Buying One-Way Links

[muaz]

Hi guys. I'm a newbie so I need some help from you guys. I would like to know about buying one-way links. Is it worth it? and which is better? buying 2/3 links from pages with high pageranks (6/7) or 5/6 links from pages with lower pagerank (4/5)? and will my pagerank go down once I stop paying for the links?

Thanks a lot guys.

[dfud]

I buy a few links now and then, but I only do it if I think the traffic will justify the cost.

Google discourages buying links for pagerank. There have been posts on this forum and others about people going down in the rankings after buying a bunch of links.

[Event_King]

Buying links for traffic alone isn't always the best use of cash, and in some cases you can end up 'losing' money. If the site (where you bought link from) gets some traffic but doesn't send you much - then it's got to be a bad link decision.

I see it like this:

Buy links on high traffic sites, but don't buy for the traffic..... Buy for the link on the good, respected site, and it's bound to be spidered more often than a average kind of site. For instance, I got a link on MSN, and although I don't get a great deal of traffic, I know that MSN is a major player and thus my link is on there somewhere..

Know what I'm saying..............

[muaz]

Thanks eventking. useful info. But i was thinking in terms of pagerank. I mean buying links mainly for earning pr and the traffic that comes with it. And is it better to buy e.g. 5 links from pr4 pages or 3 links from pr6 pages or one link from pr8 pages?

and the second part was: if i stop paying for these links, will my pr go back down? or will it stay at the same level?

Thanks guys.

[martinibuster]

Might come down to preference mixed in with your goals. I'm not a big fan of having a few high PR links. I much like having a lot of small PR links. The higher PR sites have a higher profile, too.

[muaz]

Thanks martinibuster. How about the 2nd question :)? I mean: does my pr go back down once I stop paying for the links?

[buckworks]

Yes, your PR will go back down if you stop paying for the links (unless they forget to take them off).

My advice would be to explore all the avenues you can find for getting links to your site that will be permanent, before you spend much money on text links that require repeated payments.

I heartily agree with Martinibuster that lots of "little" links will give you more stability than a few high-PR links.

[muaz]

Thanks buckworks & guys. What do you think of press releases? I heard that it can generate a few thousand high pr links in a few weeks. Is it true? and more importantly will google penalise me for the surge in links?

[anton23]

Well, I have never heard of "a few thousands links in a few weeks" before. At least not considering spamming.

[sugarrae]

>>> I heard that it can generate a few thousand high pr links in a few weeks.

Possibly, if you're microsoft or google - for the average site, it won't generate into that.

[Justilien]

Personally I would not even concern myself with PR. I would focus on finding links that have a great natural backlinks and related to your site. Other things I take into account are the site's age, cache date, are there other SEOed sites listed (lowers value in my opinion) and traffic. I believe links that deliver traffic carry more weight and the traffic can cover the cost of the link.

I just found a great buy this week in the tech field. Backlinks show over 119 .edu, 2 .gov and 2 .mil with no other SEOed sites listed. Good buys are out there. It does take some work, but worth it in the end.

I do agree with martinibuster about avoiding many high PR links. It is best to stay under the radar.

[LinkExperts]

PageRank should not be a metric used when determining the value of paid link advertisement. There are many high-quality publishers out there with PR 5/6's that I would personally prefer to have my link on over some generic sites with 7/8's.

In my experience in the link-buying space for the past 4 years, I have never seen a legitamate site be penalized for purchasing a one way link on a SINGLE PAGE of another legitame quality website.

With that in mind, important metrics to look for when determining the value of a paid link are:
-How many backlinks does the publisher have?
-The traffic of the publiser
-The relevance to your website
-How many links (paid or unpaid) will be on the particular page - more links are clearly less valuable than a page with 10 or less

For a more expensive buy, it may be worth while to track the success of existing advertisers that have already purchased links on those pages.

[jk3210]

LinkExperts, paid links are obviously a major threat to Google's algo, so I feel fairly confident in saying that they probably devote a LARGE amount of resources toward the situation.

In your opinion, how well do you think Google can determine paid links?

And have you noticed any effective discounting of the value of paid links by the SEs?

[LinkExperts]

JK3210, paid links can only be a threat to SE's when they are used without best practices in mind. For example, companies buying links for terms not relating to their products or services, or buying links too quickly in ways that appear not natural.

With SEO, 'natural' is just the strategy behind an effective campaign. WIth any form of marketing, there always needs to be a strategy involved. Just like you might not want to send out a million emails in one day, or buy 1 billion impressions or keywords, you do not want to go out and overload on links.

As this marketing continues to mature, all consituants (SEO's, web publishers, advertisers, agencies), will learn to acheive this natural/best practices approach, which at the end of the day - will be to the benefit of the search engine.

I have seen many companies, in some cases large market leaders, that have bought links to complement their onsite SEO, to acheive a high ranking for thier respective keywords. Moreover, if companies are not proactive about SEO in general, search engine will not be as effective as they are. How else can you explain why 93 Fortune 100 companies do not rank for thier respective keywords becauase they never engaged in any form of SEO.

About your last question, I have seen for high quality advertisers who deserve to rank well, links have become even more effective - in most cases when an existing on site effort has been done.

Moreover, I believe search engine can stop paid linking if they wanted too, but that would not be in their best interest. The market needs the shake out itself, just like ebay has done with bidding tools and other value added services.

[dupac]

Buying links in the same thing saying advertising on a site. If you place your links at the right place on the site (even if you have to pay lillt bit more) will help you in getting extra traffic and SEO.

If you planning to buy links then vary the sites you getting links from.
e.g. PR 3 - PR 9(if you can)

[talismon]

I know companies that spend 20k per month just on link buys on high PR sites. Would they be doing this if it didnt help them? I think not. All you have to do is go to internet.com to see the industries that are using this as an advertising (SEO) tactic.

[LinkExperts]

One of them being Yahoo! (or was I not supposed to say that?)

[justdave]

It makes me laugh when people say buying links is a bad thing. I have dozens of clients that I buy links for on a regular basis. I've seen no indication that buying/renting links is a negative thing. It's just another way to advertise.

[majofly]

it would be better if you could submit ur site on web directories. Directories are good source of one-way links and inbound links.