Is link buying dangerous?

[John Scott]

First off, this is a serious thread - I mean it this time - so please do not post off-hand statements you cannot back up.

There is a lot of FUD going around in the form of SEO's telling people not to buy links. I'd like to have a discussion not in the abstract, but based on real experience.

First off, the naysayers.

Originally Posted by Eric Ward

First, if you want to buy links because you want to improve your search rank, don't. It's that simple. Do not buy links for search rank. I cannot say it any simpler than that. Why? Because if you do, the engines reserve the right to penalize you for it. Google considers buying text links for ranking purposes to be a violation of its quality guidelines. Don't believe it? Read this. Play that game with your eyes wide open, or don't play it at all.

Second, think of paid links as advertising to the readers of the site where the link will reside. Nothing more, nothing less. Forget rankings. Is the site a logical place where the readers who encounter your link might be inclined to click on it? Your site sells plumbing tools? Then don't buy a link here. Buy one here.

Third, while you will hear stories or anecdotes about how someone improved his or her rankings by buying links, is the risk of being banned by the search engines worth the potential for improved rankings?

http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/ward-buying-links.htm

Speaking with another SEO via email, he stated that link buying was bad business for pretty much the same reasons that Eric Ward stated.

Now, Eric Ward has been in this business a long time, and I would find it hard if not impossible to believe that he doesn't buy links for his clients.

At the end of the article he writes:

Originally Posted by Eric Ward

I'm not saying don't buy links. I'm saying you need to be honest with yourself about your intent. Advertising via links is smart business. Chasing rank isn't.

That sounds like an excuse to me. Intent? Does anybody think that Google can divine intent?

Most practicing SEO's would agree that 90% or more of SEO is about links and the anchor text of those links. To say, "do not buy links" is tantamount to saying "do not do SEO".

I have criticized SEO several times in the past, and I stand by those criticisms. But my point is not that SEO is worthless, because it can be very profitable to have above-the-fold first page rankings for very specific keywords. When I criticize SEO it is due to an over-estimation of SEO's benefits to the exclusion of valid alternatives to SEO.

The fact is that most active and top ranking web sites are either buying link or have bought links sometime in the past. Websites simply do not rank without linkage.

The penalty that people seem to be deathly afraid of is a very rare one, reserved for those extremely dumb link buyers who over-do it.

To say do not buy links because of the possibility of a penalty is similar to saying do not leave home because of the possibility of being hit by a car. Relevant editorial link buying is and will remain a necessary part of SEO.

[netsearch]

Buying links helps. You just have to know what to buy about half of the links for sell have fake PR and other problems buying bad links can hurt you but if you are careful in what you buy you can move your site up.

I agree with John buying relevant links is nessesary to rank for the most competitive words

Overdoing it can hurt you too especially if you buy bad links. you must be careful what you buy.

Link buying can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing and over do it.

A few carefully selected links are more powerful then thousands of randomly selected links

[manageyourlinks]

I am in an industry where the first 2-3 pages of results are sites that purchase/ spend around 100k+ /year on buying links. My co. site does the same, with much success.

I will be honest, some of the sites have no idea what they are doing. I have yet to see those sites "that have no idea what they are doing" plummet via a filter being tripped or a penalty being incurred.

All this talk by Google lately saying to not buy links, we are onto you if you do. Well, let me see some of these "improper link buyers" plummet in the ranks then I might start to believe that google can discern b/t a purchased link and natural link.

Granted there might be many facets as to why this is the case, where a site still ranks from poorly bought links.

#1 - The positions from the improper links are grandfathered, whereas they wouldn't necessarily plummet with the apparently new methods google uses to identify purchased links. The case will be any links purchased from here out wont be as effective, if done improperly.

#2 - Google straight up cannot identify a natural link from purchased.

#3 - If your site is seen as authoritative then you are in an echelon of categorization that keeps you free from penalties and filters that newer sites might trip/hit when buying links.

Any of these could be the case, its hard to tell at this point.

If your sole means of advertising and generating traffic is google, purchased links, and organic rankings, then YES, link buying is dangerous. Never carry all your eggs in one basket.

Will we stop buying links? Nope.

[John Scott]

#2 - Google straight up cannot identify a natural link from purchased.

Exactly.

And link buying can be done stupidly, in which case it would be dangerous.

Common mistakes:

1. Repeating the same anchor text in hundreds of link. Search engines can easily detect anything that isn't unique. So keep it unique by varying the anchor text.

If you're going for "web hosting", for example, you could use dozens of variations: web hosting, affordable web hosting, quaity web hosting, click here for web hosting, etc, etc. Ideally each link should be unique.

2. Site-wide links. I never buy site wide links for link popularity/rankings. When I do buy site wide, I do so for traffic.

3. PR10, PR8, PR9 links - those make me nervous. It smacks of buying PageRank, and that's one way to get on Google's radar.

4. Irrelevant links. Don't go buying links for your office furniture site from a script directory site.

5. Editorial integrity. Say you have a web hosting site, and a webmaster blog is selling links. If that webmaster blog is selling links to viagra sites and debt consolidation sites, don't do it.

6. Going overboard. All things in moderation, including link buying.

7. Bought vs organic as a percentage. I believe that bought links should make up a small part of your overall link profile.

[netsearch]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Exactly.

And link buying can be done stupidly, in which case it would be dangerous.

Common mistakes:

1. Repeating the same anchor text in hundreds of link. Search engines can easily detect anything that isn't unique. So keep it unique by varying the anchor text.

I agree with this rule but there is an exception if you are trying to get listed for web hosting and own webhosting.com google does not find anything wrong when the anchor text matches the domain name. You can link all you want with web hosting anchor text
any one want to sell me webhosting. com net or org

[manageyourlinks]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Exactly.

And link buying can be done stupidly, in which case it would be dangerous.

Common mistakes:

1. Repeating the same anchor text in hundreds of link.

By dangerous, do you mean, waste of $$$ b/c I have yet to see a site get hammered b/c they bought links.

1.2 Repeating the same exact phrases AROUND your links, not nec. only the anchor text.

2. Stacking links, and not having any content in between them.

[kristeejo]

Originally Posted by John Scott

First off, this is a serious thread - I mean it this time

you so sound like my mom

[ilu]

I dont understand why Google dont want webmasters to earn money :mad:
Google depends on webmasters and webmasters depends on SERPs and traffic and for that link building is necessary.

[John Scott]

By dangerous, do you mean, waste of $$$ b/c I have yet to see a site get hammered b/c they bought links.

Good point. Waste of money doesn't equal dangerous.

[manageyourlinks]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Good point. Waste of money doesn't equal dangerous.

So dangerous = chance of getting your rankings hurt b/c you bought links?

I would absolutely love for someone to comment on an example of this b/c I have yet to see anyone in my industry have this happen to them, and there are some very bad link buyers :-P

[manageyourlinks]

Originally Posted by ilu

I dont understand why Google dont want webmasters to earn money :mad:
Google depends on webmasters and webmasters depends on SERPs and traffic and for that link building is necessary.

Google doesnt want there bottom line hurt, if buying links is more effective and results in better ROI than adwords would, then google has to worry.

[AnaB]

John, I personally don't think link buying is dangerous. As long as the SE's don't know you have bought it. I mean, how are they going to know if a link I include within my post is a legitimate reference to a site I like OR if I was paid to post that link. It's almost impossible to detect when done wisely. Now, however, SE's are definitely smart and links found in link marketplaces might suffer.

For example sites that list the marketplace (sites where you can buy links)..it's totally likely that the sites listed there will have discounted value.

But, if you are talking about links from let's say the V7N contextual..it's almost impossible to find out if the link is paid or not.

That said, the other important thing IMO is also the nature of these links. Do they alll appear in the footer? Do 200 links appear miraculously in 2 days? Do all of these links have the same anchor text?

My next point is...if buying a link will get you tons and tons of prospects that buy your product (more than search engines will ever supply me with)..I'd definitely buy that link even if it means google hating me.

My $0

Cheers,
- Ana

[SemperFidelis]

Buying links is definately ok, as long as they look natural. Like contextual link purchases, for instance. I am new at the whole SEO thing and did all the wrong things. I purchased site wide, links stacked on top of one anther, non-relevant links, high PR links, THEN read what was supposed to be done. I am now a repentant back-linker!

Having done all the wrong things, my search engine positioning is still ok. So, the supposed penalties that get tossed around in the various forums are overly hyped.

I am not sure about forum etiquette (so delete this link if not allowed!), and referring other forum threads, but here is one regarding link purchases: http://www.highrankings.com/forum/in...opic=28298&hl=

Also, here is a very good read on natural link building. Probably one of the best summations if found: http://www.jimwestergren.com/link-building-guide/

[Sharpseo]

Originally Posted by John Scott

3. PR10, PR8, PR9 links - those make me nervous. It smacks of buying PageRank, and that's one way to get on Google's radar.

Agreed, that's usually what I warn people against. Most of us have seen sites (mostly directories) get penalized for going overboard with high-PR link-buying. I think they might be refining this type of link-buying detection though, to catch somewhat-moderate link-buyers.

If Google can detect and eliminate Googlebombs, it seems like detecting unnatural linking patterns (indicating potential link-selling) isn't too far off. With a quick manual check, they may be able to detect and discount purchased links from a site.

Howstuffworks.com recently stopped selling links, I'm actually surprised it took them so long. Thanks for the topic, I now have something to blog about =)

[tdd1984]

Originally Posted by John Scott

First off, this is a serious thread - I mean it this time - so please do not post off-hand statements you cannot back up.

There is a lot of FUD going around in the form of SEO's telling people not to buy links. I'd like to have a discussion not in the abstract, but based on real experience.

First off, the naysayers.



http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/ward-buying-links.htm

Speaking with another SEO via email, he stated that link buying was bad business for pretty much the same reasons that Eric Ward stated.

Now, Eric Ward has been in this business a long time, and I would find it hard if not impossible to believe that he doesn't buy links for his clients.

At the end of the article he writes:



That sounds like an excuse to me. Intent? Does anybody think that Google can divine intent?

Most practicing SEO's would agree that 90% or more of SEO is about links and the anchor text of those links. To say, "do not buy links" is tantamount to saying "do not do SEO".

I have criticized SEO several times in the past, and I stand by those criticisms. But my point is not that SEO is worthless, because it can be very profitable to have above-the-fold first page rankings for very specific keywords. When I criticize SEO it is due to an over-estimation of SEO's benefits to the exclusion of valid alternatives to SEO.

The fact is that most active and top ranking web sites are either buying link or have bought links sometime in the past. Websites simply do not rank without linkage.

The penalty that people seem to be deathly afraid of is a very rare one, reserved for those extremely dumb link buyers who over-do it.

To say do not buy links because of the possibility of a penalty is similar to saying do not leave home because of the possibility of being hit by a car. Relevant editorial link buying is and will remain a necessary part of SEO.

John I had to agree with you, not because I'm trying to kiss ass or anything, but a lot of stuff you say does make since, and is true when it comes down to it, which granted naturual links can be obtained very easily too, but buying high quality links can be more effective cause your getting your anchor text you want, but either way links link links hehe.

Thanks john for clarify this up.

[Dotster]

I think that buying links have to be very careful. Because there ae too many scamer in the net. I have been scaming in this way 3 times at list. But in general it helps.

[Ender]

We buy relevant and non-relevant PR7 links to help with sites' indexing in Google. It's hard to say because we are busy with our sites, but it's my view that they don't affect ranking in Google directly, for a specific keyword phrase, even it it's on a relevant page. We've been doing this for six months now on four different sites.

In Yahoo, rankings soar relevant link or not, and these are fairly competitive keywords.

We also buy directory links and links from relevant blogs. I'm convinced these do work in Google if you get enough of them, but it takes time.

I've never had a site hurt by link buying; rankings are always improving.

[seorender]

Yes buying link [Theme based links] is not a bad practice at all. But it should be done carefully. As John said you must vary your Anchor Text so that it look natural to SE's.

[nhebb]

I recently did a link building campaign and did all the newbie (i.e., wrong) things: non-varied text, links to the same page, non-related source pages.

My SERP's went up regardless of those facts.