What Is Link Building and Why Is It Still the #1 Ranking Factor? The Complete Guide

The Strategy Behind Every Top-Ranking Website

I HAVE SPENT YEARS BUILDING LINKS FOR WEBSITES ACROSS DOZENS OF INDUSTRIES, AND THE SAME FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE HOLDS IN EVERY ONE OF THEM: NOTHING MOVES RANKINGS AS RELIABLY AND DURABLY AS EARNING GENUINE AUTHORITY FROM CREDIBLE EXTERNAL SOURCES. THIS GUIDE COVERS THE FULL PICTURE — FROM WHAT A LINK ACTUALLY IS TO HOW MODERN LINK BUILDING CAMPAIGNS ARE BUILT AND MEASURED.

What Is Link Building and Why Is It Still the #1 Ranking Factor? The Complete Guide

In This Article

1. What Is a Link and Why Does Google Care About It
2. Why Link Building Is Still the Number One Ranking Factor
3. The Anatomy of a High-Quality Backlink
4. Types of Links: Which Ones Actually Help
5. Modern Link Building Strategies That Work
6. Tactics to Avoid: What Can Hurt Your Website
7. Link Velocity and Natural Growth Patterns
8. Anchor Text Strategy: Getting the Balance Right
9. Measuring the Impact of Your Link Building
10. Link Building for Local and Small Businesses
11. Why Content and Link Building Are Inseparable
12. Building a Sustainable Link Acquisition Campaign

1. What Is a Link and Why Does Google Care About It

At its most basic, a backlink is a hyperlink on one website that points to a page on another website. When a journalist writes an article and references a study, linking to the source, that is a backlink. When a blogger recommends a product and links to the brand’s website, that is a backlink. When an industry directory lists your business with a link to your homepage, that is a backlink. The mechanism is simple; the implications are profound.

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, built the original PageRank algorithm around a single foundational insight: a link from one website to another is a vote of confidence. If enough credible sources link to a page, that page is probably worth showing to users. The more credible the source, the more weight the vote carries. This insight — that the collective judgment of the web is a reliable signal of quality — proved so effective that it remains the structural backbone of how Google evaluates and ranks content more than two decades later.

What makes this model powerful is that it is difficult to fake at scale. You can write whatever you want about your own website. You can optimize your title tags, structure your headings perfectly, and produce technically flawless content. But you cannot make other credible websites link to you unless you have something genuinely worth linking to. That external validation requirement is what makes links such a reliable quality signal — and why no algorithm update in Google’s history has successfully replaced them with something more reliable.

It is also worth understanding what a link technically contains beyond the URL itself. Every link carries several attributes that affect how search engines interpret it: the anchor text (the clickable words), the rel attribute (whether it is followed or nofollow), the position on the page, the authority of the linking domain, and the topical context of the surrounding content. Each of these dimensions influences how much value the link transfers and to which signals it contributes.

2. Why Link Building Is Still the Number One Ranking Factor

Every few years, a new wave of speculation emerges suggesting that Google is moving away from links as a primary ranking signal. These predictions have been consistent for over a decade, and they have been consistently wrong. The evidence from real-world ranking analysis continues to show a stronger correlation between a page’s backlink profile and its ranking position than any other single factor. Understanding why this has remained true despite the enormous sophistication of modern search algorithms helps clarify what link building is really accomplishing.

The reason links retain their primacy is not that Google has failed to develop alternatives — it has developed many. User engagement signals, content quality assessments, entity recognition, semantic understanding, and a range of behavioral metrics all play roles in the modern ranking system. But none of them provides an equally reliable external validation signal. User behavior data can be gamed. Content quality can be manufactured at scale. Semantic signals can be reverse-engineered. Links, by contrast, require the genuine cooperation of an independent third party — and that independence is what makes them trustworthy as a signal.

A 2024 leak of Google’s internal search quality documentation — later partially confirmed by Google employees — indicated that domain authority (a concept directly rooted in the aggregate link profile of a domain) remains one of the most influential variables in ranking calculations. Independent studies by major SEO research firms consistently find that the number of unique referring domains pointing to a page is the metric most predictably correlated with first-page ranking across diverse industries and query types.

There is also a compounding dynamic to links that other ranking signals lack. A page that earns links from authoritative sources becomes more authoritative itself, which makes it more likely to attract further links naturally over time. This compounding effect — authority building on authority — is why established domains with strong link profiles tend to maintain their ranking advantages over time, and why new competitors must invest in deliberate link acquisition to close the gap efficiently.

3. The Anatomy of a High-Quality Backlink

Not all links are equal, and this is arguably the most important concept in all of link building. A single link from an authoritative, topically relevant publication can deliver more ranking impact than a hundred links from low-quality or irrelevant websites. Understanding what makes a link genuinely valuable — and what makes one either neutral or actively harmful — is the foundation of any effective link building strategy.

Domain authority is the most discussed link quality dimension, and for good reason. A link from a website that Google trusts deeply as a credible, authoritative source in its field carries exponentially more weight than a link from a new, low-traffic site with no history of producing quality content. Domain authority is not directly measurable from outside Google’s systems, but third-party metrics from tools like Ahrefs (Domain Rating), Moz (Domain Authority), and Semrush (Authority Score) provide useful proxies for evaluating potential linking sources.

Topical relevance is the second critical dimension, and one that has grown more important as Google’s understanding of semantic relationships has improved. A link from a technology publication to your software company’s website carries more relevance signal than the same link from a food blog — even if both sites have similar authority scores. Google increasingly understands the topical relationship between linking and linked pages, and a link that makes contextual sense adds more value than one that appears arbitrary or out of place.

Placement within the linking page also matters significantly. A link embedded in the main body text of an article — surrounded by related content and appearing as a natural editorial reference — carries substantially more weight than a link in a page footer, a sidebar widget, or a site-wide navigation element. Body text links signal that a human author made a deliberate choice to reference your content at a specific point in their writing, which is exactly the kind of genuine endorsement the link model is designed to measure.

4. Types of Links: Which Ones Actually Help

The link ecosystem is considerably more varied than most people realize, and different link types carry meaningfully different value profiles. Understanding the landscape helps you allocate link building effort toward the highest-return opportunities rather than spreading resources across activities with very different impact levels.

Editorial links — links placed by independent authors in genuine content because they found your page genuinely useful or citable — are the most valuable category. These links are not requested or paid for; they are earned because the content on the receiving page is worth referencing. They are also the hardest to acquire at scale, which is precisely why they carry such disproportionate ranking weight. The scarcity of genuine editorial endorsement is what makes it a reliable quality signal.

Outreach-earned links occupy the next tier. These are links secured through deliberate outreach — contacting editors, journalists, or website owners and making a case for why linking to your content would serve their audience. When done well, outreach earns links that are functionally similar to editorial links: placed in real content, on real websites, by real authors who found the pitch compelling. The key distinction from paid links is that the link placement decision is made on merit rather than on financial compensation.

Directory and citation links occupy a specific and legitimate niche, particularly for local businesses. Citations — mentions of a business’s name, address, and phone number on directories, local platforms, and industry databases — help search engines verify the existence and legitimacy of a business. While individual citation links carry relatively modest authority, the aggregate effect of consistent, accurate citations across major platforms contributes meaningfully to local search visibility.

5. Modern Link Building Strategies That Work

The landscape of link building has changed substantially over the past decade. Strategies that reliably produced results in 2012 now range from ineffective to actively penalizable. What works in 2026 is defined by a consistent theme: earning links through genuine value creation rather than manufacturing links through technical manipulation or financial compensation.

Content-led link building — sometimes called linkable asset creation — remains the most scalable long-term strategy. The approach involves producing content so genuinely useful, original, or comprehensive that other websites in the same industry naturally want to reference it. Original research and proprietary data are among the most reliably linkable content formats: journalists and bloggers regularly cite statistics, and if those statistics come from your research, they link back to your website. Other high-performing linkable asset formats include comprehensive definitive guides, free tools and calculators, original surveys, and curated resource lists that save industry professionals significant research time.

Digital PR is the strategic cousin of content-led link building, applying traditional public relations thinking to link acquisition. Rather than simply publishing content and waiting for it to be discovered, digital PR involves actively pitching stories to journalists and publications — stories built around data, expert commentary, trending angles, or genuinely newsworthy company developments. When executed well, a single well-timed digital PR campaign can earn dozens of high-authority editorial links in a short window, producing a surge of authority that would take months to build through outreach alone.

Broken link building is a tactical outreach approach with a genuine value proposition for the publisher. The process involves finding links on relevant external websites that point to pages that no longer exist, then reaching out to the publisher with your own content as a replacement suggestion. Because you are helping them fix a real problem rather than simply asking for a favor, the pitch conversion rate tends to be higher than cold outreach asking for a link without a specific editorial reason.

Expert contributions and thought leadership placements — contributing original articles, commentary, or expert quotes to industry publications — build links alongside brand authority simultaneously. A well-placed article in a respected industry publication serves multiple purposes: it earns a link, it exposes your brand to a new audience, and it contributes to the E-E-A-T signals that Google uses to evaluate the credibility of your content across your entire website. The investment in thought leadership compounds across multiple ranking dimensions rather than producing a narrow link-only benefit.

6. Tactics to Avoid: What Can Hurt Your Website

Understanding what not to do in link building is as important as knowing what works, because the penalties for manipulative link practices have become severe and increasingly difficult to recover from. Google’s Penguin algorithm — now integrated into the core ranking system and running continuously rather than in periodic updates — specifically targets manipulative link patterns and can suppress rankings significantly for websites caught using them.

Paid link schemes are the most common high-risk tactic. Paying a website owner directly for a followed link placement violates Google’s guidelines explicitly. This includes not just obvious link sales arrangements but also sponsored content that passes link equity without proper disclosure, advertorial placements disguised as editorial content, and link broker services that sell placements in bulk. Google’s ability to identify paid link patterns has improved substantially, and the risk-reward calculation has shifted dramatically against these approaches.

Private blog networks — networks of websites created specifically to sell links to clients — were effective for years and are now one of the most reliably penalized link building approaches. The footprints left by PBNs (similar hosting patterns, shared IP ranges, thin content with no legitimate traffic, unusual cross-linking patterns) are identifiable by Google’s systems with reasonable reliability, and websites that accumulate PBN links face ranking suppression that can be extremely difficult to recover from fully.

Tactics That Risk Google Penalties in 2026

• ●Purchasing followed links from brokers or directly from website owners
• ●Building or using private blog networks for link acquisition
• ●Participating in large-scale link exchange arrangements
• ●Automated link submission tools targeting directories or forums
• ●Keyword-rich anchor text optimization applied unnaturally at scale
• ●Guest post campaigns run primarily for link acquisition rather than audience value

It is worth noting that guest posting is not inherently problematic — it depends entirely on how it is executed. A genuinely well-written, original article contributed to a credible publication in your industry, with a natural author bio link, is a legitimate link building and brand building activity. The issue arises when guest posting is conducted at industrial scale, with templated content placed across dozens of low-quality sites purely for the link value. Google’s 2024 spam policy updates specifically targeted scaled content publishing programs of this type.

7. Link Velocity and Natural Growth Patterns

Link velocity refers to the rate at which a website acquires new backlinks over time. Understanding velocity matters because an unnatural acquisition pattern — a sudden spike of hundreds of links appearing within days, followed by months of zero activity — can trigger algorithmic scrutiny regardless of the individual quality of those links. Natural link profiles grow in ways that reflect genuine editorial attention, which tends to be gradual and variable rather than sudden and uniform.

For a new website or a page that has never attracted significant links before, very rapid link acquisition is inherently suspicious because there is no established context that would explain it organically. Established websites with strong brand recognition can absorb faster link growth naturally, since major press coverage or viral content can legitimately produce hundreds of links in a short window. The key is whether the growth pattern is consistent with what would be expected from genuine organic attention given the website’s size and authority.

This has practical implications for campaign management. Rather than executing link building in isolated bursts, a sustainable approach involves maintaining consistent outreach and content production that generates a steady, predictable flow of new links each month. This pattern mirrors how editorial attention naturally accumulates for a website that is genuinely useful in its field, and it is less likely to create the anomalous patterns that invite closer algorithmic examination.

8. Anchor Text Strategy: Getting the Balance Right

Anchor text — the clickable words of a hyperlink — is a meaningful ranking signal because it tells search engines something about the topic of the page being linked to. A link using the anchor text “project management software” tells Google that the destination page is relevant to that topic, which reinforces its ability to rank for related queries. But anchor text optimization is one of the most frequently over-engineered aspects of link building, and getting it wrong has caused significant algorithmic penalties for many websites over the years.

The fundamental problem with aggressive anchor text optimization is that it looks unnatural. When you look at the link profiles of websites that have accumulated links organically over years — without any deliberate manipulation — you see enormous diversity in anchor text. Brand name anchors dominate. Generic anchors like “click here,” “read more,” or “this article” are common. Partial phrase matches and topically related terms appear regularly. Exact-match keyword anchors — the type most tempting to pursue for ranking purposes — appear rarely and contextually.

A backlink profile that is heavily skewed toward exact-match keyword anchors is an immediate signal of manipulation, regardless of the quality of the individual linking pages. Google’s Penguin-era updates were devastating to websites with over-optimized anchor profiles precisely because those profiles looked nothing like what genuine editorial linking produces. The safest approach is to let anchor text develop naturally through the editorial choices of linking authors, with any deliberate anchor text requests made only sparingly and in contexts where the keyword anchor genuinely fits the content.

9. Measuring the Impact of Your Link Building

One of the more frustrating aspects of link building is that the connection between a specific link acquisition and a specific ranking movement is rarely clean or immediate. Links pass authority gradually, ranking responses take time, and the effect of any single link is almost always obscured by dozens of other variables changing simultaneously. Despite this complexity, measuring the health and impact of your link building program is entirely possible with the right framework.

The primary tools for backlink analysis are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz — all of which crawl the web continuously and maintain databases of known backlinks. These tools allow you to track the growth of your referring domain count over time, assess the authority distribution of your link profile, monitor for potentially harmful links that may need disavowal, and benchmark your link profile against competitors in your niche. Running a baseline audit at the start of a campaign and then tracking changes monthly creates a clear picture of whether link building activity is producing the expected profile growth.

Connecting link building activity to ranking performance requires a degree of patience and analytical discipline. Rather than expecting immediate movement after each new link is acquired, the more useful approach is to track ranking trajectories for target keywords over rolling three-month windows and look for correlations with significant link acquisition events. When a sustained upward trend in rankings coincides with a period of active link building, that is a meaningful signal that the campaign is having its intended effect — even if the relationship between specific links and specific ranking changes is not perfectly traceable.

10. Link Building for Local and Small Businesses

The link building principles discussed throughout this article apply universally, but the specific tactics and targets that make the most sense vary considerably for businesses operating at a local level rather than competing for national or global keywords. Local link building has its own distinct landscape of opportunities, and understanding it prevents smaller businesses from pursuing tactics better suited to large brands while neglecting the local-specific channels that can produce disproportionate impact.

Local citations are the foundational layer of local link building. Ensuring your business is accurately listed — with consistent name, address, and phone number — across major directories, local chambers of commerce, and industry-specific platforms builds the citation profile that search engines use to verify your business’s location and legitimacy. These are not high-authority links individually, but their aggregate effect on local search visibility is significant, and inconsistencies across them create confusion that can suppress local rankings.

Local editorial links — coverage in regional newspapers, local business publications, neighborhood blogs, and community platforms — are the local equivalent of national press placements. A feature in your city’s business journal, a mention in a local news story, or a recommendation from a popular community blogger all generate locally relevant authority that compounds over time. Our local SEO services are specifically structured around building this kind of locally grounded authority through a combination of citation management, local outreach, and community-relevant content creation.

11. Why Content and Link Building Are Inseparable

The most common mistake in link building strategy is treating it as a separate activity from content — as if links can be acquired independently of having something genuinely worth linking to. In reality, the most durable and efficient link building strategies are those that invest first in creating content that earns links naturally, then amplify that earning potential through deliberate outreach and promotion.

This is not a new observation, but it is one that many businesses still struggle to operationalize. Creating “linkable assets” sounds straightforward in principle, but in practice it requires a specific kind of editorial thinking that differs from producing content designed purely to rank for a keyword. A page optimized to rank for a specific query asks: what does someone searching this term need to know? A linkable asset asks: what would a journalist, researcher, or fellow website owner in this space want to reference and send their audience to?

Original data is the clearest answer to that question across almost every industry. A study, survey, or analysis that produces findings nobody else has published gives other writers and publishers a reason to reference your content specifically — not because you optimized a page for a keyword, but because you produced something they cannot get anywhere else. Original research takes more effort than standard content, but its link-earning potential compounds over years as the findings continue to be cited in new articles and publications.

For a broader understanding of how content strategy and link building work together within a complete SEO framework, our guide on how to rank a website on top of Google covers the interdependencies between content, authority, and technical performance in detail. And for a realistic picture of how long a link-building-driven ranking improvement takes to materialize, our resource on SEO timeline expectations sets accurate benchmarks for campaign planning.

12. Building a Sustainable Link Acquisition Campaign

A sustainable link building campaign is one that produces consistent, growing authority through methods that will not put the website at risk as algorithms evolve. Building that kind of campaign requires thinking about link building as an ongoing editorial and relationship-building activity rather than a one-time technical task or a volume game to be won through scale.

The first step is a thorough audit of your existing backlink profile — understanding where your current authority comes from, identifying any potentially harmful links that may need to be disavowed, and benchmarking your domain authority against the competitors currently occupying the ranking positions you are targeting. This baseline shapes every subsequent decision about which link building channels to prioritize and how aggressively to pursue them.

From that baseline, a realistic monthly target for new referring domain acquisition can be established. For most small to mid-sized businesses, acquiring five to fifteen high-quality new referring domains per month represents meaningful, sustainable progress. Larger campaigns in highly competitive industries may target higher volumes, but the emphasis should always be on quality diversity rather than raw link count. A hundred links from a hundred different credible, relevant sources outperforms a hundred links from a single domain or from hundred variations of the same low-quality site type.

Outreach cadence, content production, and reporting should all be structured around this monthly rhythm. Outreach without content to offer is difficult to convert; content without outreach to amplify it earns links too slowly for most business timelines. The combination — producing genuinely linkable content and actively promoting it to relevant audiences through systematic outreach — is the compound engine that drives the most durable link building results.

For businesses evaluating the financial structure of a professional link building engagement, our transparent SEO pricing breakdown shows exactly how link building activity is scoped and costed across different campaign tiers. And for those interested in referring clients who could benefit from this kind of structured approach, our referral partner program provides a framework for ongoing collaboration.

Building a Monthly Link Building Rhythm

• ●Week 1: Audit existing profile, identify gaps against top-ranking competitors
• ●Week 2: Produce or refresh a linkable content asset for active outreach
• ●Week 3: Execute outreach to 30–50 qualified prospects with personalized pitches
• ●Week 4: Follow up, process placements, track new referring domains acquired
• ●Month-end: Review ranking movements, adjust targeting based on results
• ●Ongoing: Monitor for lost links and new competitor link opportunities

Why Work With World SEO Agency

Link building done correctly is time-intensive, relationship-dependent, and requires deep familiarity with the quality signals that distinguish genuinely valuable placements from those that waste budget or create risk. Here is why businesses trust us to manage this work on their behalf.

— All-Inclusive System With No Hidden Fees

Our link building work is scoped transparently before any engagement begins. Outreach, content production for linkable assets, placement reporting, and profile monitoring are all included within the agreed monthly investment — not billed as incremental additions that inflate the real cost of the program. You know exactly what your budget covers before the first piece of outreach is sent.

— Financial Guarantees

We operate with structured accountability rather than vague promises. Performance commitments are defined clearly within the engagement framework, and we stand behind them with genuine financial stakes rather than marketing language. Our detailed overview of guaranteed SEO services explains what responsible, accountable link building guarantees actually look like in practice.

— High Volume of Work Delivered Every Month

Link building at a pace that moves rankings requires consistent, substantial monthly outreach and placement activity. Our campaigns are built around meaningful monthly referring domain acquisition targets — not token activity that fills a report without moving a needle. Every month produces real, verifiable new links from real editorial sources, documented transparently in client reporting.

— Affordable Price

Professional link building does not have to be priced exclusively for enterprise budgets. Our service tiers are designed to make credible, white-hat link acquisition accessible to small and mid-sized businesses at a price point that reflects genuine value rather than inflated agency margins. Explore the full picture at World SEO Agency or review our dedicated link building services page for a detailed breakdown of what each engagement covers.

Want to order our services? Get a consultation from an SEO expert. Send a request.

Frequently Asked Questions

🔗 How many backlinks does a website need to rank on the first page?

There is no universal number, because the answer depends entirely on how competitive the target keyword is. For a low-competition local query, a handful of well-placed local links may be sufficient. For a nationally competitive keyword in a saturated industry, first-page rankings may require hundreds of referring domains built over years. The relevant question is not “how many links do I need” in absolute terms, but “how many more high-quality referring domains do I need than the sites currently ranking above me.” That competitor benchmark is the only number that genuinely matters for strategic planning.

📊 Is it better to get lots of low-quality links or a few high-quality ones?

A few high-quality links, without question. This has become increasingly true as Google’s ability to assess link quality has improved. A single editorial link from a trusted, topically relevant publication with genuine traffic can contribute more to ranking authority than several hundred links from low-quality directories, forum profiles, or manufactured sources. The practical implication is that link building budget and effort should be concentrated on earning fewer, better links rather than maximizing raw link volume through low-cost, low-quality channels.

⏱️ How long before new links start affecting my rankings?

Google typically needs to crawl and process a new link before it influences rankings, which can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks depending on how frequently Google crawls the linking page. After processing, ranking responses can be gradual rather than immediate, particularly for competitive queries where many other signals are in play. A realistic expectation is that the ranking impact of a new link acquisition becomes detectable in Search Console data within four to eight weeks, with the full compounding effect of a sustained campaign becoming visible over a three-to-six-month window.

🚩 Can bad links hurt my website even if I didn’t build them?

Yes, though Google’s systems have become substantially better at simply ignoring low-quality links rather than penalizing the receiving website for them. The era when competitors could sabotage a website through “negative SEO” by pointing spam links at it was more consequential in earlier algorithm versions than it is today. That said, a manual action — a direct penalty applied by a Google reviewer — can still be triggered by sufficiently egregious unnatural link patterns. If your backlink monitoring reveals a sudden influx of obviously manipulative links, submitting a disavow file through Google Search Console is the appropriate precautionary response.

🤝 Is guest posting a legitimate link building strategy in 2026?

It depends entirely on how it is executed. A well-written, original article contributed to a credible publication because it genuinely serves that audience, with a contextual author bio link, remains a legitimate and effective approach. What Google has specifically targeted is scaled guest posting programs where templated or low-quality articles are placed across large numbers of websites primarily for link value rather than audience value. The test is simple: if the article would be worth publishing even if it contained no link to your website, the guest post is legitimate. If the link is the only reason the article exists, it is not.

📉 What should I do if my website has a manual penalty from unnatural links?

The recovery process involves three steps: conducting a thorough backlink audit to identify the problematic links, making genuine efforts to have those links removed by contacting the website owners directly, and then submitting a disavow file for any links that could not be removed through outreach. After completing these steps, a reconsideration request can be submitted through Google Search Console explaining the actions taken. Recovery timelines vary, but the process typically takes two to four months from the time a thorough cleanup and reconsideration request are completed.

🌐 Do links from foreign-language websites help with rankings in English-language markets?

Links from foreign-language websites can contribute to overall domain authority, but their relevance signal for specific English-language keyword rankings is weaker than links from English-language sources covering the same topic. For a business competing exclusively in English-language markets, prioritizing links from English-language publications in the relevant industry or geographic market will generally produce stronger targeting precision than a geographically diverse profile that includes many non-English sources.

💡 How do I find link building opportunities I haven’t thought of yet?

Competitor backlink analysis is the most reliable method. Using a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, you can examine the complete backlink profiles of the websites ranking above you for your target keywords. Any site linking to multiple competitors but not to you is a high-priority prospect, since their willingness to link to comparable sources suggests they may be receptive to linking to yours. This approach surfaces real, proven opportunities rather than hypothetical ones, and it ensures your outreach is focused on websites that have already demonstrated a pattern of linking to content like yours.

🔍 Should link building be outsourced or managed in-house?

It depends on the volume, expertise, and tools available internally. Link building at meaningful scale requires dedicated outreach capacity, content production capability, access to prospecting databases, and ongoing relationship management with editors and publishers — a combination that most in-house marketing teams are not resourced to sustain alongside their other responsibilities. Outsourcing to a specialist agency is often more cost-effective than building that internal capacity from scratch, particularly when the agency brings existing publisher relationships and established outreach systems that would take years to develop internally.