Don’t buy links unless…

I admit getting good quality links is hard. Links are also a lot harder in some industries that lack true editorial value. For example one of my clients has a resource website for payday loan industry that puts a considerable amount of time into writing original and well researched content. Also they are one of the first websites where they break out the latest news about that industry.  Their content strategy includes latest industry news, opinion articles, educational articles, and even videos.

They are also very active in their own community as many know about them and go to their website for resources. But due to nature of the industry, they are not getting enough voluntarily links. And that is why they have to invest in artificially making links.

Of course one way to do that is to contact other websites for link exchange. But overdoing that could go against Google’s link scheme guidelines.

Another way people do link exchange is what they call 3 way linking. You do a link exchange with another person but instead of him linking back to you from the site your linking to, he will link to you from another website he owns. For example if your website is A, and you are doing a link exchange with website B, then owner of website B will link to you from his or her other website C. (see below)

This way of link exchange is slightly safer because it is harder for search engines to figure out your doing a link exchange but since you aim is to manipulate the search results (SERP), overdoing a three way linking could be noticed by more advanced search engines such as Google and Bing. Specially Google’s search quality team has been able to write some advance algorithms to figure out such linking schemes. So my advice to not overdo it.

Another link scheme is link buying. Search engines in particular Google really dislike it and they can penalize your website to the point you can completely disappear from their search results based on your targeted keywords (anchor text of the links you are buying), and in some cases, they can ban you completely. So understanding the consequences of link buying, if you attempt to do so, you must be extremely careful. As a professional link builder, I don’t recommend buying links unless you know how to do it so you bypass Google’s radars.

Below are some guidelines I can provide, from my own experience (both errors and successes), which I would like to share:

-  Websites relevancy to your website: Make sure the website you are buying link from is relevant to yours.
- Other websites they are linking to: If they are linking to too many websites or linking to irrelevant websites, chances are Google knows they selling links.
- Websites Traffic: There are many websites that have high page rank but they don’t’ really have any traffic to them so they don’t’ have much value if you get link from them. In fact in many cases, those websites tend to sell links and Google knows that and as the result that could be troublesome for you. If you have to buy links, but it from high traffic websites. I usually look at Alexa Ranking to find out about how much traffic that website has.

- Website back links: Take websites back links into account;  Both quantity and quality of the back links. Stay away from buying links from those websites with poor back links.

2. Websites Linking Method: Sid- Navigation and header and footer links still work but only if Google trusts the website.  For example if NYTimes has a side navigation links, Google will consider those links very resourceful and editorial and as the result,  those links will help significantly in your ranking. But unless you are buying a link from a highly trusted website (which is not likely because trusted sites don’t’ sell static links), then the side-navigation or footer links will not be as effective and could even hurt your ranking if the site ranking. I recommend you buy inlinks which are links within content on the main part of the website. For example the link in this post to Google guideline page is considered an inlink. So as long as the website and content are relevant, links are normally considered editorial  in Google’s eyes and will help you.

3. Beware of anchor text: If you are buying links, I’d recommend you stay away from exact match of the keywords you are targeting. For example if you are targeting “Los Angeles SEO Consultant”, I would just do “SEO Consultant” , “Los Angeles Consultant”, “Los Angeles SEO”, or even long tail synonym phrases like “Search engine optimization expert in Los Angeles”.  That way it looks natural to Google. Or simply put your site name and let the page rank pass through your website, then optimize your content targeting keywords you want. For example, if I were to buy links for this site ( I don’t buy links for this blog by the way), I would probably pick “Sefati” which is my URL just to pass some PR to my website. Then I would focus on keywords I am targeting and their density, making sure they are stated on my website’s content in natural way.

4. Stay away from link brokers: If you need to buy link from a website, stay away from link brokers because chances are Google is either aware of their inventory or their method of linking. Contact the website owner directly, and make your language as if you want to work with them rather than you want to buy links from them.  (be politically correct)

5.  Slow Down: Don’t buy too many links in short period of time. Specially if you are in one of those industries (e.g. adult, payday loan, debt consolidation, etc.) where people are less likely to link to.  For example no one wants to brag about taking a payday loan or consolidating their debt and Google knows that well.  So if you build too many links, especially if you buy too many links in short period of time, then you can cause all sort of flags with Google.

As an SEO specialist, you must understand Google categorizes each website based on their industry and fully understands its editorial value. It can find out patterns of artificial link creation and link buying, and will discount the artificial and paid links accordingly and can panelize your website.  So an effective way of creating links is to make it as natural looking as possible, and if you need to do link exchange, three way linking, or even buying links, do it in moderation with extreme caution so can bypass Google’s radars without getting our links discounted or even worse, get your website penalized or banned.