I wanted to share some tips based on my experiences. This may help some webmasters have some ideas when buying text links. Note: Even though tips below could be always debatable, they should be rather commonly acknowledged and recognized among many other webmasters. But I advise that you should ask around to confirm what I have listed below to be accurate or at least acceptable. Key points: Quality site (based on quality backlink profile) Backlink relevancy PR Total outbound links Traffic ~~~~ 1. Avoid link farms This may be too basic, but for the sake of newbies, buying text link on a link farm has absolutely no value. You will only waste your money. *100 or more links on a page is NOT always considered as a link farm. Dmoz has many pages that have over 100 links for example. Be careful more on a site that lists 50 links that are all irrelevant to the site theme and irrelevant to each other. 2. Relevancy I recommend that you should try to build backlinks based on your site niche. If it's a pet site, buy links on other pet sites, pet blogs or pet category page on a directory. This should help create a better link profile; thus more chance to gain PR, and even a higher position in Google SERPs. Relevancy is an important link building factor 3. Check the domain After finding a site related to your site theme, check the domain and make sure it is NOT expired one. Expired domains usually do not keep the current PR in the next Google update. I recommend that you should be extremely careful if you decide to buy a link on an expired domain, or don't even think about buying one! 4. Check the backlinks If the domain gets good backlinks (both quality and quantity), it is very easy for you to determine whether you should buy or not. After all, what makes a good site is usually and often dependent on backlink profile. *Even an expired domain could be decent if it has good backlinks. Recommended tool - http://backlinkwatch.com/ 5. Check the PR If you are simply checking PR with TBPR (Tool Bar PageRank), you are not a smart link buyer yet You should always check its current PR. Also, make sure that the current PR is NOT fake one! Finally, dheck the very page your link is giong to be placed, not just the domain PR. Check Fake PR - http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html Check Current PR - http://www.digpagerank.com/ 6. Total outbound links The price also should be determined based on the total outbound links on a page. Even a high PR page could be so devalued if total outbould links are 40 or more. The fewer the outboud links, the better quality of the backlink. 7. Extra traffic The majority of webmasters don't buy links for traffic, but if SEO is all about ROI, why not consider a possible traffic benefit when there is such an opportunity? Some sellers sell links for this reason rather than PR, and it could be more direct benefit/profit to you. More Extras: Some believe contextual links are better, supposedly G can see such links as more natural links. .gov or .edu links are not treated specially by G (see what Matt Cutts said about it at the end of this video clip.) For a better ranking in G SERPs, find a site that ranks high with keywors that are similar to yours. My last tips: It's better to avoid buying a site-wide text link if all other outbound links irrelevant to the site that sells links. Read more about this at Matt Cutt's blog. *If you find a good tip to be added to the list, just post here
All good tips. I go by those rules most of the time. I break them at times if the link is cheap enough.
Try to avoid buying links from sites that label their link box with "Buy a link here" or "Sponsored links" etc. Its believed that Google is getting smarter about this and might consider your link to be a paid link. Link resellers have started using images or text such as "Great sites for you to check out" to label link areas.
The tips should help you determine and evaluate the offered link, even the price itself for experienced buyers. I didn't want to include any direct tip for the price itself because the number can be changed often. But I guess sometimes low price doesn't need a guide?
That's one of those I also consider as Matt Cutts said so. But the title for links, "Sponsored" has been used for a long time. I am sure there are sites that used for that very purpose, not link selling purpose. So, for Google to penelize them doesn't seem so fair although it could be a matter of webmasters' responsibility to update with what G is doing and its current algorithm. But a site that does sell links should be very careful on the sold link title. I agree that it should not be obvious ones.
I like point of checking backlinks of the link to know 'quality' of that page itself. These days low value high PR pages are mostly presented for advertisement which return no value to advertiser at all.
Those are really nice tips if you really want your site to go high in SERPs... Best thread to get it sticky..
Good tips overall I believe that many people buy links based on price especially when it comes cheap (including me..lol..)
To me its really worthless to buy link on a page which itself has no value. Mostly webpages presented for cheap advertisement gives you no referral traffic + their PR is not proved valuable when checked its backlinks quality. PR figure confusion is created by Google by assigning high PRs to low value linked webpages.
great post coolsitez. It's cleared a few things up meaning i wont have to start one of those annoying threads asking for the same information, J/K
and your neat tool is so helpful. thanks to you, Mong. My tips could be helpful in determining whether the price is worth buying or not. Like I said, I didn't want the price of link itself to be a factor for you to make a decision. But isn't it funny low price always attracts you and makes you forget to check those things?? "oh it's so cheap, I should grab one!" You are rather smart then, Mong. Saving even $1 But most people are tickled by unexpected low prices. Maybe it's like a psychological thing that tempts you to buy. The shock will make your brain go blank for 2 seconds, and that's enough time for you to forget something important.
These are some good tips for buying links, I wonder for how much longer links will make so much of a difference in the rankings. Seems the future might consist of domain age and site trust.
If Google stops using its PR, then that would be the day the main concept of SEO to be changed dramatically. I would not consider domain age to be so big factor. Old domains in terms of establishment, its reputation, recognition, or trust, of a website can impact a lot. So, it's not automatically G thinks Old domains = better than newbies. Just like .edu is not treated specially just because of the extention, domain age probably is treated in the same way. But if an old domain is recognized, trusted, and established with good backlinks over the years, then I have no doubt that G trusts and rank it high in the SERPs. If domain age itself is a strong factor for SEO, expired domains shouldn't lose PR But most of them lose PR, and yes, I know the biggest reason they lose PR is because they change the site theme. I kinda wonder what would happen if the site keeps the same theme, similar content in all pages..... the problem is this is almost impossible.
Nice tips, Thanks alot, really helpful. as a beginner, I have a little question; to get from 0 to a PR of 2, for example, how much should a normal trader aproximately spend on backlinks? I know theres alot of factors that can influence that amount but can I still get an aproximation? Thanks
A very nice tips. Though nothing's new I'm sure this would be great as a reminder when someone wanted to buy links. Thanks!
It's not difficult to get your site to PR2 at all. It depends on how many high PR backlinks you can get, but for example, if you can get one PR4 baclink, your site will most likely become PR2. Or 10 PR3 links should be enough to make your site PR2. As you know there are many things can get involved. The examples are based on some conditions such as; If Google passes PR points If total outbound links are around under 25 To speed up the process, you might want to get; one way links relevant links high PR backlinks
I also recommend using SEOmoz's Page Strength tool because it gives you a lot of helpful information at the same time.