How to Get Backlinks from Forbes Without Buying Risky Placements

If you want a backlink from Forbes, the wrong move is to search for someone selling a "Forbes guest post."

That path is noisy, expensive, and often risky. Some placements disappear after contributor audits. Some links are nofollow. Some offers are simply scams.

The better question is: how do real founders earn Forbes mentions without pretending there is a shortcut?

The realistic paths are narrow:

• Get quoted as an expert in a Forbes article.
• Publish original data or research that Forbes writers want to cite.
• Join a paid Forbes Council or contributor-style program if the credibility value justifies the cost.

None of these are guaranteed. But they are much more durable than buying links from random sellers.

Quick answer: All external links on Forbes.com are nofollow — staff editorial and Council contributions alike, since August 2017. The value is brand authority, referral traffic, and secondary citations from other publications. The durable earning routes are expert quotes through journalist sourcing platforms (Qwoted, Featured, Source of Sources) and original data campaigns that give writers something citable. Speed is the differentiator: a relevant quote sent within the hour beats a perfect pitch sent the next day.

What a Forbes backlink is actually worth

A Forbes backlink sounds powerful because Forbes is a high-authority publication. That does not mean every Forbes link has the same SEO value.

Since August 2017, all external links on Forbes.com carry rel="nofollow" — both staff-written articles and contributor/Council content. There is no dofollow tier. (Source: Search Engine Roundtable, 2017)

You should not assume Forbes links pass the same ranking value as a standard editorial link from a smaller site that uses dofollow.

That does not make them useless. A Forbes mention can still help with:

• Credibility. "Mentioned in Forbes" can support sales, fundraising, and trust.
• Referral visibility. Some articles can send qualified readers.
• Secondary links. Smaller blogs, newsletters, and roundups may reference the Forbes article.
• Brand authority. Being cited by respected publications can support the broader trust picture around your company.

The mistake is treating Forbes as a magic ranking button. A relevant mention in the right article is valuable, but it should be part of a broader backlink strategy, not the entire plan.

Method 1: Get quoted as an expert

The most realistic earned route is expert commentary.

Forbes writers and contributors often need quick quotes from people who understand a topic. If you can give them a sharp, credible answer on deadline, you have a chance to be included.

Start by monitoring journalist request platforms:

• Qwoted
• Featured
• Source of Sources
• HARO-style newsletters and communities
• LinkedIn or X posts from writers in your niche

The key is speed. If a journalist needs a source today, a perfect answer tomorrow is usually worthless.

A strong response includes:

• One short quote they can copy and paste.
• Your name, title, company, and relevant credential.
• A direct URL where they can learn more.
• A short explanation of why your perspective is credible.

Do not send a long founder bio. Do not attach a pitch deck. Do not explain your entire product. Send the thing the writer needs.

Example:

The quote should stand on its own. If the writer has to rewrite everything, you made their job harder.

Method 2: Publish something Forbes writers want to cite

Expert quotes work when the writer needs commentary. Data works when the writer needs proof.

Forbes writers often cite studies, rankings, benchmarks, surveys, and original analysis because those assets make an article stronger. If your company can publish something genuinely useful, it becomes easier to pitch.

Good linkable assets include:

• Original survey results
• Industry benchmarks
• Rankings or comparison datasets
• Market maps
• Interactive calculators
• Visual reports
• Trend analysis from proprietary data

The asset needs to be easy to cite. That means it should include:

• A clear headline finding
• A simple methodology
• Charts or visuals
• A short summary
• A press or founder contact
• A stable URL

Avoid vague thought leadership posts. A journalist does not need another opinion article. They need a stat, quote, finding, or visual that helps them make a point. This is the same reason citation-worthy research assets work better than product pages when you are trying to earn links from editorial systems like Wikipedia.

A stronger hook looks like this:

We analyzed 2,000 SaaS pricing pages and found that AI startups are more likely to hide pricing than traditional B2B SaaS companies.

A weaker hook looks like this:

We wrote a guide about SaaS pricing and thought your readers might like it.

The first gives the writer something specific. The second gives them work.

Method 3: Consider Forbes Councils carefully

Forbes Councils are paid, vetted communities for executives and business leaders. Depending on the council, members may get an author profile and the ability to publish contributed content.

This can be useful if your goal is credibility.

It may make sense if:

• You are already investing in founder brand.
• Your buyers care about mainstream business credibility.
• You can justify the annual cost.
• You have a clear plan for using the content in sales, partnerships, or investor conversations.

But do not treat it as a cheap link-building trick.

Council routes can be expensive. They usually require approval. Links may be nofollow. The main value may be the trust and visibility around the contribution, not direct link equity.

If your only goal is SEO value from one backlink, there are probably better uses of your budget.

Advanced tactic: find broken or outdated Forbes links

Another route is broken link replacement. This is harder on Forbes than it is on Wikipedia dead-link replacement, but the logic is similar: find an outdated source and offer a genuinely better one.

The idea is simple:

1. Find Forbes articles in your niche.
2. Check their outbound links.
3. Look for dead, outdated, or weak resources.
4. Create a better replacement.
5. Contact the writer or editor with a short note.

This can work, but it is a lower-probability tactic. Large publications are not always quick to update old articles.

There are also gray-hat versions of this tactic, like buying expired domains that Forbes already links to and redirecting them. That can carry ethical and SEO risk. For most founders, it is not worth building a distribution strategy around.

A cleaner approach is to offer a useful replacement resource:

Keep it short. Make the value obvious.

What to avoid

The fastest way to waste money is to chase shortcuts.

• Buying "Forbes guest posts" from random freelancers. Many of these are contributor accounts that get audited and cleaned. Links can disappear months after purchase — and if the placement is flagged as paid without disclosure, it can trigger a manual action against your domain.
• Paying for links without vetting them first. Before any paid placement, verify: is the link dofollow, is the contributor account still active, and does the article appear in Google's index? Unverified placements are a budget drain with penalty risk attached.
• Sending generic outreach to every Forbes writer. Contributors receive hundreds of pitches. Anything that doesn't reference their specific recent work or beat gets ignored — and marks your domain as a spam sender for future queries.
• Pitching topics outside your expertise. Forbes writers check credentials. A thin or mismatched pitch doesn't just get declined — it reduces your credibility as a source for future requests from the same writer.
• Requesting exact-match anchor text. Editorial links use the writer's chosen anchor. Asking for specific keywords signals you're optimizing for rankings rather than providing value, which is the fastest way to get dismissed.
• Expecting one Forbes link to transform rankings. A single link, even from a DR 90+ domain, is a small signal in a large algorithm. The credibility signal and secondary mentions from other sites referencing the Forbes piece often deliver more long-term value than the link itself.

Forbes is not a normal guest post target. Treat it more like PR than traditional link building.

A simple Forbes outreach workflow

If you want a practical process, use this:

1. Choose one topic where you have real expertise.
2. Create either a quote bank or a source page with original data.
3. Find Forbes contributors who already write about that topic.
4. Read their recent articles before pitching.
5. Send a short pitch with a clear hook.
6. Follow up once.
7. Track mentions, secondary links, and referral traffic.

The most important part is fit.

A Forbes writer covering startup funding probably does not care about your generic productivity app pitch. But they may care about proprietary data on how seed-stage teams are changing hiring plans.

Specific beats broad.

Build a broader opportunity queue

Forbes can be a valuable target, but it should not be your whole backlink strategy. It sits closer to digital PR than community-led plays like Reddit or answer-led plays like Quora.

Most founders need a repeatable way to find relevant opportunities, not a spreadsheet full of dream publications.

Mentiohunt's backlink building helps with that broader workflow. Add your sitemap or article URLs, and Mentiohunt helps identify websites where each piece may fit, surfaces available contact details, and prepares outreach drafts with a clear fit rationale.

That gives you a queue of qualified backlink opportunities instead of relying on one high-effort Forbes pitch.

Use Forbes for high-authority PR-style opportunities. Use a broader opportunity queue to build consistent outreach momentum across editorial sites, communities, and distribution platforms like Medium.

The practical takeaway

The best way to get backlinks from Forbes is not to buy them. It is to become useful to the people writing Forbes articles.

That means fast expert quotes, original data, relevant source pages, and targeted outreach to writers who already cover your market.

If you have the budget and brand reason, Forbes Councils may be worth exploring. If you have original research, pitch it. If you have expertise, respond quickly to journalist requests.

But do not build your whole strategy around one publication. Chase relevance first. Authority matters more when the mention actually fits.

This guide was written by the Mentiohunt team. We build tools for founders doing their own link building.

Nicolas More

Founder of Mentiohunt. Built the company's own backlink pipeline using the same methods covered here — expert quote outreach, journalist sourcing platforms, and citation-worthy assets. Writes about link prospecting, community monitoring, and founder-led distribution.

@nicolasmore_