Should You Buy Backlinks?

Backlinks are essential for establishing Google’s trust, driving referral traffic, and improving search engine rankings. However, acquiring them is often a challenging and time-consuming process. Securing a single backlink can take months of outreach and networking, leading many site owners to consider the alternative: purchasing backlinks. 

But is buying backlinks a wise strategy? 

In this article, we explore the benefits and risks of buying backlinks, helping you make an informed decision on whether this approach is right for your website.

Key Takeaways

• Backlinks are essential for building trust with search engines, driving referral traffic, and improving search engine rankings. However, acquiring them can be time-consuming.
• There are several benefits to buying backlinks, including time-saving, improved keyword rankings, increased website authority, faster indexing, targeted referral traffic, and enhanced brand exposure.
• Purchasing backlinks comes with potential risks, such as search engine penalties, concerns about link quality, financial risks, reputation damage, and link stability issues.
• Google disapproves of buying backlinks, considering it a violation of its search guidelines. However, many website owners still choose to buy backlinks, but they do it in a way that seems natural and adds value to the linking website.
• When considering buying backlinks, focus on quality over quantity, analyze potential link sources, build links at a natural pace, optimize anchor text, monitor and disavow low-quality links, and work with trusted partners.

What Are Backlinks And Why Are They Important? 

Backlinks are links from one website to another, serving as a vote of confidence that indicates the value and relevance of the linked content. They are crucial for search engine optimization (SEO) as they help websites rank higher in search results by demonstrating popularity and authority.

The importance of backlinks lies in several key aspects:

• SEO Ranking: Backlinks are essential for search engines to evaluate the quality and relevance of a website’s content. Websites with more high-quality backlinks have a higher chance of ranking well in search results.
• Website Authority: Backlinks contribute to a website’s authority and credibility. Search engines view websites with many high-quality backlinks as more trustworthy and authoritative, leading to higher search engine rankings and increased traffic.
• Traffic Generation: Backlinks can drive more traffic to a website by providing opportunities for readers to click through to the linked content. This increased traffic can lead to higher engagement, sales, and other important metrics.
• Relationship Building: Building backlinks can help establish relationships with other websites in the same industry or niche. Collaborating with other websites through backlinks can lead to valuable partnerships and opportunities for cross-promotion and collaboration.

What Does Buying Backlinks Mean?

Buying backlinks involves paying another website to link back to your site. This practice aims to enhance a website’s search engine rankings by increasing the number of backlinks pointing to it.

The cost of backlinks can vary significantly, depending on factors such as industry, niche, website popularity, content quality, and brand strength. Prices can range from as low as $10 to $500 or even higher.

It’s important to note that buying backlinks is a controversial topic. Engaging in this practice carries inherent risks, and it is crucial to stay updated with search engine guidelines to avoid potential penalties. 

Learn how to buy backlinks in our article How to Buy Backlinks: Tips From SEO Experts.

Google Opinion Of Buying Backlinks 

Purchasing backlinks has been a common practice for years, although Google has consistently disapproved of it. 

Why? 

Google perceives paid backlinks as a form of ‘link scheme’ that contravenes its search guidelines. Backlinks serve to enhance a website’s credibility and reliability, so when a site owner pays for a link instead of earning it through quality content, it disrupts Google’s ranking system. 

Consequently, Google periodically releases spam updates to counteract the influence of paid backlinks on search rankings. (read this: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#link-spam)

Despite Google’s discouragement, many site owners continue to buy backlinks. Nonetheless, it’s possible to acquire backlinks in a manner that appears natural and adds value to the linking website, despite being paid for.

Why Do People Buy Backlinks?

While it’s true that purchasing backlinks violates Google’s Search Essentials (formerly known as Webmaster Guidelines), the same can be said for nearly every other link-building technique. Even strategies like outreach for guest posting, often considered a ‘white hat SEO tactic’ by marketers, involve requesting backlinks from other site owners, thus qualifying as a link scheme. 

In essence, it’s challenging to build links without potentially conflicting with Google’s guidelines in some manner. 

Despite the inherent risk, there are numerous reasons why digital marketers continue to opt for buying backlinks. Here are some of the benefits: 

• Time-Saving: Buying backlinks saves a significant amount of time compared to traditional link-building methods that can be slow and unreliable.
• Improved Keyword Rankings: Purchasing backlinks can help improve keyword position rankings, providing a competitive edge in search engine results.
• Increased Website Authority: Backlinks contribute to increased website authority, which is crucial for better search engine rankings and credibility.
• Faster Indexing: Buying backlinks can lead to faster indexing of a website by search engines, enhancing visibility and traffic.
• Targeted Referral Traffic: Backlinks can generate targeted referral traffic to a website, directing relevant visitors to the site.
• Brand Exposure and Awareness: Backlinks contribute to brand exposure and awareness by increasing visibility across different platforms.
• Competitive SEO Advantage: While many of your competitors use paid backlinks, a significant portion of web content fails to capitalize on them. This presents a significant opportunity for you to outpace many of your competitors. 

Risks of Buying Backlinks

When it comes to purchasing backlinks, it’s essential to be aware of the potential risks involved:

Search Engine Penalties

• Breaking the Rules: Search engines like Google have strict guidelines against buying links. If caught, your website could face penalties, resulting in lower rankings or even removal from search results.
• Algorithm Changes: Search algorithms are constantly evolving to detect unnatural link-building tactics. If your bought links are flagged as manipulative, your site’s visibility could take a hit.

Quality Concerns

• Low-Quality Links: Not all backlinks are beneficial. Links from spammy or irrelevant sites can harm your site’s credibility and authority.
• Irrelevance: Links from sites unrelated to your niche may not boost your SEO and could be seen as suspicious by search engines.

Financial Risks

• Poor Returns: Investing in low-quality backlinks can be a waste of money, providing little to no SEO benefit.
• Hidden Costs: Some providers may not disclose all fees upfront, leading to unexpected expenses. Penalties could also incur additional costs for recovery efforts.

Reputation Damage

• Association with Bad Sites: Links from disreputable sites can tarnish your brand’s reputation and erode trust.
• Loss of Trust: If discovered, buying backlinks can damage your credibility within your industry and among your audience.

Link Stability

• Temporary Links: Purchased backlinks may not be permanent. If the linking site removes them or shuts down, you lose the associated SEO benefits.
• Dependency on Providers: Relying too heavily on paid links makes your SEO vulnerable to changes in provider policies or business closures.

Should You Buy Backlinks From Private Blog Network (PBN)?

A Private Blog Network (PBN) refers to a network of websites owned by a single entity, strategically created to influence search engine algorithms by generating backlinks to a specific website. The primary goal is to improve the search engine rankings of the target website, thereby boosting its visibility and traffic.

The impact of PBN links can vary depending on the website’s nature. While some websites may experience significant ranking improvements with just a few PBN links, industries with high competition and sensitive niches, such as gambling and CBD, often require the use of PBNs to remain competitive.

In our experience, we’ve found PBN links to be particularly effective in regions where Google’s language understanding may be limited, such as in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines).

Over the years, we’ve tested various techniques for using PBNs. Here’s what has shown the best results:

• Integrate PBNs Into Your Overall SEO Strategy: Incorporating PBN links into your strategy can strategically advance your website’s growth. Ensure alignment between your link-building efforts and your long-term plans for website development.
• Diversify Link Sources: Mixing PBN links with other sources such as guest posts, directory submissions, and PR campaigns enhances overall SEO outcomes. Broaden the scope of your link portfolio to strengthen your website’s authority.
• Maintain Content Consistency: Consistent publication of new content on your website is essential, especially when acquiring a significant number of links. Irregularities between link acquisition and content updates may raise suspicion.
• Use a Variety of Anchor Texts: In PBN links, using a diverse range of anchor texts enhances the credibility and effectiveness of your link-building strategy.

By implementing these practices, you can maximize the benefits of PBN links while avoiding potential risks. 

If you want to build PBN yourself or already have one, check out our article The Best PBN Hosting Providers. 

Our Expert Tips on Buying Backlinks 

Here are our recommendations for safely and effectively purchasing backlinks:

• Focus on Quality: Look for links from trustworthy websites that are relevant to your content and have real visitors.
• Check Link Sources: Before buying a link, make sure the website is reliable. Check if it has original content, gets traffic, and engages its audience. Also, see how authoritative it is by checking its backlinks. Make sure the link you’re getting looks natural on the site.
• Grow Links Naturally: Don’t buy too many links too quickly, as search engines might notice. Instead, aim for a steady pace that looks natural. It’s best to get links from guest posts or by editing existing content on related sites.
• Use Anchor Text Wisely: Make sure the text used for your link looks natural and not like you’re trying too hard to get attention. Mix it up with different types of text, like your brand name or a partial match to your keywords.
• Keep an Eye on Your Links: Regularly check the websites linking to you. If you spot any low-quality or spammy links, use Google’s tool to tell them to ignore those links. This protects your site from getting penalized.
• Work with Trusted Partners: When buying links, go directly to the website owner or a reputable agency. Some good places to look are MeUp, SEO.Domains, BlackHatWorld, and of course, Quirk.Biz.

We have a collection of high-quality backlinks available, and we’re ready to share them with you. To learn more, just fill out our contact form, email us at info@quirk.biz, or visit our contact page.