7 replies to this topic

[downloaddave]

Greetings all,

I've been reading this forum for a while, but this is my first opportunity to post.

I manage SEO/SEM for several sites associated with a single company specializing in Internet based subscription services.

I know that unnatural linking is discouraged and can be viewed as link spam; however, in the past we received some advice to purchase about 14 links through a paid back link provider.

I won't post the name of the site which was recommended as I don't want to advertise for them, but I can tell you that most of the pages they offer are related to local television stations and the site [removed].

The sites available through this provider are at best very loosely related to our services and products, but the PR values are 6 or higher.

These links are expensive and I'm planning on taking them down slowly as I'm theorizing that the SE's are probably aware of such sites and are either offering no value to the links or negative value to the links.

What are your thoughts on these types of programs? Should I cut and run or is there value on paid back links?

Thanks,
Dave

Edited by Jill, 27 January 2006 - 05:14 PM.

[SearchRank]

That is something that a web site owner has to keep a close eye on. As far as the anchor text they are using in the ads, is it helping to improve positioning? How drastic are the improvements from the time before links were bought and after? Are you receiving any traffic directly from links? These are just some of the questions that should be asked.

We buy links in the same manner and watch them closely to ensure they are effective. If they are not, then they are eventually replaced or ditched. There is the constant battle of Google trying to identify paid links and those selling them trying to obscure the fact that they are paid. One evidence of this that I am seeing is where a site used to have something like "Sponsors", "Marketplace" and anything else related in text are not resorting to placing these as graphic with no alt attribute text. The ads are still marked but not as easily identifiable by search engines.

Like any form of advertising, measure the results. By watching these things closely, you should be able to identify if something is indeed productive or a complete waste of resources.

[downloaddave]

Thanks for the thought. My only problem with that is that I haven't seen any noticable results from the links in terms of SERPs. As for actual traffic it's pretty much non-existent so unless I'm getting SERP advantages it's not worth much.

Now, isn't back linking a long term strategy? Would I even see results from these types of links within a few months (I'm promoting a PR6 site)?

I'm thinking I can get more leverage for less money by improving our affiliate programs (which in my case leads to valuable text links on very relevant sites).

I'm pretty sold on the idea of ditching the links, but on the other hand I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water if the SEs don't consider it spam.

Thanks,
Dave

[SearchRank]

IMO it does take a few months to evaluate whether a link is worthwhile or not. If you have had your links for more then 3 months and you are not realizing any benefit from them, then it may be time to move on. It is not spam to keep them or have them in the first place. In fact, Google's whole deal in combating them is more of a devaluing them then punishing sites that buy or sell them.

[Jill]

If you're going to buy links, you'll want to base your decision strictly on the traffic and/or branding that link can bring, not on any perceived link popularity it might bring.

The reason for this is that the search engines are attempting to spot paid for ads and not allow them to pass link popularity. They're far from being able to do that at this point, so it's possible that your paid for link might get some link pop.

But eventually, it will probably be seen for the ad that it actually is and not count towards link popularity. That's no big deal of course as long as you've purchased it for traffic. Anything you get beyond traffic you should think of as "gravy."

[jackson_hu]

We considered the same action like you before to buy some link .And our team have some tips to consider if the link is worth to buy

1.The web site content of the link location is the most important think to think about .Make sure the web site content meet your .Putting a car related link on the Xbox information web site is wasting your money for example .

2.The location of the link on that web site .If the link is in the bottom of this web site ,the link is almost useless.

3.The actually visitors number of this web site .Ask them to provide them the visitor log per day .per week and per month .High PR does not 100% mean high traffic .

[Randy]

Welcome jackson_hu !

[projectphp]

Another factor to think about is $$ value of a ranking. If you spend $X to buy links in the hope it will increase your ranking by 5 places, will you make that money back? How many widgets do you need to sell to make back the money you spent on the links? If a ranking increase is the means by which you expect to see an increase in revenue, how much does the revenue from SEO need to increae to get you the $$ you spent back? Are you tracking this?

Lastly, what other areas could you spend the same money on? A high ranking, or more specifically more SEO traffic, should lead to tangible increases in margin, but if it doesn't, it may be worth ditching the campaign altogether, and look to spend the money on some other marketing activity.