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
-
Buy domain, redirect, get all the good links (+link juice) and disavow the spammy ones?
There is a domain for sale that has a quite nice profile and a lot of good backlinks, but also quite a few spammy ones. This domain has a Spam Score of 14% acc. to Moz Link explorer, ours has only 2%. My questions: 1. The domain and the good backlinks are related to or close to our content/keywords. But we are worried whether the "spammy" ones will hurt us. Does anyone has experience with this? 2. Would it help if we disavow the spammy backlinks afterwards? And if so, how do we do that? Add new domain to search console, disavow the bad links and then redirect the entire domain to our domain or redirect the domain first and then disavow from our property? Many thanks for your help!
Link Building | | pissuptours0 -
Are links with space considered to be the same as links with %20?
I wonder if Google would consider those three links to be the same? http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test+page.html
Link Building | | lucek0 -
Wierd link
We have recently receive linek from one website. The site is quite very powerful for the word we try to rank, however the link is kind of wired. This is how it looks like: http://villasdiani.com/?db The webmaster of the site said that he ads (?db) on the end so as we would see on our analytics the traffic from his site.. Also the link is from footer...is this good or it does not have value
Link Building | | VillasDiani0 -
Blog traffic / link ratio? (Esimated of how much traffic will result in a link)
Hi, Was wondering if people could please tell me some estimates of how much traffic is likely to gain links to a blog post? For example 1,000 hits = 1 link, Hence 10,000 hits = 10 links to a blog post? I understand there is no magic ratio I just want to know what people have achieved. I’m after averages not just a one off really successful blog post too. Please specify the topic you achieve this in e.g. SEO, photography, business, heath... etc.
Link Building | | charles10 -
Which link should I use for link building?
I have an article which have high rank on Google. But recent, I use mod rewrite url so this article have new url. old: mywebsite.com/c1/p-1 new: mywebsite.com/c-e/p-1 Now, google is indexing old url. I want to ask when I build linking to my site, which link should I use for link building? I should build linking for new url or old url. Thanks
Link Building | | sonzin13040 -
How to improve (ASAP) the linking root domain, the followed linking root domains and the linking C-Blocks? Linkbuilding (or whatever) techniques.
I have a small site (.com) like any website in my sector. 30-90 pages. I have no crawls errors. Everythings is fine, just I need to improve my linking root domain, the followed linking root domain and the linking C-Blocks. Example: my competitors have 300 (one of them have 1300) of total links. I have 30. Anyone know some good strategies? techniques? tips? I just dont want to be in a farm directory, I want free links. I'm already running two strategies but it works so slowly. I want something faster at this moment. Also, any recommendation will be thankful.
Link Building | | NicoDavila0 -
Link building ideas for dentists?
Some ideas to start this discussion: Guestblogging / articles Answerings Q&A's as dentist Starting a blog Any other good link building ideas for dentists?
Link Building | | EdgySEO0 -
Do you link out to good content?
I have noticed that there are a bunch of questions in the Q&A about people are concerned about allowing blog post comments or linking out in general. My question is: do you avoid linking out to other websites, even though they have good content? I am not talking about direct competitors here, but just linking to other websites in general.
Link Building | | ThomasHgenhaven0