Tier 1 and Tier 2 Backlinks: What They Are and How They Differ
Tier 1 (T1) backlinks are first-level links: they sit on third-party sites and point directly to the website you are promoting. In practice they are ordinary backlinks — the word "tier" only matters once you build further levels on top of them. Tier 2 (T2) backlinks are second-level links: they point not to your site but to the tier 1 pages, making them stronger. Tier 3 follows the same principle on top of the second level. Together these levels form a tiered (multi-level), or cascade, link building structure.
Tier 1 and tier 2 backlinks in simple terms
Picture a chain: an article on an external blogging platform links to your page — that is tier 1. Then ten other posts link to that article — that is tier 2. Your site only gets a link from the first-level article, but that article becomes stronger and gets indexed faster because other pages link to it.
The count always runs outward from your site: tier 1 is closest to it, tier 3 is furthest away. For each individual link, the roles are described by the pair linking page and target page (donor and acceptor): a tier 1 post is the linking page for your site and, at the same time, the target page for tier 2 links.
Tier 1 vs tier 2 backlinks: the difference
| Parameter | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 and crowd |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the link points | To your site | To tier 1 posts | To tier 2 posts |
| Purpose | The main effect: authority and relevance for the promoted page | Strengthen the linking pages and speed up their indexing | Extra reinforcement and a wider variety of signals |
| Quality requirements | The highest: indexing, domain authority, meaningful content | Moderate: pages must stay live and get indexed | Minimal; volume is what counts |
| Quantity | A handful | Dozens | Hundreds to thousands |
| Anchors | Careful: close to the query, plus branded | Varied, often naked or generic | Anything, mostly naked or generic |
| Impact on your site | Direct | Indirect, through tier 1 | Weak, fading with every hop |
The key difference between tier 1 and tier 2: tier 1 touches your site directly, so any mistake there — a poor site, an over-optimized anchor — shows up on your page. Tier 2 mistakes reach your site through an intermediary and hit it less.
Why tiered link building exists
A post on a third-party service is just an ordinary page with no authority and no links pointing to it. If nobody links to it, it is weak itself and has little to pass on. Second-level links solve that: they make the first-level page more visible to crawlers, speed up its indexing and add authority to it, part of which reaches your site.
Example: how tiers work in a PromoPilot cascade
| Level | Where the link points | Basic, $30 | Pro, $250 |
|---|---|---|---|
| First (tier 1) | To your page | 5 articles | 5 articles |
| Second (tier 2) | To first-level posts | 50 posts | 50 posts |
| Third (tier 3) | To second-level posts | — | 750 posts |
In Basic, another 5,000 crowd signals are added on top of the second level — 100 for each post on the last level; read more in the article on crowd signals. Tier 1 is published on platforms such as WordPress.com, Telegraph, Ameba, PIXNET, Notion and Blogger, with a high DR. Not every page on an external service gets indexed by Google, so we submit first-level articles for forced indexing and check the search results ourselves, and tier 2 is needed to strengthen them. For a detailed breakdown with numbers, see "Cascade levels"; for a step-by-step example, a cascade for a single link; for the service itself, the tiered link building page.
Which sites suit each tier
- Tier 1: pages that look decent on their own and get indexed — guest posts, posts on major blogging platforms and Web 2.0 sites with meaningful content on your page's topic.
- Tier 2: simpler posts, but still live and indexable: their job is to bring crawlers to tier 1 and give it links from different domains.
- Tier 3 and crowd: mass signals — forum posts, profiles, comments. Volume and variety matter here, not the strength of each individual link.
The general rule: the closer a tier is to your site, the stricter the selection. Cutting corners on tier 1 while pouring money into tier 3 volume is a recipe for a big report with no visible effect.
How to audit your tier 1 links
- Open every first-level post and make sure it is live and the link to your site is in place.
- Check indexing: the page should be findable in Google by its exact URL.
- Check the link attribute — in both the raw HTML and the rendered page (they can differ):
nofolloworugcmean Google does not have to treat the link as an endorsement. - Repeat the check a month later: some posts on external services get deleted or drop out of the index over time.
How to distribute anchors across tiers
Anchors do different jobs on different tiers. On tier 1, the link text describes the page you are promoting, so you need a careful mix: branded anchors, the site URL, diluted phrasing with part of the query, and only a small share of exact-match anchors. Ten tier 1 links with the same commercial anchor is the most common mistake in tiered link building.
On tier 2, anchors describe the first-level posts, not your site, so they can be natural and varied: the article's headline, its URL, neutral phrases like "detailed breakdown", or naked links. At the crowd level, anchors are almost always naked or generic. More on building the list in the article on anchors and anchor lists.
How to tell whether tier 2 is working
Second-level links affect your site only through the tier 1 pages, so judge them by the state of tier 1 and of your target page, not by how many links were placed.
- Record the starting point. Before tier 2 goes live, note which tier 1 pages are already in Google's index — for example with the page index checker.
- Give it time. Google has to discover the second-level links and then recrawl the tier 1 pages. Comparing earlier than two to four weeks later tells you little.
- Re-check tier 1. Did pages that were missing get indexed? Are the pages still live, and are the links to your site still there?
- Look at the target page. The end result is your page's rankings, impressions and clicks in Search Console. For a one-off check of where you rank for a given keyword, use the Google rank checker.
If a tier 1 page never gets indexed, adding more tier 2 links on top of it is wasted effort: the cause is usually the platform itself or the content of the post. How indexing of these posts works is covered in indexing publications.
Where the term comes from
A tier is simply a level or layer. You will see the same thing written as "tier 1", "tier-1", "T1", "first-tier links" or "tiered backlinks" — it all means the same. Just remember that the count runs outward from your site, not the other way around.
Other meanings of "tier 1"
If you weren't looking for links, you may have meant another sense of the term:
- Tier 1 countries in affiliate marketing — the highest-paying markets with the most expensive traffic: usually the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and several Western European countries. There is no single official list; each affiliate network keeps its own.
- Tier 1 network providers — backbone carriers that exchange traffic with each other without paying for transit.
- Tiers in games and rankings — a rank or echelon: a "tier 1 team" is a top-level team.
The logic is the same in every case: tier 1 is the top, most valuable level, and tier 2 is the next one down.
Risks of tiered link building
- A weak tier 1 can't be saved. If a first-level post isn't indexed, second-level links to it won't help.
- The chain breaks. If a site deletes a tier 1 post, everything built on top of it stops working for your site. That is why placements need to be rechecked, not just counted.
- Over-optimized anchors on the first level. Identical exact-match anchors from different sites are a clear unnatural signal.
- Google's rules. Links created to manipulate rankings fall under Google's link spam policy. Adding tiers does not make them invisible.
What tiered link building does not do
- It doesn't turn a weak site into a strong one.
- It doesn't protect you from penalties — the "buffer layer" idea is a common myth.
- It doesn't replace the topical relevance of the page you are promoting.
The practical takeaway
Focus on the first level: where the links are placed, whether they are indexed, whether they pass authority. The second and third levels are amplifiers, not a standalone source of results. How we measure this is covered in the articles on how sites are selected and on whether links pass authority.