Hundreds of links just like that.

[hulahoop]

I have seen a bunch of offerings that do link development and offer 100 links a month etc. Honestly I have done my own personal link development and I gave some pretty terrific stuff away to get links but it is really not that easy and the response was like under 1% success rate. I don't know how they are going to get 100 links in such a short period of time if it isn't some sort of link farm or perhaps sites they control or cross control of their customers or even sites which generally like to link and therefore have a tonne of links. They said they will spread it out and do the linking naturally. Some days a few links are put up and other days none or one as not to trip any spam alarms from the search engines. Seems like they have good control on where to get the links. Anyone have any insight on this.

[martinibuster]

Unless they have control over the links it can be difficult to guarantee a set amount per month. The outcome depends on an unknown third party.

There are several ways to control the links. A common method is to expend effort into lining up an inventory of sites that will reserve a block of links for a guaranteed yearly price. A lower level method is spamming forums across a range of topics to build the inventory.

[MediaGuy]

Anyone that guarantees a magical link solution is just full of it. I get these guys approaching me all the time, some of the promises are outrageous and plain crazy. Eg: 10k of links for $30 and all that...

Ofcourse the issue is one of quality, where are your links going to end up, on what sites, will you get enough traffic, is this on-target or general traffic. General traffic is next to useless if you want sales, and my guess these links will be a mixture of bad and anything upto useless for your needs.

Some link building co's have networks of member sites eg: they all accept set amount of links, and can bet they'll want paying or the link pages that house these links will be jam-packed that any value is seriously diminished.

You wont have any idea about the sites your going on - except whatever they tell you - no proof really, so what your doing is taking a huge risk. What I reckon is its likely a bunch of just anything desperate to exchange links and the quality will be so uncertain, you'll end up with so little from it, you'll lose your cash.

You need assurance of quality and link strength eg: traffic type, established sites or not, link juice, what each participating network site is getting..... just use your common sense.

[Planet13]

Honestly I have done my own personal link development and I gave some pretty terrific stuff away to get links but it is really not that easy and the response was like under 1% success rate.

That can be good as well as bad.

It means that in general, your competitors will have a hard time getting links naturally as well.

It could also mean that you are not taking enough time to understand the needs of the people from who you wish to receive a link.

Remember this: Some people will pay for what others pay to avoid. You should think of those sites as you think of your customers; You need to think of what they want / need, yet are unable to find, and then give it to them. Your stuff might be terrific, but if it is not what they are LOOKING FOR, then the response rates will be low.

So if you are going to be giving away stuff, you should make sure that they WANT it in the first place, and they can't find it anywhere else.

Personally, I would rather keep the high quality material on my site (so that it accrues natural links / social media mentions), and tell other sites about it. I might "give them a taste of it" if I think other sites might find some way to benefit their site from it.

Hope this helps.

[linkbuildr]

they're most likely just spamming blog comments and making 2.0 and forum profiles. Just look at the "clients" link profiles if they have "testimonials". You'll get your answer!

[Planet13]

Just look at the "clients" link profiles if they have "testimonials". You'll get your answer!

good suggestion.

Also, look at the back links of the companies that are offering the services because they will most likely be the same ones that they would use to link to your site.

[creative craig]

Most will be done via 3 way link exchanges and I bet it would be surprisingly easy to get that many backlinks;

- Build a list of target sites - lets say 500 (trawl through Dmoz, web directories, Google search results)
- Use a crawler to visit each of the target sites looking for link exchange type pages with an email address
- Write up email requesting a link to site A and in return they will get a link from site C

I bet most of this can be done in one morning once you know what you are doing. All they need to do afterwards is check their throw away Gmail account for replies and add links to one of their many crappy web directories they own when needed.

There you have it - 100 crappy off target links :)

[bekyed]

If your using crappy backlinks make sure to not point these at your money sites. These links can be good testers on throwaway domains and for getting pagerank on blogs to use for articles etc. There are some cheap services out there to be used for 2 tier linking.

[Crush]

I could get a few 1000 a day using some of the tools that are about. Used to work well, not anymore. You will make a footprint so big that G will come and give you a hulk-like-bitch-slap.

It would consist of comments, forum links and forum profiles. Nasty.

[MediaGuy]

Personally, I would rather keep the high quality material on my site (so that it accrues natural links / social media mentions)

But does it work - will Social networks deliver buying customers/clients to the businesses that use it? I doubt this as its too social for biz users/advertisers, and this could be its flaw when trying to attract paying advertisers.

Just bcos something is big, doesnt mean it will work and thats the fatal mistake on the web. Anything social must also cater for businesses or you cant charge em if it doesnt work.

Just because the people hang out there, doesnt mean they are there to buy stuff.

[anallawalla]

It would consist of comments, forum links and forum profiles. Nasty.

It should be qualified with the proviso that the person who writes comments and link-drops in forums matters. The search engines are paying more attention to the people behind such links. I am active on a few forums (or I was at one time), so I have forum and comment links going back many years using one of three handles. If a forum allows me to post a link in a sig, I do so without any loss of sleep. They are still very low value links and usually no-followed.

OTOH, the signature and profile links and comments organised by fly-by-nighters are usually from unique handles that don't have several years of history.

[hulahoop]

so how do I get someone that does REAL seo. Most of what I have seen are saying they are gonna get links from articles, directory submissions, forums etc. The link portion is the one that I am really concern about as it could set off red flags to search engines that your site is over worked.

Really need some good advise or someone who is legit to get in touch with me.

[hulahoop]

so do link exchange really work anymore?
like a direct exchange between your site and mine?
does it cancel out things or votes?
I also heard that forums and directory links don't matter too much too.
If so why are these SEO fella doing a lot of this still.
Others are like article submission sites.
Doesn't G know about those already?
I really want to hire someone so I can get back to doing stuff I am suppose to do (create a great product), and leave the marketing to the experts. But I can't trust just anyone and want to know what are the guidelines to links and getting links.
I suppose it is by far the most important factor to G when it comes to ranking.

[MediaGuy]

so do link exchange really work anymore?

Ofcourse it works - everything works to a point. Its what point is the question, and here lies the problem or gamble I suppose.

If you want to make money, this isnt easy, its damn hard work, often for years with little success and nothing to show for it isnt uncommon or can be avoided.

Theres those who will pay for links, and each link has a price attactched, and its down to each website how much it can realistically get away with charging eg: £10 a year, £100, 25 etc.

Much link space isnt worth squat, seriously this is true. Thats your starting point for decision making, whats a website truly worth in £££££, and you wont have a clue, most people dont know what their talking about.

One site has cost £200 to set up, another £25k, both with tons of content right, which is worth more to its users - not buyers - users! Link space should be judged on who uses it and how big that market is worth, potentially - then you have a starting point to judge if the link space is worth anything.

Many factors here: website name, amount of content usefulness, traffic flow, years on the web, amount of links to it etc etc. If all thats good its probably worth a link.

Trouble is, the better the site, the less chance you have of getting on it for free. Quality = difficulty level.

If a website has been in the media - its white hot property, if a site has 10 or 20k of links, again - very hot and worth approaching for a link. A good idea is to not set your sites to high, not if you expect a freebie, the big sites will tell you to bugger off more than not.

You cannot be too fussy, nor count on generousity. A link is a link these days, cant depend on Google anymore, very risky putting all your chips on red......

[cashmaster]

link exchanges definitly work and shall continue to work until the hell freezes over.Even if you dont get pagerank from link exchange,you will definitly get traffic from them