Backlinks can influence traffic and page rankings. While Google favors natural link building, buying backlinks can sometimes be necessary.
The Evolution of Buying backlink
Initially, earning editorially placed backlinks was pretty streamlined and you could easily get it done.
However, as webmasters and bloggers realized the monetary potential and the fact that this could be a complete business model on its own, they began demanding payment for link placements.
This is what made buying backlinks a common practice.
The Financial Aspect
One niche site reportedly earned over $5,000 in a single month by selling links and guest posts.
Selling backlinks cannot exist on a standalone but it is a good profitable business model for many webmasters.
What exactly is buying links?
Link buying involves paying to have your link placed on another website.
Terms and Conditions
- Webmaster Conditions: The site owner may set specific conditions for placing the link.
- Your Terms: You can also state your own conditions since you’re making the payment.
Cost Factors
- Industry and Niche: The type and popularity of the website.
- Content Quality: Better content often demands way higher prices.
- Brand Strength: If you already have a good brand presence you may secure better deals.
- Subjective Pricing: Prices can vary greatly, ranging from $10 to $500 or more. The higher the DA and popularity of the site you’re buying from the more the cost. Some premium links cost thousands of dollars.
Outsourcing vs. Buying
- Outsourcing Link Building: Here you pay for additional services like content creation, strategy development, and planning.
- Niche Edits vs. Guest Posts: Sometimes, niche edits can be more expensive than new guest posts. Certain niches are more open to link transactions.
Benefits for Startups
- Increased Link Velocity: Startups and niche topics benefit from faster link growth, increase in authority and traffic when needed through purchasing.
Indirect Link Buying
- Paid Strategies: This makes use of purchasing memberships or corporate sponsorships. They link back to you with official recognition.
Drawbacks
- Recurring Costs: most link building strategies incur ongoing monthly or annual fees, which can accumulate over time. If you do proper white hat SEO you might not need to spend on these costs at all.
Should You Buy Links?
The answer isn’t straightforward.
Yes, for particular industries like in gambling, loan service purchasing backlinks is more common. But even in these industries good buyers vet before they buy because compromising on quality backfires real bad.
What Do Search Engines Think of Paid Links?
This can’t be sugar coated. Google, prohibits buying links, and sees it as a manipulation of search rankings. Unnatural link growth can lead to penalties, including ranking losses or removal from search results.
But if lunk buying is done strategically with caution – Google has no way to tell if your backlinks are paid.
When is Buying Links Justifiable
- Relevance and Quality: When you’re buying relevant links from high-quality pages which aren’t spammy.
- Competitive Edge: to build a good and balanced backlink profile that gives you an edge in search rankings.
- Money Pages: for commercial pages that are hard to get links for organically, paid links can provide a necessary boost.
- Exclusive Sites: some high DA sites only offer backlinks through purchase.
Summary
- Pros and Cons: Understand both the benefits and risks before deciding to buy backlinks.
- Careful Vetting: Ensure links are relevant and high-quality to avoid penalties.
- Balanced Approach: Combine paid strategies with organic link building for the best results.
If You Need Quality Backlinks With Paid Strategies Remember the Following
Contextual Links
- Aim for in-content text links.
- Avoid ‘boilerplate’ links (sidebar, footer, header).
- Ensure the link is a dofollow for better value and endorsement.
Tags and Permanence
- Avoid ‘rel=sponsored’ tags to keep the link dofollow.
- Prefer permanent links over rented ones.
- Consider alternatives to fees like offering a product or reciprocal links.
Avoid Link Farms
- Steer clear of sites with unrelated topics and link-stuffed posts.
- Avoid sites with penalties, pop-ups, or poor content.
Niche Relevance
- Target links within your niche or logically related content.
- DA/DR alone is not reliable; avoid sites using these metrics without context.
Platform Caution
- Be wary of platforms offering many backlinks cheaply.
- Avoid services from questionable sites like BlackHatWorld and Fiverr.
Trusted Agencies
- If outsourcing, choose a reputable agency that provides relevant, high-quality backlinks.
Consideration of Need
- Assess if buying links is necessary for your niche.
- Competitive niches might require buying links; others may not.
Strategies You Have to Know Before Buying Backlinks
Contextual and Dofollow Links
- Focus on acquiring in-content links.
- Ensure links are dofollow and not marked as sponsored.
Avoiding Link Farms
- Identify and avoid sites with spammy link practices.
- Seek links from websites publishing the best content within your niche.
Niche-Specific Links
- It’s so important to get links in your industry. Non-relevant paid links do no good- they’re spammy according to Google and confuse readers too.
- Don’t rely solely on DA/DR as metrics.
Outsourcing Link Building
- Use reputable agencies for link building. Check their reviews, case studies and if you want to be extra safe talk to their old clients about their experience.
- Avoid cheap backlink services from unreliable sources. Backlink building costs and no one in the industry isn’t too fond of giving you 1000 backlinks for $10- if a website is promising this you should recall how spammy link building gets penalized.
Evaluating the Need
Is buying links essential for your niche? Or will you just be fine with white hat SEO?
There are other un-paid link-building methods also in existence – some websites welcome free guest posts provided the content is good.
Only go for paid link building when you know the returns are going to be worth it.