4 replies to this topic

[sdavis]

Hello All,

I have been using directories, PR and link exchanges to build back links. I really have not thought of paying for links until I saw it on this forum.

What are the pro's and con's. Can this be considered black hat?

*I don't' mean in directories, I mean through list brokers.

I am curious, because it sure would make my life easier if I could just go out and buy a bunch of links instead of working for them....but my mother always said that the easy way isn't necessarily the best way...know what I mean?

Any help and or suggestions are very much appreciated.

Best Regards,
Scott

[SearchRank]

Nothing wrong with buying links. You are just buying advertising space on someone else's site. That has been going on long before Google came onto the scene.

The only con is that if you buy links on a site that Google has somehow identified and not allowed "link juice" to pass, then it will not help you much with rankings on Google.

[Jill]

Can this be considered black hat?

This is possibly one of those few areas of SEO that I feel can have some gray to it. Most on the page SEO is either white or black if you boil it down to deception or no deception. But with buying links, it's more tricky to boil it down that way.

For instance, the search engines use links as a way of measuring the quality of a site. In the old days before links were so heavily manipulated, most links meant that someone liked a site.

Many links still do mean that today. But many other links have nothing to do with whether someone likes a site or not. A link could mean any one of the following:

• Someone likes your site so they linked to it.
• Someone traded links with you. (They may or may not like your site.)
• Someone allowed you buy advertising on their site which resulted in a link. (They may or many not like your site.)

The search engines are happy to count whichever links mean that someone really liked a site, but it's impossible for them to really know the difference. If they know something is definitely a paid link, they tend to err on the side of assuming it's not really a vote, but just an ad buy. (For instance, they don't count Adwords links, or Yahoo PPC links, as a vote.)

The thing about links though is that they aren't all about search engine rankings. They have the potential to bring a whole lot of traffic to your site. Therefore, whether you are trading links, buying links, or just have a great site that garners them without doing anything but existing, they're all potentially good for you to have.

I've never worked with a link broker, nor do I ever intend to, so I can't tell you exactly how that works. One thing I do know about some of them is that they do leave a 'footprint' so to speak. Many of them have a link for others to also sponsor the page, which is a dead giveaway that the links are actually just ads, and not votes. Nothing wrong with that of course, but if you are only looking to purchase links because you think it will help your rankings, you wouldn't want to use such a program.

We've purchased a few links for clients in the past, but we do it ourselves by just visiting sites in the same target audience as our client, and just finding out if the site owner would consider allowing us to advertise on their page. I actually prefer pages that don't already have any ads, and there are still plenty out there! Many times these sites are thrilled to find a way to make a little extra money from their site, and if you are advertising something really worthwhile to their site visitors, they're even happier to host your ad.

My advice would be that the more automated the program you're thiinking of using is, the more easily it would be to detect and to discount the links from.

[Randy]

I've always viewed buying links a bit differently than most I guess. I've always taken the search engines completely out of the equation. Meaning I could care less if I get zero link popularity being passed to my site. If they choose to give me some, fine. If not, that's fine too.

I've always viewed this area completely from the Business perspective. As in how much business can I get for the $'s spent on advertising on someone else's site.

When I decide to purchase links from somewhere I tend to make at least a 6 month commitment. Even though I may have other creatives already in the hopper that should work reasonably well from past ad buys, I know it's going to take at least 6 months to perform some tracking and testing to make sure I'm doing my part to connect with those users.

Once I've run through everything I can think of to improve click-thru's and conversions, I review all of the numbers to see if the advertising is profitable or not. Those that are, I continue. Those that aren't, I don't.

[Scottie]

I thought I'd throw in a really fascinating little bit of info... ok, it's fascinating to me, but I'm a geek..

I recently got around to setting up a resource site that I've owned the domain for for months. I did a lot of the ground work (design and structure) , but haven't filled in much content yet.

To get the site "found" and the aging delay clock ticking, I linked to it from a few other relevant sites I have. (This is a site in the same general area as some others, but a different focus.)

I put my Google Adsense on it as a placeholder... added a few pages of details... and then got too busy to mess with it.

Imagine my surprise to see it registering impressions and clickthroughs on Google Adsense! It doesn't rank on any engine yet, for anything. But I'm getting 20-60 page views a day from people following links from relevant pages.

Ultimately, those links will help the site do well in the engines... but they are providing a very real benefit, NOW. At least the site has paid for it's domain name fee already!

And it really has motivated me to get the site finished and start promoting it- people want this information!