Admit it, if you were sure it would bring you to the first page of search results, you’d buy a bunch of links without a second thought.
But there are no guarantees.
Furthermore, you know it can actually be bad for your link profile. Instead of winning high rankings, you have great chances of being penalized by Google for violating their spam policies.
If it’s so dangerous, why even think of buying backlinks?
Perhaps it's not inherently bad. To give you a more definite answer, we’ve researched link buying in and out, talked to the leading SEO experts, and looked into our own experience in link-building.
In this article, you’ll discover:
Yes, buying links is risky.
To begin with, Google clearly states that buying links is against their policies.
What happens if Google spots you’re engaged in a link scheme? There are several potential consequences:
Buying backlinks is risky and I’d personally recommend not buying backlinks.
Buying links goes against Google’s guidelines and even if you don’t get penalized, Google may ignore such links, which means a wasted budget.
Buying links is not a long-term strategy though.
Much to say here, to be honest. But, in general, I believe that the best way to build backlinks is via other ways such as creating linkable assets, doing digital PR, claiming unlinked mentions, relationship link building, etc.
If I were to buy backlinks, I’d probably buy “sponsored” links (rel=sponsored) for parasite SEO reasons.
Buying links is not a long-term strategy though.
SEO Lead at Minuttia
Do site owners get penalized whenever they pay for a backlink? Definitely not.
Buying backlinks comes in different forms. You may pay to acquire a highly relevant link from a reputable source directly or indirectly (for instance, through guest posting), and though it's technically link buying, there's no way for Google to detect it.
Most often, Google will suspect shady practices only when seeing an anomalously rapid influx of links pointing out to one (usually very young) website. Let’s look into this and other troubling signals to watch out for when paying for links.
If you decide to pay for links — which is often inevitable — avoid the following red flags at all costs:
The pricing package of a Fiverr link builder, a.k.a. the biggest red flag đźš© to watch out for.
Buying links is widely viewed as a shady practice. But as long as links matter for rankings, SEOs will continue to pay for acquiring them. Here’s why.
If you go the free way of acquiring links, it’ll take months before the first tangible results start to show up. And by results, we mean increased rankings.
Like a human being, in order to survive, you need food, right? In order to rank, in 99% of cases you need links.
Lead SEO at Honeybadger Digital
When researching a correlation between a page’s rankings and its positions in search, Backlinko found that the top-ranking pages had more backlinks than sites taking lower positions.
The research underscores the significance of backlinks as a crucial ranking factor. It also suggests that to outperform competitors, you need to not only match the number of links they have but preferably surpass them. Say, if you want to take the first position for the “how to set up Instagram ads” query, you’d better try to earn more links than the #1 ranking page from Sprout Social has.
The problem is that acquiring more than 151 links from unique domains may take many months if you choose not to pay for them.
When you buy links, you can quickly accumulate as many backlinks as you need within a short period. This is the main reason why SEO experts are still involved in link buying, but it’s not the only one.
SEOs buy backlinks as doing link building the “white-hat” way requires a considerable amount of time and effort.Â
Buying backlinks also lets you control link juice (PageRank) better, by targeting the pages you want.
So, combine these two and now you know why people buy links.
SEO Lead at Minuttia
When you earn links organically, you have no control over anchor texts or even contexts where your links are placed. But when you buy links, you gain the advantage of selecting placements, dictating the specific anchor text, and making sure the surrounding context is relevant.
With such a level of control over your placements, you can diversify your link profile with fewer links and boost your rankings faster.
In every niche, there are websites SEO experts can only dream of acquiring links from. But let’s be honest — these dreams can easily come true if you’re ready to pay $$$$ for sponsored content.
While it might seem like a hefty investment, it stands out as an effective and often the only way to secure links from coveted sites.
Although there’s no evidence that linking out to websites with low domain authority (DA) is bad for the site’s reputation, young websites are having a hard time earning links through partnerships.
I has recently run a live experiment uncovering the dubious nature of DR and DA. While these metrics can be easily manipulated, it has also become apparent that webmasters rely on them too often.
And of course, the first solution that comes to mind when one gets rejected again and again is buying links. With a bunch of high authority links, SEOs quickly boost their sites’ own DA, making them look more credible in the eyes of their potential partners.
This move not only strengthens the site's perceived credibility but also makes it easier to secure high-quality, relevant placements moving forward.
The cost of a paid link depends on how and where you get it. Here’s a breakdown of prices based on the type and source of a link.
Tiered backlinks are a strategy in link building where multiple layers (or tiers) of backlinks are created to support and strengthen each other, mimicking a natural and diversified link profile.
In this approach, the first tier is usually high-authority backlinks acquired through guest posts or sponsored content. As you move down the pyramid, the criteria for link quality become more relaxed.
The cost of tiered backlinks can vary based on the complexity of the link-building structure. Prices for tiered backlinks often range from $50 to a few hundred dollars, depending on the number of tiers and the quality of the sources.
🚩 This is one of the riskiest link acquisition methods, and we at Editorial.Link don’t recommend it.
Editorial links are one of the safest approaches to building paid links. The approach involves strategically placing links within existing, relevant content on established websites.
It’s like earning editorial links (organic inbound links from large publications) but through outreach. To gain niche links, you need to proactively reach out to site owners and journalists, asking them to make changes to their articles, reviews, or news features.
Being contextually integrated into high-quality content and looking natural, they are also often among the priciest link acquisition methods.
But why?
The thing is, people are hardly ever eager to add links to their content, and for good reason. Alongside excellent communication skills, you also need to have a significant budget to succeed at niche edits link building.
Prices for niche edits can range from $200 to well over $1000 per link. The more credible and authentic the source of the link, the higher the cost.
🚨 The Editorial.Link team will get highly relevant editorial links for your website. We only practice proven relationship-based link-building techniques to gain backlinks from sites like podium.com, monday.com, envato.com, cloudways.com, wordstream.com, and others.
When you collaborate with a website to publish a sponsored article that either explicitly or implicitly promotes your brand, you naturally receive a link to your site, or even a bunch of links, with it.
Depending on the authority of the sponsored site and the specs of your sponsored content, prices may range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per article.
High-quality links are always pricey.
More than a decade ago, you could create unique content, like a stat roundup, and expect it to generate links organically. Today, the competition is too high. Unless you have an established brand like HubSpot, publishing quality content won’t result in hundreds or even thousands of referring domains.
To gain traction here and now, you most likely need to pay. And the more credible the placement the more costly it is.
When we think about the quality of a backlink, we need to understand what and who is behind it.Â
For instance, imagine a team of top-tier marketing experts who have crafted an article. They share their unique experiences and insights, placing their work on the reputable blog of a company valued at over 1 billion dollars. In contrast, elsewhere there is an AI-generated article published on a website that was created just yesterday.Â
What’s common between these two examples? They both can be perceived as forms of link-building. However, consider the amount of resources required to make each of these events happen. This is why quality backlinks can cost a lot. And remember, one high-quality backlink can have a greater impact than 100 average ones. Quality matters and it often comes at a higher cost, but it is worth it.
Head of SEO & Link Building at Rankinghunt
Unless you engage with link farms, PBNs, and other questionable practices, buying quality links is generally safe.
“Safe” is a strong word, but not buying links is usually not an option.
Doing your own due diligence on websites AND your own outreach is by far the safest way to buy a link.
As safe as it can be, at least.
Paid guest posts are the safest, in my opinion, but paid link insertions are the most effective when done right.
Someone should also consider the sum of their links – you have to maintain your link profile as natural as possible
Founder & CEO at Atropos Digital
You can follow this checklist to validate potential placements:
There are so-called foundation links that are very powerful and important nowadays, such as citations, press releases, and social profiles. Google values these a lot.
There’s digital PR, where you pitch stories to journalists, and it’s definitely the best way to acquire links, although not the easiest.
Lead SEO at Honeybadger Digital
When you are involved in link buying, nobody can guarantee you positive results. The good news is that there’s a way to enjoy the benefits of paid backlinks without the risks. Partner up with Editorial.Link, and our experts will gain high-quality contextual links for your website from our wide network of vetted sources.
