40,000 High Value Links - Sold?

[Phil_]

I'm a developer spending ever more time on SEO for SMBs. I've never had cause to buy links. Not one bit. I've done ok. Until now that is. Now I am getting my arse kicked into last year. By, I think, a top SEO company. Really, you know these guys and they are whiter than white. But what they have achieved seems an impossibilty to me using white hat techniques. Maybe they are from another planet than me. Or maybe something else is going on.

In six months they have built 40,000+ links. These are unbelievably high quality links in their thousands. Really top notch. Keyword rich anchors slap bang in relevant content on great, great sites such as newspapers, univertsities, government, corporate, charity etc. Nothing spammy at all. Amazing. I was skimming but I found nothing to question at all until link 800 which was a cloaked link on a well known review site's product page. But generally the high quality sustained. Gradually, some began to feel somewhat worked into the content, although worked very well.  2000 links in and there are still magazine and review sites, still page authority 40+. There are still local government sites at 10,000 links when the export file ends. I go dizzy at the thought of the remaining 30,000. How far down could this quality have gone?

Gulp. I am in awe, intimdated...and a little suspicious. How on earth do you do that with a pure white hat on? Actually, whatever colour your hat - how on earth do you do that?

Rand's position is clear. He doesn't do it. Other's are less unambiguous. Comments like "I do it, you do it, we all do it" go unchallenged. Even on a recent link buying question here on SEOMoz most comments say don't do it but one advocates "Paid, targeted, individually prospected links".

Am I too suspicious - a fool trying to rationalise my relatively pathetic link building? Honestly, you should just see these links. Of course, maybe some of you have.

Come on, please don't tell these guys simply worked hard. But maybe that's the harsh truth I cannot face. I have to say I cannot see the site generating an income to pay for the man hours needed for 40,000 high-value, white-hat links but then what do I know.

Tell me, what do you think: Is it possible to build 40,000 very high value links in six months using pure white hat techniques - or is there another way?

Phil

[jhinchcliffe]

Ok here's the thing... QUALITY content building, and I mean really high quality, will generate buzz on its own. The trick is to get content (including videos, images, etc.) to go viral, with links included. Naturally people will share it, retweet it and links will build naturally. They obviously have a large team and a large budget, and likely have people working on quality, shareable, viral content. News sites can easily get that many links, as people are always linking to their stories. So no its not impossible, it's just a matter of working smart and not hard.

Can you give us the link so we can take a look at the site?

[JarnoNijzing]

and then Google says that links only become a factor once they are gained naturally and not like 40,000 links in 6 months.. that is not natural. This should result in: What was it all for if Google ignores it? Well, personally, i think google does not ignore such a fact. In fact: In one of the many projects we've run we bought about 1000 links in 1 month and we got a number one position within 1 month after that.

Buying links still works (unfortunally) but 40,000 high quality links in 6 months is about sick..

[DanHill]

Could I ask how many linking root domains out of the 40k 'high value' links?

[Netboost]

One of 3 options really:

• they have good contacts who will publish links for them (who you know goes a long way)

• they bought the links (not that uncommon and really isn't paying someone to linkbuild essentially the same as buying links?)

-they lied to get the links

-they have the most amazing and linkable content ever, they are the new lol cats (unlikely though because of the anchor text)

-the company may have hired an offline pr firm to stir up controversy and get editorial articles. I have heard of people creating fake news stories etc just to create a buzz and get attention which converts into links

-maybe you misread the links and they are just from scrapebox or xrumer?

[rishil]

DM me and lets talk privately - dont want to out anyone in a public forum, which I am glad you didnt. But let me give you a few insights - seems like the co you are talking about is a UK one by the way...

[Phil_]

Thanks for the reponses. Really fascinating stuff.

How does one aquire a "uniquely prospected, targeted link"? I mean how do you influence, say, the Guardian editorial? Along with the Independant and many, many other powerful sites. Is it a simple matter of building a 'relationship' (ie bribing) with journalists and site editors - and that the big agencies have years of relationship building under their belts? Really, is that what goes on?

I am concluding that link buying is more practised than discussed. I have read a lot about white hat link building and feel I know nothing. But these tutorials are not meant to inform are they? More often than not they are a rehash of the same old same old that really exist to get a few moz points and, more to the point, some juicy links to client sites which the post is ineviatably built around. I know how to get links the hard way and how to buy rubbish links but where is the post "how we buy high value links".

@russvirante
Thanks, yes that's the conclusion I am beginning to understand. I am not so much afraid of buying links I just don't know how to. How to buy valuable links that is.

@Gerry Francis
How could an SEO company be in a position to urge, for eaxmple, the Guardians editorial to use keyword rich anchor text? How do they get that influence?

@saibose
Well they have some ok tools attracting some links but that's not a lot of their inbound. They have all the social media links but I do not know how to research this thoroughly. I didn't see any social media links in my manual browse through the links. But maybe social media might start explaining the 30,000 I didn't even glance at.

@Ian Auld
Well if my suspisions are correct the link builders may well read this. I also would love to hear how they did it - any chance? No chance! But maybe you could write a post explaining how you might do it with a multipronged approach. I'm sure it would contain gold for me.

@joelhit
I can barely imagine 400 such quality links in six months. The site has Moz DA of 83, homepage PA of 86.

@Barry Smith
Very enlightening those figures. Or is it Professor Smith yet?

@Dejan SEO

Mmmm, your comment chimes. The site almost 'misrepresents' it's commercial interests. Perhaps we are talking about the same team.

[StalkerB]

Genius!

That's my weekend sorted getting internet PHDs and becoming a doctor in useless stuff to get links on edus.

I may or may not be joking <- poker face

[Dan-Petrovic]

Yes you can get links like that - and you know what works really well? Lies and misrepresentation. I know because I have seen it. Basically getting the link "Google legit" way (e.g. not buying links) but totally unethical in every other way. For example I know of a team who says they are a doctor of physics at some university and bull their way into gov/edu listings on the basis of false identity. Once their client found out they were fired immediately.

[StalkerB]

Almost definitely agency work, medium sized team, probably with a paid link strategy and some degree of automation.

For the sort of sites you're saying they have, it'd probably run you about £80-90k for the 6 months, at a conservative guess (probably top end it at £150k depending on what industry you're in).

There would have been a lot of hard work put into it, but almost certainly some paid stuff in there. Hard to compete as a solitary in house SEO.

Sounds like the guys know what they're doing, would be good to find out who they are

[saibose]

Sounds fishy to me. Its not possible to get links the white hat way. There are some possibilities that I can think of. Paying for inclusions, getting majority of links based on press release product announcements or some viral element on the website which has been covered by reputable media sources.

It would be interesting to explore the full set of links.

[perfectweb]

Of course it is possible, although it seems somewhat unlikely. Depends on the size of the site, the type of the site, their social media profile, how good their PR team are, what relationships they have with said review sites, magazines, newspapers etc.

I too would be a little suspicious if the links are very keyword rich, this suggests some engineering on the part of the site. Not to say they have used black hat techniques but maybe they have urged the comapnies to use certain anchor texts etc.

Without knowing what site you're talking about it would be difficult to guess efforts they may have made to accomplish this.

[HiveDigitalInc]

No. The truth is this - if your niche is profitable, people will buy links. If you are afraid of buying links because they may damage your site, create another site, and buy links to it. It is that simple.

However, you should be smart about it. Hire an SEO firm that does uniquely prospected, targeted links. It will be expensive, but that is what your competitors are doing, and it appears to be paying off.