Could a paid link campaign reverse my site's "slow death"?

[cleanup]

I have being experiencing a slow death on Google for a couple of years now. I used to build links manually in the old fashioned way. I sensed that this stopped working for me around about three years ago or so. Neverthless about a year ago I did have one last ditch attempt at building highly targeted (competitors) backlinks and which was quite successful in terms of the number of backlinks achieved, as my site is well respected.

Unfortunatley I did not see any improvements in keyword positions and my slide in the serps continued.

In my desperation I am considering just about anything, So my question is, "Is it possible that a paid for link building campain from a professional link builder will save this site from a slow death?" or is this just a waste of money these days?

[tedster]

Some site owners still report getting good mileage from purchased links today. Of course, you are aware of Google's stance on the issue, so take that into account.

A balanced backlink profile is very helpful for rankings - if you already have a nice variety, including one-way backlinks that are true "editorial citations" given independently, and if your backlinks continue to grow and are not stagnant, then the issues with your rankings may lie elsewhere.

[ecmedia]

I agree with tedster. If you have all these old links and if you are still losing ranking the problem is maybe you are not adding fresh content. Paid links right now are just too risky till there is further clarity on the subject -- so far only sellers have been hurt but who knows about the future.

[Robert Charlton]

There's an ambiguity in wording here, at least as I read it, and I'm not sure whether the original post is asking about a campaign of building paid-links, or a paid link-building campaign...

So my question is, "Is it possible that a paid for link building campain from a professional link builder will save this site from a slow death?" or is this just a waste of money these days?

I'm in agreement that paid-links can put you in troubled areas.

I have mixed feelings about paid link-builders. There have been numerous discussions pro and con in the Link Development [webmasterworld.com] forum.

IMO... if you outsource link building and pay by the link, you're going to end up with the equivalent of paid links, probably worse... particularly if you go offshore.

On the other hand, if you hire link builders who know what they're doing, direct them to get you good quality links, and pay them for their time, not for the number of links they get, you are much more likely to have success. With this latter approach, the content of your site needs to be link-worthy.

The best succinct description of this process that I've read was posted by tedster on the following thread....

How to get authority links?
[webmasterworld.com...]

(Since WebmasterWorld's anchor linking is a bit iffy, I'm quoting tedster's post in its entirety)

I know of one site that has been very succesful at link building -- successful to the point of showing SiteLinks for a generic search term. The home page ranks #1 for several other diverse keywords as well.

Two employees there work the link acquisition process full time, and together they only get about 20 total new inbounds per month! But I'll tell you, that backlink profile is beautiful, and there's no junk except for the scrapers that everyone gets (but that don't hurt this site one bit.)

There is no easy or mechanized process that will accomplish this. It's a highly personalized, one-on-one, skilled research and communications effort -- and it's coupled with very intelligent content development. It requires real dedication and passion to do this well.

[cleanup]

Thanks for the excellent replies guys. Looks like it is back to the old fashioned, hard work link building by yours truly then, since I donīt have the cash to pay any "onshore" staff!..