Resource Page Links

What Resource Page Links Are

A resource page link is a backlink from a page whose entire job is to list useful links on a topic — think "Helpful Resources for First-Time Landlords" on a property management site, or a university extension office's "Soil Testing Resources" page. They matter because they're one of the few link types you can legitimately ask for: the page owner's stated purpose is to link out, so a pitch isn't an imposition — it's an offer to do their job for them.

The catch is that the average resource page is a graveyard. Most were built in 2014, last updated in 2017, and link to forty dead URLs. Prospecting is easy; qualification is where the actual work lives.

A Concrete Example

Say you've built a free schema markup generator. A community college's web development program maintains a "Student Resources: SEO & Web Standards" page linking to the W3C validator, a handful of tutorials, and two tools that now 404. That page is a real prospect: it's topically exact, it's maintained by someone with an institutional reason to keep it useful, and you can open your email by pointing out the dead links before suggesting your tool as an addition. That's the whole tactic — find pages built to link out, and give the maintainer a reason to add you that benefits their readers first.

This works best when you have something genuinely worth listing. If you don't, build that first — see our glossary entry on the linkable asset, because a resource page pitch without one is just spam with extra steps.

Prospecting Queries and How to Qualify What They Return

These search operators surface candidate pages. The right-hand columns are the filter — apply them ruthlessly and you'll discard 80% of what you find, which is the point.

One more filter that catches what the table can't: does the page charge for inclusion? If there's a "submit your site ($49 review fee)" form, you're looking at a link scheme wearing a resource page costume. Walk away.

How to Check Your Own Resource Page Links

1. Open Google Search Console → Links → "Top linking sites". Export the list.
2. Scan linking page URLs for /resources/, /links/, /useful-links/ patterns. In a spreadsheet, a simple filter on those strings gets you most of the way.
3. Sign up for Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free for your own verified site), open the Backlinks report, and filter referring page URLs the same way. You'll also see whether each link is dofollow and still live.
4. Spot-check five of them in a browser. Confirm the page still exists, your link still works, and the anchor text isn't mangled. Resource page links die quietly — link reclamation on pages that already listed you once is the cheapest outreach you'll ever do.
5. Optionally, run the same check on a competitor's domain in Moz Link Explorer (free tier gives you a limited number of queries per month) to find resource pages that list them but not you.

Common Mistakes and Fixes

• Blasting every page that contains the word "resources." Reply rates crater and you burn the niche's goodwill. Fix: qualify with the table above; pitch fewer than a quarter of what you find.
• Pitching your homepage or a product page. Resource page curators list things that help their readers, not your sales funnel. Fix: pitch your best free tool, guide, or dataset instead.
• Treating .edu links as automatic gold. An abandoned .edu page with 300 outbound links passes roughly nothing and nobody's reading it. Fix: judge each page on maintenance and traffic, not TLD.
• Ignoring the dead-link angle. Emailing "please add me" is a favor request; emailing "three of your links are broken, here are replacements including mine" is a value trade. Fix: run prospect pages through a broken-link checker first — this overlaps heavily with broken link building.
• Stopping after one email. Curators are busy and the page is low on their list. Fix: one polite follow-up after ~a week. Then stop — two unanswered emails is your answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are resource page links still worth pursuing?

Yes, with tempered expectations. The well-maintained pages are fewer than a decade ago, but the links they give are contextual, dofollow more often than not, and cheap to acquire relative to almost any other tactic. Treat them as a steady side channel, not a strategy.

How many outbound links is too many on a resource page?

There's no magic number, but dilution is real: a link from a curated list of 15 annotated resources is a stronger endorsement than one buried in an alphabetized wall of 400. Prefer pages where a human clearly chose each entry.

Should I ever pay a "listing fee"?

No. A fee for a followed link is a paid link, whatever the invoice says, and it also tells you the page exists to sell placement rather than to serve readers — which means it will accumulate junk neighbors over time.

What should I actually pitch to a resource page?

Your most reference-worthy asset: a free tool, an original dataset, or a definitive guide. Full workflow in our guide to resource-page link building that editors actually approve, and tactical prospecting angles in resource page link building tactics.

Do resource page links look unnatural at scale?

A profile made of nothing but resource page links would look odd, but that basically never happens by accident. If you're earning links from content too, a few dozen resource listings are entirely normal.