Is Buying Backlinks For SEO Worth The Risk? Find Out Here!

Is Buying Backlinks For SEO Worth The Risk? Find Out Here!
Summary: The meteoric rise of SEO has brought one crucial question into most creators' minds: should we buy backlinks? Answers may vary, and they can be very passionate, but we choose to lay down facts and provide you with a safe methodology.

What Is Buying Backlinks All About?

Let's start by saying that link building and backlinks are the backbone of SEO efforts and one of the top Google ranking factors. Also known as inbound links, backlinks are links to your articles that appear on trustworthy websites and generate trust from potential clients. However, link building is hard, and most companies resort to buying backlinks to boost their website's authority and increase traffic. What they do is pay money to link marketplaces to have their links appear on other websites. But is it safe to buy links? If you're thinking of buying a link package from Fiverr or other dodgy sources, probably not. That approach could damage your SEO instead of improving it. On the other hand, trusting a link building service that follows legitimate practices can be tremendously beneficial. You can forget all about black hat practices like keyword stuffing, link farms, and hidden texts and links.

Do you think you can build backlinks on your own? You can definitely try, but remember that in certain industries, it is impossible to do so by purchasing backlinks from external sources. Keep reading to understand the benefits of link building and buying backlinks, and the pitfalls you should avoid.

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Myth Busting: Is Purchasing Backlinks Legal? Does Google Reject Paid Links?

Many people who read Google's link guidelines think that buying backlinks is illegal and that they will get punished for it. If you read these guidelines carefully, they mention that "any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines." What does this mean?

Basically, Google will be alerted and penalize you only if you use spammy and unnatural links to boost your website's ranking. Unnatural links are those that have no contextual relevancy or benefit to readers. They may be empty web pages or completely irrelevant articles. Google will penalize you whether you insert these links into your articles or are featured on other websites and lead to your domain.

However, Google has a different set of guidelines for purchasing backlinks. It reads, "Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the web economy when done for advertising purposes and not for manipulation of search results." What does that mean in practice? For example, when another website adds an external backlink that sends to your content, if they mark it as "nofollow" they inform Google that your website is not endorsing their business. Therefore, these links won't manipulate any rankings. Quality backlinks help visitors discover trustworthy information without even going on Google, increasing your credibility and click-through rate.

The Benefits Of Buying Backlinks For Your Website

1. Improved SEO

In a recent survey, 67.5% of SEO experts stated that starting link building for a blog has a tremendous impact on search engine rankings. This is because when credible websites link back to your content, Google perceives your brand as trustworthy and promotes it in their search results. So, when people use relevant keywords in their search query, your articles appear higher up than they did before you added purchased backlinks. Some of you may ask, aren't powerful keywords and phrases enough to rank higher? Our answer is that it's a combined effort between keywords and backlinks. No matter how great your on-site optimization is, you need the right links to improve your ranking. The higher the domain authority of your backlinks, the more credible Google considers your website to be.

2. Increased Organic Traffic

Most of you probably allocate a hefty percentage of your budget to paid ads and promotional campaigns to boost your business online. Buying backlinks improves your SEO and your Google search ranking, meaning that more people visit your domain when doing their research. When you rank among the first results page, your organic traffic increases significantly, as most people won't bother visiting the second page. Consequently, your website visibility skyrockets, and you get more signups for your newsletter and other services. Also, you generate new leads quickly and easily, pushing them toward your sales funnel. With more registrants, your email marketing strategy is enriched as your message reaches more potential customers.

3. Boosted Conversions

When you have a domain that instills credibility and trust, visitors deriving from both paid ads and organic searches view you as an authority figure in your niche. Buying permanent backlinks helps you build a positive reputation quicker than trying to generate them organically. Increasing your organic page visitors means that your product and signup pages gain more traction and you can show off your business USP and increase conversions. When potential clients have a great first impression of your brand, it's much easier to showcase your value and convert them into buyers.

4. Reduced Effort

The link building process can be very slow and time-consuming, taking months to bring you the desired results. To achieve this hard feat on your own, you should optimize your landing pages and content and wait until you start generating backlinks organically. While this is doable, it is also rather slow and without any guarantees. In a highly congested SEO landscape, you may need to catch up to competitors who use up to 100 links in their articles. If you only include 10, it is nearly impossible to reach their level organically. That's why buying backlinks from the best link building service providers is the go-to solution for most websites.

The Challenges Of Buying Backlinks

1. Low-Quality Links

Does working with a trustworthy SEO link building service sound too pricey or time-consuming to you? Purchasing links for forums and freelance marketplaces may provide you with links instantly, but the dangers are not worth it. Certain providers use black hat tactics, including spam comments, excessive link exchanges, sneaky redirects, and link schemes. These actions will not get you a better ranking, while Google will probably penalize you, as black hat tactics violate their guidelines. Many websites exist solely for the purpose of link building and feature spammy links with no authority. Before purchasing links from any website, check their authority score and organic traffic. If those are too low, you should avoid doing business with that website.

2. Link Violations

Buying backlinks for cheap without analyzing the provider's quality means that you are likely to violate Google's backlink guidelines. Specifically, buying low-quality links with the sole purpose of increasing your ranking and disorienting the search algorithm is considered spam by Google. Buying links or posts that contain URLs, exchanging services for links, and sending someone a product for review and a link to include in their content are all violations of Google's policies. As a result, the company can punish you by lowering your ranking even more, making it nearly impossible for people to find you. Not only is the money you spend on buying backlinks wasted, but you'll need to spend double the amount to get back to where you were.

3. Link Farms

There are so many link building services out there that offer links of questionable quality. It's true that off-page SEO has always attracted black hat tactics, including unnatural links. Link farms are notorious for selling unnatural links. But what are link farms, anyway? They are a network of websites owned by the same person or company that link to one another in order to manipulate the algorithm and boost their rankings. Not all link farms are involved in the link-buying business, though. Those that are typically circulate myriads of links as quickly as possible, and when your website receives a sudden flood of backlinks, Google becomes suspicious. Especially when these links are low-quality, Google will most likely recognize the link scheme and penalize you.

The Ins And Outs Of Buying Backlinks For B2B SEO

Conduct Backlink Gap Analysis

Before buying backlinks, you must analyze your current situation and find ways to improve your SEO. Where do you stand compared to your competitors, and how urgent are your backlink needs? A backlink gap analysis helps you understand what types of links you need to acquire based on your industry. This way, you can compete with the top dogs in your niche and rank higher in SERPs. Remember that thousands of other companies are trying to do the same, but only a few manage to gain the authority Google requires. Collaborating with a reputable link building service provider helps you identify your link needs and boost your organic traffic legitimately. Maybe you also need to elevate your content game and produce articles your competitors have already generated, with some of their backlinks deriving from them.

Differences Between Low-Quality And Good-Quality Link Services

Is buying backlinks a good idea? This question may be circulating in your mind. For any backlink to gain value and bring you traffic, it must be placed on websites with decent authority and ranking. However, some providers will just throw your links at graveyard domains with zero credibility or traffic. As a result, your links become worthless. On the other hand, top-quality link building services don't just sell you links. They make sure your backlinks receive multiple placements on credible websites, increasing your click-through rate. That's why you should avoid domains that simply sell links and focus on finding a B2B SEO agency that offers supreme link building. They probably work with pre-approved content and websites that are guaranteed to increase your brand value.

Avoid Unnatural Link Building

We already mentioned unnatural links and how link farms abuse the algorithm to boost the websites of the same network. Private Blog Networks (PBNs) are a bit different. Websites within the network are programmed to send link juice to a website outside of the network. It's the site the owner wants to rank for. The domains within the network are usually old but hold some authority. Many of these networks are involved in selling backlinks. However, they offer no value to readers, and Google has become very efficient at recognizing them and their black hat link building tactics. That's because websites typically receive a plethora of links from PBNs, which is a major red flag.

So, before collaborating with your link building experts, ensure they are not operating as a PBN. In that case, their backlinks would be completely worthless and not do anything for your SEO, not to mention Google would probably penalize you.

Check A Website's Search Traffic

Buying backlinks is a process that should be executed carefully. And why is that? Simply because there are many scammers or low-effort providers in the marketplace. One indication of a provider's credibility is whether their website receives organic search traffic. There are various tools to check a site's overall score and its current and past traffic. Low organic traffic can indicate various different things. Maybe their on-page optimization is poor and they keep having technical issues, their domain authority has dropped significantly, their content is too old or duplicated, and they have received penalties from Google. Naturally, any website can experience drops in traffic for short periods. But if the provider's website appears to have constant fluctuations in traffic and their page looks poorly made, then it's a clear indication that you should stay away.

Blogger Outreach

Many link building strategies rely on blogger outreach. It's the process of reaching out to websites with article ideas and producing content for them to publish. Usually, these publications allow you to link back to your website and include a link in your author bio in return. Choose websites that are relevant to your niche and have a high authority. Yet, credible websites probably have their in-house editorial teams writing articles. Why would they spend time reading and publishing your content? Well, because extra content is always welcome. Instead of sending impersonal emails that provide no information and are often perceived as spam, try to make each email sound personal. Some websites, like eLearning Industry, offer you the option to submit your article for free without having to bother with emails.

Niche Edits

Link buying isn't always an affordable solution. Niche edits are another option for generating valuable backlinks. Like with blogger outreach, you contact relevant websites and ask them to review a piece of their content and add one of your links. Your emails shouldn't look spammy, though. Explain what your article is about and why it would benefit the other website's authority. You may also check the traffic the other website's content is receiving. Chances are it is already gaining traction, meaning your contextual link will generate traffic instantly. Having your links appear on new URLs makes your backlinks appear more natural. This is the white hat tactic of niche edits. Black hat tactics involve edits being sold by SAPE networks, a practice that is easily recognized by Google. Grey hat niche edits are the quickest yet safest ways to acquire links by purchasing them from link-sharing sellers.

Press Release Distributions

Do you have big news coming up and want to share it with the online world? You can pick a trustworthy and relevant company and publish a press release to promote your news. You can include links to your website, landing page, and signup pages. Therefore, you generate backlinks that can potentially increase website traffic once your press release is live. However, don't ignore the quality of your writing. Your press release should be intriguing and filled with powerful keywords, a tactic that is at the core of any SEO strategy. You may also include links to your articles and other relevant content that enrich your message. There are both free and paid distribution sites. Find the most relevant and credible in your field and explore their reach. Maybe it's worth paying to have your press release featured on a top website.

How To Avoid Buying Unreliable Backlinks

Should you buy backlinks, and if so, where? The backlink marketplace can be a shady place, as there are many freelancers on Fiverr and Upwork offering services such as niche edits and paid guest posts. While you can find white hat professionals who do everything by the book, many will provide you with links leading to spammy sites. For example, you may find someone offering 3000 links for $5. Buying backlinks for cheap will only hurt your ranking and put you in serious danger.

However, there are ways to receive backlinks without getting in trouble. Hiring a digital marketing company specializing in link building is probably the best and safest option. Not only do you save time and effort, but marketing firms have established trusting relationships with credible websites and can provide you with top-quality relevant backlinks. An indication that such a service has decent authority is when its domain score is above 70. Lastly, these companies won't just sell you their links. They'll take the time to analyze your needs and offer you the best possible packages.

How Much Do Backlinks Cost?

As you can probably understand, dofollow backlinks are precious for any website to improve its SEO. That's why they are an investment, and the best SEO services charge you for them. There are three main ways companies purchase links: niche edits, paid/sponsored guest posts, and PBNs. With niche edits, you contact website owners to add a link from your site to one of their articles for a fee. Alternatively, you can write blog posts containing links to other articles of yours and pay another website to publish your work. PBNs are a bit more complicated. You basically build a network of websites that all link back to your main editorial web page that generates the most revenue.

On average, niche edits cost around $360, and paid guest blog posts $80. Why these prices? Simply because quality backlinks and expert SEO skills require time and effort to build. And this case surely proves that you get what you pay for.

How eLearning Industry's Link Building Services Can Help You

High-quality backlink building services are not always easy to find. While some websites may seem legit, at the back they may be following shady tactics. eLearning Industry is an established authority in the SEO link building landscape, helping you boost organic traffic through quality guest posting and keyword and traffic analysis. But that's not all. Our SEO experts also analyze criteria like DR, CF, TF, and CF/TF. Every guest post you earn offers you a backlink with a healthy profile. You don't need to do blogger outreach yourself anymore, as we do all the hard work. Of course, you'll receive monthly and quarterly reports regarding all live links and their performance.

You can get a link building strategy sample to understand how we work. So, if your company belongs in the eLearning and HR fields, you can book your free strategy call and start discussing your link building needs immediately. You'll be working with a dedicated project manager who will listen to your needs and craft a unique strategy that aligns with your company goals.

Key Takeaway

Ranking highly in Google searches goes way beyond using relevant keywords. You need a strategic SEO link building plan and content marketing strategy to generate valuable backlinks that boost your website traffic, increase your credibility, and bring you more buyers. However, there is a good and a bad way to go about it. If you choose to purchase black hat links from untrustworthy websites, you may end up with a penalty by Google. Therefore, not only do you waste your money, but you also get lost even lower in the search results. It only makes sense that you choose a reliable link building agency that does not simply sell you a link but ensures your backlinks are on real, top-quality websites.

And why should you delegate these tasks to someone else? Blogger outreach, niche edits, website analyses, press releases, and backlink gap analyses take time and require deep expertise. You may not have the time or knowledge to conduct all these actions properly. SEO experts know exactly what to do. You don't have to worry about searching through backlink sellers and determining who is trustworthy or who is operating within a PBN. Your link building collaborators bring you high-value backlinks that perform well over time and keep generating new leads.

Originally published on September 26, 2024
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