by the time your site gets shit canned by google you might have already made millions so it might be worth it.
Are you guys claiming that G will penalize for BUYING links? Can I buy a lot of links for your site and get it penalized? Can I run an auto link spam generator for your site and get it canned?
Yeah, that's what they say for years and nothing has changed to these days. People still buy links and Google does not really suffer because of that, it gets rich guys up in SERPs for their efforts. Theoretically you can. You can try, but Google is not as smart as some people think. Personally I don't think you can easily affect your competitors' rankings (SERPs) by pointing a load of spam-links to their website.
I wouldn't recommend buying links, i consider it stealing... Many webmaster work really hard to promote their sites to have someone with bigger pockets take their livelyhood without doing anything. Please read about 104 ways to get backlinks here: http://seonoobs.com/104-ways-to-get-backlinks-mega-backlink-guide, great content!
There are people who buy their way to the top, and those who work hard to get there. If it is cheap, why work hard when you can rocket your site to the top in just few weeks. Stealing has absolutely nothing to do with this promotion method. That's how things work online and in real world.
I can't believe you just said that to somebody so highly regarded Stephen. Quite astonishing really - he's one of 3 SEO guys I'd actually listen to on this forum, combined with SweetFunny and Dan Schultz, I'd say they're on a par as DP's finest SEO's
It is not stealing because nobody deserves a ranking. If someone use your logic in the offline world, then its "stealing or wrong" when a corporation or business advertise on tv, newspapers, etc because mom-&-pop stores can not
I understand that.... I have planty of money to buy links, don't understand me wrong... But let me give you an example from my personal experience: I ahve been working really hard to promote my site, you can say 90% and more acting by the rules as i know them. I have a really high content site, over 20,000 pages and selling hugh variety of Authentic items. About a month ago i saw a competitor website climbing fast on search engines charts, he has no content, not as many pages and ralevency, infringing on many brand names and having 4 times more incoming links than me by buying them. Now, I know that it's not an even plain field.. But aren't the rules meant to keep it that way? Aren't the buyers affected most? Not taking a chance to be banned by google I still don't try to compete in that way even though I can if I want to But the fact is by breaking the search engines rules that other person is stealing someone elses business, am I wrong? I guess you can say that I'm a goody tushu... LOL
Bonus--- I don't know any intelligent SEO person that has been claiming for years that BUYING links will penalize you. Can you point me towards your source for this??? I believe that the general consensus is that G may negate the juice from a detected bought link, but penalize over it?? That's a stretch, no? Hot--- You really consider buying links stealing? That's a little out there man.
EVERY top ten site in EVERY competitive niche purchases links. As far as internet dirt goes, that is the least dirtiest of all of them. I agree that it sucks though. It sucks that G even considers links at all. But with that a given, what else can you do? Sure, some niches lead to the possibility of gaining some natural links, but others don't. With many of the best paying niches, no one would ever naturally link to you. Even where that is possible, you can never gain enough links naturally in most niches. You've never sponsored wp themes, submitted to link directories, paid for blog posts, etc??? Heck, just adding your link in your signature here is the same thing. You are trying to unnaturally gain an advantage by spreading your links on the net. While you are not paying cash to link on dp, you are spending your time do so, and time is nothing but $.
That's just because you're cheap, or your time is worth less than the amount it would cost to buy them instead.
Not cheap at all. I just don't like buying them. I have 100,000 for over twenty sites. Why would I buy them?
a- If your time used creating links costs more than it would to just pay for them. b- If you can not create/ place the types of links you need without paying for them (high traffic sites, high pr sites, etc.). c- If the links would create an immediate positive return (direct advertising). d- If the links would create a future positive return (serp rankings).
My big question regarding this is if using a service like gotlinks.com to buy one way links ethical and legal in the eyes of search engines?? Is them putting your link on a link exchangepages on other sites forbidden or not?? I guess i'm kinda confused of where the buck stops for Google's not buying links rule....