Links for $$$ - what to expect?

Outsourcing link building campaign

[aqweb]

Hello WemasterWorld!

After two years of lurking silent on this great website, this is my first post.

I am in charge of ASP/online services company website that (mainly thanks to information learned on various forums here) now ranks well on Google, Yahoo, AV and MSN for very competitive key phrases, with home page at PR5. However, I was not able to execute a successful link building campaign... total number of links to our website is less than 20. The main problem is that due to the nature of our business, reciprocal links are not an option.

I am currently willing to outsource our link building campaign. I have searched the term on Google, visited eLance and couple of other places - most link building services I could find seem fishy. So, here are my questions:

1. What is the best place to look for link building providers?
2. What is the usual price per on-way link from PR4+ page?
3. What should be our expectations on the outcome of such linking campaign?
4. Should I even think of outsourcing it?

Any help, ideas, opinions will be greatly appreciated!

[Jenstar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], aqweb!

This was just discussed last week in this thread [webmasterworld.com]. You'll find some useful information on this.

[aqweb]

Thank you Jenstar! I've indeed studied that thread prior to my posting - it has some useful information on fees to expect.

However, that thread does not answer my main question - where is the best place to look for a link building campaign provider and how to make sure I do not get screwed.

Any thoughts from people who did such outsourcing before?
Anybody wants to share some experience?

[teeceo]

O.K. heres my 2 pennys: If your ranking well on "Google, Yahoo, AV and MSN for very competitive key phrases," Then why even worry yourself about "buying" more links, seems to me that your doing well without them:). If you really want to get more links (buy them) there are lots of places that sell text links, just search around(you search around) and find them and get what you need. Try to search for websites that can offer you good targeted traffic as well as (the PR) your looking for.

"2. What is the usual price per on-way link from PR4+ page?
3. What should be our expectations on the outcome of such linking campaign?"

2: "After two years of lurking silent on this great website" you know better then to ask "directly" about price for PR. The truth is that there is no "set price" so look around for a few days or so then make a move or 2(and always keep looking).

3: It sound to me like you know the outcome already, thats why you want to buy links! bottom line, more traffic is always the outcome from people linking to your site.

You seem pretty sharp so my last say on this is "DON'T" hire someone to do this for you and "DO" do it yourself the right way:). Out.

teeceo.

p.s. "link building campaign provider" huh! that would be part of a SEO's job, not a stand along thing, IMHO.

[panic]

Expect to be put on link farms... which could help you short term, but will kill you in the long run.

If you get placed on a link farm that's flagged by the SE's as being a link farm, you can expect to have your ranks pushed down sererely.

Getting removed from the link farms can be a MAJOR pain.

-panic

[rogerd]

Hi, aqweb, welcome in from lurkerdom! To find linkhunting providers, try the commerical forum here as well as agencies like elance. Of course, you can also use search engines to find firms willing to provide this service.

I think you may find it difficult to evaluate offers - most firms may tell you that they will contact owners of compatible sites and request links, etc., but some may just stick you into their own network of sites. If this network is found to be a PR scheme by Google, all your links could lose PR. If you have linked back to these sites, your site could lose PR, too.

So... shop carefully, try to get legit links rather than link farms, or sites controlled by the SEO firm, or cheesy free listing sites. Watch for another scam that charges monthly link maintenance. Good links don't take much maintenance, so someone who is proposing a high maintenance fee is probably putting you on sites he controls and charging "rent" in a backhanded way.

[wkitty42]

could someone please define what it takes to be called a link farm or to be considered a link farm?

the reason i ask is because my site originally started out as my bookmarks file from netscape... this was years ago... i went thru and broke things down into some catagories and seperated them onto different pages... the main page provides links to those catagories...

that was quite a while back... since then, i've added "real content" but mostly its about things that i'm interested in... nothing really like articles in a newpaper or magazine...

i've been doing a major lot of reading in all of the forums and getting some ideas but i'm still kinda stuck as my site is not commercial at all and is based on informational content about stuff i'm interested in... except for those remaining pages of links... i've probably only two or three areas that contain or could contain content other than links only... then there's the javagames section and thousands of files in the files areas...

[edit]speeling corrections... not used to ergonomic keyboards :)[/edit]

[aqweb]

Guys, thank you very much for your responses!

IMHO, good SE rankings are no substitute for links. With 90 percent of referrals coming from a single source (Google), it's just too many eggs in one basket should something go wrong.

I'm getting a strange feeling about this link building outsourcing business - there are a lot of offers, but no success stories. Ending up on FFA or link farm is also a very scary thing indeed.

[teeceo]

"could someone please define what it takes to be called a link farm or to be considered a link farm?" wrong thread wkitty42, "this thread" is for "Links for $$$ - what to expect?" not link farms:).

teeceo.

[rogerd]

Aqueb, I think you are right to be cautious. There is a lot of incentive for link hunters to cut corners. As has been detailed in this forum many times, finding good links is hard work. You have to find possible partner sites, check their site for PR and spam, find an e-mail contact, write the request, perhaps follow up once or twice... and get a positive reply one time out of ten.

If a paid link hunter is getting paid by the link, or has committed to a fixed number of links, it must be very tempting to take shortcuts - slam the link into one's own sites or on "buddy" sites, use link farms, use crappy directories, etc. These methods take far less work for the same reward. I'm not saying all link outsourcers do this, but certainly many do.

[wkitty42]

thatks, teeceo... the thing is that i'm not wanting to be a link farm... just looking for a definition of what one is... apologies if offtopic... maybe someone could sticky me instead?

[rogerd]

Wkitty42, you can read up on link farms by searching this forum for past link farm topics, but in short, the most common kind of link farm is a linking arrangement where groups of links or link pages are distributed to multiple participating sites. This boosts the linkage of all participants. Needless to say, Google frowns on this and will penalize sites with link farm content.

[wkitty42]

thanks, rogerd... i will ~do the deed~ and see what i find... geez, there goes the rest of my 72hour days :)

[panic]

Inktomi is harder on link farms, I think.

Editorial just will NOT lift the editorial action against you until you've gotten your link taken off of ALL of the pages in the link farm that are pointing to you.

-panic

[rogerd]

Panic, if you aren't linked back to the farm sites, how do they know you haven't been sabotaged by a competitor?

[panic]

I addressed this in another thread, so those who have read it are going to think I sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again anyway.

There are cases where link farms slip past Inktomi editorial (for whatever reason), in which case, it would greatly help the domain's link popularity. In which case, submitting your competitor's link to a link farm would completely backfire.

-panic

[mil2k]

1. What is the best place to look for link building providers?

Search for Link popularity development , link development popularity and allied keywords. Another good place as mentioned before would be Commercial Exchange.

2. What is the usual price per on-way link from PR4+ page?

No fixed rates as such but then they are costly. Also go for permanent links and not a yearly contract. Helps in long run.

3. What should be our expectations on the outcome of such linking campaign?

You have said that you need links bcoz of traffic and diversify your traffic sources. Sometimes link hunters have good client sites. That may help. But most important use of link popualrity is again for search engines. A well thought out link popularity campaign can help you across all engines depending upon your niche market segment. Also if your market segment is competitive link popularity should definitely help you to hold onto your positions. So derive your own set of expectations based on these facts.

4. Should I even think of outsourcing it?

Again depends on your requirements. If it's 50 to 60 links you might want to do yourself. It it's more than that you can check out some of the people and ask for previous references of their work. Are their previous customers satisfied? That should be the basis of your decision.

HTH :)

[rogerd]

Panic, I'm sure some link setups do slip past the SEs... (Of course, if your objective was to torpedo a competitor, you'd submit a spam report just to make sure they didn't miss it.)

I'm just wondering how an SE can penalize a site for content on unrelated sites they don't control. It seems to create a situation ripe for abuse.

[panic]

Essentially, the target site has to be linked to the link farm somehow. Usually, this means an outgoing link to either the link farm, or a site that links TO the link farm.

-panic

[rogerd]

In that case, panic, I agree 100%. :)

[mil2k]

I'm just wondering how an SE can penalize a site for content on unrelated sites they don't control. It seems to create a situation ripe for abuse.

Essentially, the target site has to be linked to the link farm somehow.

This is true most of the times but there are a few exceptions when you can get penalized when the person reviewing your site can make out PR manipulations. It's a very rare case but happens.

[panic]

PR manipulations? What do you mean by that?

-panic

[rogerd]

Presumably, the relationship could be established by WHOIS data, domain contact info, or other off-site criteria. Of course, this could be forged by a determined saboteur...

[panic]

How would whois information link the pages together? They could be part of the same link farm, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're being served from the same server, nor have common DNS servers, etc.

Though part of the same link farm, the participants don't necessarily need to be the same person/company.

-panic

[rogerd]

The best standard for a search engine identifying a spammer is to have spam-related content (e.g., a link to a link farm) on that domain. This would be next to impossible for a competitor to pull off, and few webmasters would deny being responsible for what's on their own site.

A competitor could, however, create a spam site in a domain for which he used your contact info, link extensively to your site, etc. This would cast suspicion on your real site, even if it was perfectly clean. Throw in some link farm links and maybe a pile of guest book spamming pointed at your domain, and a SE tech might conclude that you are guilty.

I wouldn't stay awake at night worrying about this kind of thing, panic, unless you are in a very competitive business.

[panic]

I still don't think that would work. Maybe if the two domains shared the same DNS server, it'd work... but the chances of having the same DNS server are slim to none, especially since most people have their own DNS server.

And again, if it became an issue, the legit site could setup an .htaccess file that checks the HTTP_REFERER for that domain, and possibly send to a dead page, or a page letting the user know what's going on.

-panic

[rogerd]

Panic, I think you misunderstand me... My hypothetical sabotage attempt described an effort to give the appearance of a legitimate site participating in a spam scheme. DNS servers wouldn't make any difference, as most "real" spammers would distribute sites to different locations anyway. Nothing that you might do on your server as far as redirection would make a difference unless a SE tech happened to test the link on the spammy site by hand.

Again, this kind of thing is rare, and there are a lot more important things to worry about! :)

[panic]

True... but it's good to expect the unexpected and prepare for that kind of thing so that if it DOES happen, it doesn't catch you off guard.

-panic

[mil2k]

For the most part rogerd described exactly what I meant in a better way ;).

I wouldn't stay awake at night worrying about this kind of thing, panic, unless you are in a very competitive business.

I agree completely. The reason I raised the point was just to say that such things can happen. So keep checking your links :)

[nakulgoyal]

There are a lot of people out there. we just need to beware of Link Farms, Guestbook Links and FFA Links.

Also Link Building tools generated emails are taken up as SPAM. So that is also OUT NOW. Manual linking is the best especially when it is one way.

:-)