Is Buying Links a good idea???
-
Hello Everyone,
I want to know, what is the search engine's preference when it comes to links that have been bought. I observed that quite a few the good local directory listings (with good mozrank and moz trust etc) offer one to be listed for a yearly or lifetime price.
Does Google frown upon these type of links too?
regards,
Talha
-
As I see it, Google needs to take no action on paid links. Well, no action different than devaluating them. While the market for paid links grows, the overall value and quality of each purchased link is deemed to go down. At one point people will stop bying them at all.
-
I purchased some links once and feel that at this point, I would not likely do it again. I was assured the links would be related to the topic and of quality. Not the case. However, I have learnt through visiting this forum, that content is VERY important. And also things can take a lot of time and work before real results begin to show. Hope that helps. By the way ........ follow the link John Barth provided to EGOLS answer....... great one!
-
simple answer is no...
-
Every response here is on the nose but I thought I'd throw a good example of a proper paid directory link. In researching backlinks for a client competitor, I saw they had a link from the local chamber of commerce. Tracing that link back, it came from their directory, which the competitor was featured in. I then contacted the chamber to find out how to be included and it turns out it has a pricey yearly membership fee. With that fee though, you're being included into a VERY reputable business directory along with a juice passing link. I think those are the types of paid directories that are worth the money and seeking out. It's a little outside the box, but look at what it does for your site and it's legitimacy. I know this was a bit random, but I thought it was applicable.
-
The answer isn't quite black and white. There are dozens of ways to "buy" links, and not all of them are necessarily frowned upon.
To address your specific question, paying money for directory submissions isn't necessarily a bad thing. A couple of the bigger directories, like Yahoo! and Business.com, require a fee for listing, and though SEOs do disagree about the value of these links, they are generally not regarded as anything that can get you in trouble with Google. It's best to focus on the most prominent, trafficked, and authoritative directories - you shouldn't shell out cash to just any old directory out there.
As far as other ways to buy links...that's where things get a bit dicey. Many SEOs, and certainly most that you will encounter on an SEOmoz forum, subscribe to the theory that link buying is bad. On the other end of the spectrum, there are a great many SEOs that actively buy links, including some of the biggest-name SEO firms that exist. Those that have success with link buying generally do not work with a brokerage (like Text-Link-Brokers), but rather negotiate private deals with owners of authoritative, relevant websites in their industry. When it comes to link buying, the best practitioners put a great deal of effort into procuring links that look natural, are embedded into content (rather than sitewide or footer links), and on pages/websites that have content related to the website they are promoting.
Regardless of what those in the industry do, Google very specifically states that link buying is NOT an acceptable practice in their eyes, and they go to great lengths to find ways to both manually and algorithmically punish websites engaging in this practice.
Aaron Wall wrote a great post talking about "white hat" ways to purchase links, and it demonstrates that with a bit of creativity, one can effectively exchange money for links without necessarily breaking Google's guidelines: http://www.seobook.com/archives/002422.shtml
Basically, the decision is up to you. Certainly there are very effective ways to practice SEO without engaging in link buying, and indeed many of the websites leading the pack for competitive keywords haven't had to buy links to get there. The most important thing is knowing all of the facts, and the potential consequences of each choice.
-
Google doesn't frown on them, but I would really question their value at this point. You could probably put your money somewhere more useful. I really like EGOLs answer to http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-would-you-use-500-to-improve-your-site-s-visibility.
If you do want to buy a link, a good one is the Better Business Bureau. Here's a post about it. You can get a followed high PR link that way. There's also the SEOMoz directory list.
-
We'll start with the standard response from an SEO guy that references the Google Site Guidelines that basically says don't buy links. If you find local niche directories that apply to your industry then technically there is nothing wrong with links from those websites. They are a lot of times deemed as low quality, but still not a bad idea if you pick the right ones. Yahoo Dir is paid and Google still sees that as a highly recognized link source. As to whether that's worth $299/year is another debate. The way that directories get around this is that you are actually paying for "inclusion" which means they have a human who reviews these links and includes quality websites. Technically if you're not paying for the actual link then it's not against Google's Site Guidelines.
If the price isn't bad and it's a relevant local niche directory that applies to your website and industry I don't see anything wrong with employing that as a link building strategy.
Do not rely on just this as a link building strategy though. Think of it as a component.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Unsolved Are links from staff profile pages no longer good for SEO?
Hey there, We run a small site that lists lawyers and we have an opportunity to ask the lawyers to display a 'badge' on their own website's staff page, linked back to the page on our site that they are listed on. Initially I thought this would be good link building (i.e. the lawyer's own staff/profile pages on their website linking to our site where they are listed = a highly relevant link). I was less concerned about the authority of the law firm's sites, though these will range from sometimes low-ish to medium. I just assumed that Google would see the value in the lawyer wanting to link to our site where they are listed. However, our SEO has said that these days Google doesn't give much/any value to these types of links from individual staff pages. His advice was to try and get the badge added to one of their service pages (or their About page) which will be unlikely as the badge is person-specific. I thought I'd ask if this was everyone else's experience regarding Google not valuing links from individual staff pages? Thanks for you help 🙂
Link Building | | Andy-H0 -
Are these links helping
Hi, We have had a few new links for a client and we are hoping that we can get some feedback on whether these have any link juice. We dont want to waste our time with links that dont benefit the website. Thanks http://thebestmealplancateringbiz.strikingly.com/blog/diet-meal-plan-delivery-services http://mealplanguide.home.blog/2018/11/02/importance-of-diet-meal-plans/ https://besthealthymeals.tumblr.com/post/179669447854/benefits-of-diet-meal-planning https://lauraberbenaj2.wixsite.com/mysite/blog/healthy-diet-meals-delivery
Link Building | | Caffeine_Marketing0 -
Link text
Can anyone give me any advise regarding anchor text in back links on external sites. I have about 8 bloggers reviewing our products on their sites. When they link to our site, they either use the words of our company name or something like “click here” as the words in the link. There are a few key words that we are wanting to improve for so should those words be made as the live link on their site?
Link Building | | Hardley1110 -
Using sitewide links to improve link profile?
Hi Guys... When I look at my competitor's link profile, they often have thousands of backlinks. For example, one of our main competitor, he got 3,400 backlinks in total but only 80 referring domains. When I look at my link profile, I have around 50-60 referring domains, but hardly 80 backlinks. My question is, is it okay to get a few sitewide links (no-follow of course!) to get to the thousands backlinks? Or I will be able to achieve top rankings with my current link profile? Thanks!!
Link Building | | TheSEOGuy10 -
Are PR releases good for Link Building?
I'm having a bit of a conundrum with Press Releases: I recently sent a press release on PRWeb (which I personally think is just "average" compared to others as it focuses mainly on the CBS network and is not focused at all unless you pay for an expensive release) and got over 100 incoming links from high PR news sites (according to Webmaster Tools) but these links had PRWeb in subtitle, so for all I know these were syndicated releases and not "Pick up By" as PRWeb reports. Will this affect Page Rank value or rankings for any keywords? Are these links treated only as temporary links or permanent back links? (I know sometimes they appear in Google News or Yahoo News, but disappear the next day) Was it valuable to the company? Our business is in health sector exclusively on East Coast U.S. and the release was seen all over the world and not one of the links coming back was from a health-related section. They were high rank online sites, but is there value in such links? added 11/30: I was reviewing competitors' link backs I found they did a lot of press releases and gained a high-level link back from each one. These were the best/highest-authority links they had. The syndicated releases were not even listed anywhere. And then I reviewed their SERPs... and guess what, their ranks increased with each one. (So I don't think "duplication" is an issue. If anything only the syndicated copies were penalized, but not the original one)
Link Building | | HMCOE0 -
Is a no-follow link/sponsored link a good editorial link?
Ok maybe this is a dumb question. I really need some better, more quality backlinks pointing to my site. There is a site that has domain authority of 72, page rank 5 that is offering me a sponsored blog post. Do sponsored posts count as a good editorial link? Also what if they are no-follow (and how would I find out ahead of time), does that still give me link juice?
Link Building | | tutugirl0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
Many competitor's backlinks are in content anchor links. Ho do I get these same links?
Hi I managed to open up OSE. I'm finding that much of the competition's backlinks are in content anchor text links. Am I supposed to get backlinks from these same pages using the same anchor text but linking back to my page or is that allowed? If so, how do I get these in content blog post links? Thanks. Sunil.
Link Building | | sunilmuse0