Most link building is a grind. You research prospects, chase contact info, write outreach that gets ignored, and follow up three times to earn a single link. When that grind isn’t worth your team’s time, SEO Arcade runs white-hat link building services at scale. But there is one category of links sitting in almost every business’s supply chain that is faster, cleaner, and more defensible than almost anything else you can do — and hardly anyone systematically claims it. On the Unscripted SEO podcast, two-decade SEO veteran Rob Bonham called it the closest thing to an easy win the discipline has left: getting legitimate “where to buy,” dealer, and partner links from the brands your company already carries or works with.
Why supplier links are the easiest legitimate links you’ll ever earn
The logic is simple. If you sell, install, distribute, or service another company’s products, that company has a commercial reason to point customers toward you. Manufacturers run “where to buy” pages, dealer locators, and “find a pro” directories precisely because they need buyers to reach a place that actually stocks or installs their gear. You are not asking for a favor — you are helping them close a sale. That alignment of incentives is what makes these links so much easier to land than cold guest-post pitches. Rob learned this running SEO for an e-commerce maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) parts provider that carried hundreds of brands.
It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but we’re still getting great results and improving our authority. We’re not doing anything bad — we’re not paying for these links, we’re not twisting their arm.— Rob Bonham, Unscripted SEO
That last part matters. These are not paid or coerced links, so they sidestep the guardrails that make so much of link building risky. You carry a brand; the brand tells its customers where to find it. It is the offline, relationship-driven end of link building — the same territory covered in our guide to local and offline link building and the deeper walkthrough on generating links through complementary business partners.
Build your partner link inventory before you send a single email
The mistake most teams make is treating this as ad-hoc outreach instead of an inventory problem. Every brand you carry, every supplier you buy from, every association you belong to, and every certification you hold is a potential link source with a pre-existing relationship attached. Map that footprint first, then work it systematically.
The fish-in-a-barrel workflow
List every brand and supplier you touch
Pull your product catalog, vendor invoices, and reseller agreements. Each manufacturer, distributor, and franchisor you have a commercial relationship with goes on the list — these are warm prospects, not strangers.
Check each brand for a “where to buy” or dealer locator
Search the manufacturer site for “where to buy,” “find a dealer,” “store locator,” “find a pro,” or “partners.” If the page exists, you often just need to submit your details to be added and linked.
Confirm the link is followed and points to the right URL
Not every locator links out, and some use JavaScript widgets that don’t pass equity. Prioritize brands whose pages render real, followed anchor links, and ask them to point to your most relevant category or location page.
Reach out using the relationship, not a pitch
You already buy from these companies. A short note to your account rep — “can you add us to your where-to-buy page?” — converts far better than cold outreach because you are helping them sell more product.
Track submissions and re-check quarterly
Dealer directories get rebuilt and links get dropped in redesigns. Log every submission in a sheet and re-verify each link on a quarterly cadence so you don’t silently lose the ones you earned.
Who has the most fish in their barrel?
Some business models are practically built for this tactic. If you fit one of these, you are almost certainly leaving supplier links on the table right now.
Businesses sitting on unclaimed supplier links
Each of these carries brands that want to send buyers their way.
Contractors & installers
HVAC, roofing, flooring, windows, and solar installers can earn “find a certified installer” links from every manufacturer they install.
Resellers & distributors
If you resell products online or locally, the brands you carry run “where to buy” pages that exist to link out to sellers like you.
Service & repair shops
Authorized service centers and warranty partners get listed in manufacturer “find a service provider” directories.
Franchisees & members
Franchise systems, trade associations, and certification bodies maintain member directories that pass real authority.
Why these links punch above their weight
Manufacturer and association sites tend to be old, topically focused, and genuinely trusted — exactly the profile search engines and AI answer engines reward. A link from the brand you carry is a third-party endorsement that you are a legitimate outlet for their products, which is a stronger trust signal than a random blog mention. It also reinforces the relevance of your commercial pages: a link from a flooring manufacturer to your flooring category page tells search engines exactly what that page is about. That combination of trust and topical relevance is why Rob singled it out as more valuable than ever in the current search landscape, and why it belongs at the top of any local link building plan.
The best part is durability. Because you are not manufacturing these links or paying for them, there is no penalty exposure and nothing to unwind later. You built a real business relationship and got a real link out of it — the way link building is supposed to work. Start with your five biggest suppliers this week, and you will likely have your first batch of new, defensible links before your next outreach campaign even warms up.
Want these links built for you?
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