You can buy SEO backlinks, but should you?
Regarding link-building practices in SEO, backlinks play a crucial part in establishing your website’s credibility, ranking potential, and overall authority.
Backlinks are a key component of SEO strategies and can be earned through the implementation of organic content and outreach. As with all good things, this process can take time – which means some businesses might choose the quicker option of buying backlinks outright.
However, according to Google Search Engines, buying or selling links as part of a larger scheme will negatively impact your site’s ranking. It also comes with various risks and ethical queries.
To support your digital marketing strategy, this guide will unpick the risks, benefits and best practices when it comes to link-building.
So let’s dive in.
Understanding Backlinks
But first: what is a backlink and why do they matter?
Simply put, backlinks are hyperlinks from external websites that refer back to your website. From these inbound links, search engines consider these as authority and relevance indicators – especially if they have the following qualities.
Top-quality backlinks must stem from reputable websites within your chosen industry or sector. That’s because these links have more authority in the eyes of search engines, which can help boost overall rankings.
It might seem like a given, but you should be also sourcing backlinks from websites that are relevant to your own content, industry and most importantly, audience. Relevance enhances the credibility and value of the link in the eyes of both search engines and users.
As part of any solid SEO practice, the anchor text of a backlink should offer some extra content to search engine crawlers about the content of your page. Ensuring this text is optimised with the correct keywords can improve your overall SEO performance.
So, what are the benefits of buying backlinks?
When it comes to boosting SEO rankings, buying backlinks may seem like a quick fix. But like any potential ‘grey-hat’ activity, there are numerous pros and cons. From shaving time off your activity to improving rankings, an ethical backlink buying profile can offer benefits.
- Better Rankings
In order to increase visibility for targeted keywords, acquiring backlinks from authoritative websites is crucial.
- Quicker Results
In comparison to organic link-building efforts, buying backlinks straight out can get you improved traffic and rankings, compared to organic link building.
- Time-Savers
In cases where businesses are pushed for time or simply don’t have the resources to invest in manual outreach and organic link-building campaigns, buying your backlinks can shave off crucial time that can be reinvested elsewhere.
The risks of buying backlinks
As with any ‘grey-hat’ activity, buying backlinks as an SEO practice has its risks. If overused or ‘spammed’, you could see your website’s SEO performance impacted – as well as your website’s visibility. Some things to consider include:
- Penalties
Manipulative link schemes don’t go unmissed by search engines. Google, for example, views the buying and selling of links to fall under this category – leading to extensive penalties. Google also employs several human reviewers so they will be able to detect your paid links. These can result in the loss of traffic, low rankings or even complete removal from the SERP.
- Low-quality
Link-buying is still big business – but it doesn’t guarantee quality. Many websites that offer to sell and allocate backlinks often ‘farm’ these results, meaning you get irrelevant links that could hurt your website’s overall credibility.
- Resource Wastage
If you’re investing in low-quality links that offer very little value – then frankly, it’s a waste of time. Because Google can now detect paid links, it often ignores them so it can be a waste of money and effort.
Embryo’s best practices for buying Backlinks:
If you’re going to use backlinks, you need to exercise caution and stick to the best practices outlined by our team of SEO experts.
Why not save this list for future reference – or bookmark this page?
- Focus on Quality Over Quantity: Get backlinks from the best, most authoritative sites within your industry or niche, regardless of whether it means obtaining fewer links overall.
- Check your link providers: Make sure your providers stick to ethical SEO practices wherever possible.
- Diversify Anchor Text and Link Profiles: Make sure you’re diversifying your link profile with a mix of anchor texts and link types for varied backlinks.
- Check performance: Keep an eye on your backlinks by using tools like Google Search Console to nix any links that could have detrimental effects.
Claire-Marie Wilder
"Whether you’re paying for them or working to attain natural ones, quality is always better than quantity. 100 links from websites that are designed purely to earn money from links is nowhere near as valuable as 2-5 links from sites with high domain authority where you have created valuable content. Often, by trying to buy backlinks, brands invariably end up purchasing from black hat SEO sites that aren’t focused on users which goes against everything Google has been saying for the last few years. Sure you could buy links but, in my opinion, you’re better off working hard to create content that earns backlinks naturally."
Final thoughts
If you’re a business looking to boost your reach, buying your backlinks can be a great way to quickly improve your SEO rankings. However, you must practise this with care and caution, prioritising high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources wherever possible.
But if you’d like a professional opinion – or would like a bespoke organic plan made for your business – our experts can help.
Sounds good? Get in touch today.
FAQs
Answered by our SEO team
How does Google recognise backlinks that have been purchased?
Key signs of this include content not being relevant and anchor text being heavily branded to the link domain. Relevance and naturalness are key. Google also looks at the spam score and quality of the links both for your website and your competitors. If your backlinks don’t have a similar level of quality backlinks to competitors, Google may see this as spam.
What are some examples of penalties given by Google?
The most common type of penalty is given out through the Penguin update, released in 2012. Sites which heavily rely on black-hat tactics risk having pages, and topic clusters being removed from the SERP. Google is shifting its opinion on what it thinks a bad backlink looks like, which has mentioned it may ignore poor quality backlinks and start recognising no follow links.
Does buying backlinks guarantee an increase in my Domain authority?
Backlink buying may see an increase in your domain authority initially, however, this would shortly be followed by a sharp decrease once Google has identified the black hat- tactic. You may even end up with a lower DA than when you initially started.
What is the average cost of buying backlinks?
This depends on the domain strength, quality and quality you are looking for. Ultimately people can sell backlinks for whatever they wish to. Over time buying bad quality backlinks could cost you much more in website maintenance.
