Case from the Tier1.shop collection · 2026 · ← all cases
Result in brief: 📈 a legal services site lost 61% of organics in the summer of 2025 (from 27.8 to 10.9 thousand visits/month) — and the client responded with a link sprint: 550 links from PBN homepages over 7 months. Result: in 5 months, traffic grew 2.1 times from the bottom point (24.9 thousand visits/month in March, now 15 thousand visits/month), and the number of keywords in the top-3 became a record high for the site's entire history — from 560 to 905, and the record was set already AFTER the March core update.
📅 Placement period: 01.08.23 → 01.04.26
⚙️ Nature: accelerated — batches up to 153 links/month, distribution across 199 pages, 542 unique anchor texts out of 562 (96%)
💰 Costs*: 1 508 000 ₽ (370 links from PBN home pages for 1 year + 192 permanent links from PBN home pages)
Starting point
Law firm: personal bankruptcy, debt write-off, branches in cities. They first met us back in August 2023 — tried 12 links and left to develop on their own: the site grew from ~3.4 thousand visits/month to 27.8 thousand by April 2025 (this is primarily the merit of the team itself — 12 links do not explain such growth).
And then the summer of 2025 happened: in four months, organics collapsed from 27.8 to 10.9 thousand visits/month — minus 61%. From this point, the client returned to us — seriously this time.
What was done
Link sprint: 550 links from PBN home pages over 7 months, in batches of up to 153 links per month (October — 153, November — 102, December — 51, February — 51, March — 152, April — 41). The focus was on maximum breadth and purity of the anchor list:
- 199 target pages — from service sections and a bankruptcy calculator to articles and city pages; the March batch of 152 links was distributed across 79 different pages.
- 96% unique anchors (542 out of 562) — long intent-based phrases with entities: "how much does the debt relief service cost", "cost of a lawyer's work for individual bankruptcy", "bankruptcy calculator". There are practically no naked URLs (3 pieces), and repetitions are at most three, and even then with meaningful phrases.
Dynamics by Semrush (monthly data, Russia)
📈 From the lowest point of 10 858 visits/month (September 2025) to 24 883 in March 2026 — a 2.1x increase over five months of the sprint. Currently 15 008 visits/month: the March core update and summer seasonality of the legal niche cut some of the growth (more on that below), but compared to the lowest point, it is still +38%, and year-over-year, July remains at the level of a strong 2025 (15.7 → 15.0 thousand) versus 9.1 thousand in July 2024.
📈 The strongest part of this case is the positions: the number of keywords in the top-3 reached 905 — the maximum in the site's entire history, and this was achieved in April 2026, meaning the growth in positions continued right through the March core update. At the start of the sprint, there were 560, now 857 (+53%). Top-4–10: from 796 to 1281 at the peak (+61%).
Dynamics by Ahrefs (weekly data)
Ahrefs confirms the picture from its side: from ~20 thousand at the start of the sprint to a peak of 42.7 thousand in the first half of March — the same ×2.1 multiplier as with Semrush (independent indices converged exactly). Currently ~25 thousand, +24% compared to the start of the sprint.
Honestly about the rollback: the Google March core update (officially confirmed, rolled out from March 27 to April 8, 2026) cut the peak on both services — on the same days, our other clients with completely different link profiles also dropped. Plus the seasonal factor: summer dips for this site have happened before — in 2025, it lost 49% over the summer even before any cooperation with us (both summer drops are marked on the graphs). Taking both factors into account, the current level is a normal working point, not the "end of growth".
Breakdown by target pages
Here we will honestly show the less glamorous part: on a large site with 199 target pages, there are fewer pure "links → page surge" stories than on small sites from case 40. The sprint effect here is domain-wide: the entire site grew. We took deep daily series for the four largest acceptor sections (which received 69 links), and then ran through Semrush all 199 target pages (methodology: average page traffic for three months before its first link versus the last three months). The summary is honest:
| Page class | How many | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 📈 Grew exponentially (×2+ or from zero to noticeable) | 21 | mainly articles: «bankruptcy procedure» 155 → 563 visits/month, «complaint against a bailiff» — from zero to 130–240 from two links |
| Micro-growth from a small base | 37 | group total: 24 → 222 visits/month (25 pages — strictly from zero; best: «arrest of a share in an apartment» 0 → 19, «recalculation of alimony» 0 → 17). Movement is real, but numbers are small — we honestly do not count these as victories |
| Moderate growth (+30–100%) | 2 | calculator 5 → 7, «restriction of driver's licenses» 6 → 9 visits/month |
| No changes / faded to zero | 12 | — |
| Decreased | 17 | heavy articles that had been falling along with the entire site since summer 2025 — their individual trend of 3–10 links did not reverse them |
| No organic traffic at all | 110 | city pages and filters without content — their links worked for the domain, not for the page itself |
Main observations: those that shot up exponentially were articles with real content (sometimes two links are enough), while more than half of the targets are service pages without their own organic traffic, their contribution is domain-based. More detail on the four largest sections:
- 📈 Article about the bankruptcy procedure (12 links since November 11): by the time of placement, it had slipped to 461 visits/month — after the links, it recovered to a corridor of 1–1.7 thousand with spikes up to 2 073 (graph below).
- Bankruptcy calculator (13 links): short-term response — peak of 256 visits/month in April, immediately after the March batch, but by summer traffic slipped below the previous background (~40 visits/month) — the page has no sustainable effect (graph below).
- Consultations section (23 links): grew even before the sprint — so we honestly do not attribute this growth to links.
- St. Petersburg branch page (21 links): gained almost no organic traffic (0–40 visits) — regional pages without their own content do not come to life via links.
The role of anchor text
This case is the opposite of case 41 regarding anchor strategy: there the main page collected non-anchor links, here the bet was almost entirely on unique intent-based anchors — 96% without repetitions, each anchor is a ready-made search query with intent and entity. With 550 links over 7 months, such a list requires discipline — and it is with this that the site set a record for keys in the top-3. The observation aligns with our rule: anchor list diversity is built through variations and synonyms of keys, not repetitions (Tier1.shop observations).
Conclusions from the case: what the link sprint showed
Guidelines from this case, not guarantees.
About large batches:
- Accelerated placement gave a result: 550 links over 7 months were accompanied by a turnaround of a falling site — growth of 2.1 times from the lowest point over 5 months according to both independent services. Batches of 150+ links/month did not "burn" the site — provided unique anchors and distribution across two hundred pages.
- We cannot compare the sprint with a steady mode on this same site — there was no such scenario. For comparison: in case 41 regular batches of 20–60/month gave a comparable result on a two-year horizon.
About falling sites:
- Link reinforcement worked specifically as an anti-crisis measure: the site, having lost 61% of organic traffic, returned to growth in the very first month of the sprint and doubled from its lowest point after 5 months.
- A record for top-3 (905 keywords) was set after a core update — the accumulated link mass continued to push positions even during the storm.
About pages and expectations:
- On large sites, the sprint effect is domain-wide: the entire site grows, not just individual "breakout" pages. Targeted stories (article ×2–4 from the bottom) are a pleasant bonus, not the rule.
- Regional branch pages without their own content do not come to life with links — first content, then reinforcement.
- Timeline: first domain response — in the first month of the sprint, peak — after 5 months. Summer dips occur in this niche (the site lost 49% in summer 2025 before us) — factor them into your expectations.
Verifiability
The graphs above are built from service exports. Screenshots of Semrush and Ahrefs interfaces — the client's domain is hidden per our privacy policy:
Numbers in the interfaces may differ slightly from the graphs: services continuously recalculate estimates, Ahrefs counts on a weekly grid and all locations, Semrush — on a monthly and Russian database. The direction and scale of changes coincide.
How we measured
Two independent sources: Semrush (monthly dynamics, "Russia" database) and Ahrefs (weekly domain dynamics and daily section dynamics, all locations). The sprint window — from the first batch (October 1, 2025) to the last (April 1, 2026). Seasonality was checked year-over-year; the March–April dip was cross-referenced with official core update dates and other clients. All figures are estimates from analytics services, not data from the client's counters.
To be honest: the client worked on the site and content in parallel — links from home pages are part of the overall result here, not the sole factor. The 2024 surge (without our links) is the credit of the client's team, which we explicitly note; our contribution is the turnaround after the 2025 crash, and we show this linked to the batches.
Sources: dates and confirmation of March 2026 Core Update — Google Search Status Dashboard, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable.
Position and traffic dynamics are individual and not guaranteed; we guarantee indexing and link preservation. * Costs — at the time of orders, current prices in tariffs.
Want the same — place links from home pages: donor selection, tier-2, guarantees included in the price. Questions — @tier1shopsupport_bot.
