backlink_skills, backlink-pilot: 11 AI backlink repos, checked
Asked ChatGPT which GitHub projects do link building with AI. It gave me eleven repositories, a suggested five step stack, and a closing warning to stay away from anything that automates blog comments, because Google counts that as link spam. I went through all eleven today: stars, last push, and what the code does once you read past the README.
| repo | stars | last push | what the code does |
|---|---|---|---|
| codex-seo | 726 | 6 days | Codex port of claude-seo, 26 SEO workflows, backlinks among them |
| backlink_skills | 719 | today | Codex fills directory forms, 743 site list, writer skills |
| backlink-pilot | 357 | 172 days | directory forms, awesome-list issues, batch blog comments |
| superseo-skills | 327 | 14 days | 135 markdown files, zero code |
| distribb-skill | 194 | 27 days | client for Distribb's paid plans and its backlink exchange |
| dataseo-mcp | 192 | 73 days | Ahrefs free tools behind a paid CAPTCHA solver |
| seo-skills | 148 | 84 days | skills built on SE Ranking's MCP server |
| qwoted-seo-backlinks-skill | 138 | 138 days | Claude drafts journalist pitches, sends them through Qwoted's internal API |
| backlink-outreach-js | 64 | 189 days | scrapes SERPs and contacts, writes 3 message sequences |
| Screaming Frog snippet | 13 | 554 days | one JavaScript file calling OpenAI web search |
| linklazarus | 0 | 227 days | broken link MVP, created and last pushed the same day |
Median 192 stars. Four of them need more than one line.
backlink-pilot does exactly what the closing warning described. src/batch-submit.js picks one of 20 canned comments ("Bookmarked this for later. Great write-up."), signs it as one of five hardcoded commenter personas, which the code comments say rotate "to look natural", and types your URL into the website field. The target file that ships with it holds 159 blog posts and 67 profile pages, every entry tagged with the Ahrefs profile it was lifted from: 21 other sites, 18 of them game sites.
dataseo-mcp needs a CapSolver or Anti-Captcha key before any Ahrefs tool works, because that is how it clears the Turnstile check on the free tools. The README calls it educational and leaves the terms of service to you. Same approach as cnych/seo-mcp, 259 stars and 521 days since a push, whose command it still answers to.
qwoted-seo-backlinks-skill has Claude draft pitches to journalists and submits each one you approve. Qwoted's code of conduct, word for word: "Using ChatGPT or similar AI-powered tools to generate pitches for media on our platform is prohibited." Since August 2025 reporters there can see how much of a pitch Pangram thinks was AI written. The suggested stack put this at step three.
distribb-skill describes the process it runs, and step 6 is "Write and publish, always including 1-2 backlink-exchange links." Plans start at $49 a month. The Qwoted skill comes from the same team, so two of the eleven are one company's funnel, and superseo-skills and seo-skills are the front doors of InhouseSEO and SE Ranking.
Google's spam policy page, updated 28 August, still names "using automated programs or services to create links to your site", "excessive link exchanges", "low-quality directory or bookmark site links" and "forum comments with optimized links". backlink-pilot manages three of those on its own.
The list also missed the top GitHub result for "backlink" by stars: claude-seo at 17,088, the project codex-seo was ported from.
What I kept: codex-seo for reading where two competitors get their links, backlink_skills in its ten-at-a-time quality mode for a handful of directories I would have submitted to by hand anyway, and the sourced statistics page idea from the Qwoted skill, minus the pitching. Everything that posts on my behalf got deleted.
@ordwick · 2h ago · 3 replies
The Distribb line is the one I would underline for anyone skimming. People hear exchange and picture two friends swapping guest posts. A network where every article carries one or two links to other members is the textbook version of what the policy names. It can work for a while, which is the whole problem, because you do not get to pick the day it stops.
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@pell_mell · 2h ago · 2 replies
Is it the network or the anchors that get you? Two links in a relevant article does not sound that different from normal citing.
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@ordwick · 2h ago
Mostly the pattern. One relevant link is a citation. The same members linking to each other on a schedule, across thousands of articles nobody reads, is a graph with a very obvious shape. And an agent writing those articles uses the anchor you asked for, every single time.
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