Buying backlinks is a very popular option for SEO, especially so in past year where it made up the base of SEO techniques. However, is buying backlinks a good idea, especially with Google?
Firstly, why is buying backlinks so popular? Buying backlinks is often the fastest way to build up your backlink profile, so if this means quickly increasing your ranks, it’s a temping option for many business. However, there is a problem.
In Google’s guidelines, Google clearly state that buying backlinks in a breach of their guidelines. Any website found to be buying backlinks will be penalised by Google, which will result in losing all ranks, and this can happen for 6 months or more. Many sites that have been penalised never recover.
If the risk is so great, why try it? Many businesses do buy backlinks, and it does work for them. This is especially common in very competitive industries, and many of them don’t get caught doing it, which means easy and quick rankings. And the reason for this is that there are millions of backlinks and it can be hard for Google to see the difference between bought backlinks and natural ones. So here if where the dilemma lines.
It is also possible to buy high quality backlinks, which look like real links, and therefore the risk in minimal. If you are considering buying links, this is the best, low risk option. However, due to the quality is these links, they are often quite pricey. You can expect to pay a considerable amount a year for them, and just one won’t make too much difference. Another thing to also be wary of is claims of “guaranteed #1”. If someone makes this claim, you should be very careful what you are getting into.
What you should never consider is high volume, low quality cheap links, sometimes sold in “link packages”. These are low quality links which are often quickly picked up by Google and can get you into trouble. If you do decide to buy links of any sort, do consider the consequences and costs and know what to expect if your website it caught.
What do you do if your website has been penalised?
If your website has been penalised, or you have found yourself in possesion of a website that had been penalised, there are steps you can take to get the website’s penalisation removed. The first step is to try to get all the links removed. This can sometimes be difficult due to reasons including the number of links, old sites not maintained any more and webmaster who refuse to remove them.
Google has provided a feature where you can disavow links from your website, which is like stating that you do not want these links to be counted as part of your backlinks. You can submit a list of links for consideration.
We at YHP offer BtoC and BtoB services helping with backlinks. Our methods include link removal, disavowing and domain washing.
For further information on backlinks, visit the following pages:
What are backlinks and how do I use them?
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