Buying Links

Buying Links

Definition: It is actually quite hard to define exactly what a paid link is; I could say that it is the exchange of money in return for a link that passes PageRank. But what if I give someone a cash discount on one of my products in exchange for a link does that count as a paid link? For completeness, here is the Google definition of paid links. But even that isn't 100% clear, to be honest.

Types of links you get: Pretty much anything you want, if you pay enough. Some of the reasons people buy links is that it is easy to get the exact match anchor text you want, pointing to the exact page you want, and it’s usually on a high authority domain. Sounds perfect right?! The problem is that there are many types of paid links, most of which will give you all of these things, but some can be spotted very easily spotted by Google and competitors. Leaving a footprint when you buy links can be very dangerous, for example if you use a public link buying network. See what Google did to this public link network when it traced it all.

If you are a bit smarter about buying links, then it can be near impossible to find out. It takes a lot of effort to cover your tracks, though, which is why many people go for the easy option of using a public network. The thing is that no matter what way you do it, you are still taking a massive risk with your website if you buy links. If you are an agency and you buy links for a client, you should at least make them 100% aware of the risks - namely that if Google find out, they can lose all the Google traffic overnight.

The process: Sorry I'm not going to go into the process on this one, I'm not going to encourage anyone to pursue this technique as it is risky, particularly if you do not have much experience.

Additional reading:

Here are some additional resources on link buying, as well as examples of sites being caught:

★ JC Penney caught buying links and penalised

★ Overstock penalised after offering discounts to students

★ 10 things to learn from the JC Penney SEO Fiasco by Rishi Lakhani