’t interested in what works today or will work tomorrow. As a result, I had to manually review and select sites from the lists they provided, which took a lot of time and added confusion to the process.
That’s when I came up with the idea to create my own link-building agency with well-organized processes: from selecting platforms and checking sites for Google’s filters to helping companies avoid fraud and scams by site owners, and offering a full range of services for building a strong backlink profile.
We created a company that allows clients to order the required number of backlinks, set specific requirements, and relax because the agency takes care of everything else. We ensure results by the 20th-25th of the month, so the client can prepare reports and see continuous project growth.
What are your top three tactics to build free backlinks?
I’m not one to believe in “free” things. Everything costs money, either directly or indirectly — time and effort can also be measured financially.
If I had to name a conditionally free way to get backlinks, I’d highlight the HARO (Help a Reporter Out) strategy: journalists ask for case studies, stories, and expert comments, offering publicity in return — in most cases, they mention the brand. Sometimes, you can get backlinks from truly powerful sites where it would be impossible to buy them.
The second option would be creating profiles on reputable websites like Clutch or Crunchbase. These profiles work well for EEAT and increase the trustworthiness of your project. Some sellers may offer you 200 profile pages for $10 — be aware that these are completely useless.
Why is guest posting still so popular? Is it so effective?
Guest posts remain and will continue to be relevant because Google’s algorithms find it extremely difficult to determine whether a link is purchased or not. Moreover, these articles are thematically aligned with your site, and the fact that they cost money means fewer competitors are using them.
Many people are still under the illusion that it’s possible to get high-quality links for free. This idea is absurd — being in the top 3 on Google for your query can bring in $150,000 worth of orders per month, but the process of getting to the top should be free? That’s not how it works.
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