Think Twice About Buying Tons Of Spammy Backlinks
One question I see get asked a lot on different online marketing forums is “should I buy backlinks from Fiverr“? The people asking this questions are generally looking at Fiverr gigs that promise hundreds or even thousands of “high quality backlinks” for $5. For non-suspecting buyers who are usually new to internet marketing, these deals seem like steals. But the reality is that you’re usually better off using your money to buy a $5 foot long from Subway than buying those huge link blasts.
Link Building Has Changed ( a stupidly short history lesson)
I know a lot of you are probably wondering why there’s even a need for a post like this. You’ve probably known for a long time that sending hundreds of backlinks to your site isn’t a great strategy for building links. Unfortunately, everyone isn’t aware of this yet, and others know but choose to ignore it. After all, there’s still people building sites using spun content.
For those not in the loop, or new to SEO or online marketing. a strategy that A LOT of online marketers and people who made money online used to do was send as many backlinks to their sites as possible, and they would be able to rank for their target keyword, usually within a matter of weeks or even days in some cases. Good old Google caught on to this trend, and a bunch of marketers found their sites completely gone from the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
What was the lesson that this taught marketers? That quantity was no longer the way to go. What Google has always wanted, or at least supposedly, was for the highest quality sites to appear at the top of their results page for relevant searches. Years ago, having a large amount of links pointing to your site was a strong signal to Google that your site was relevant and important for your targeted keywords. But eventually, Google realized that the volume of backlinks alone wasn’t a clear indicator of the quality of a site because it could be easily manipulated. So instead, Google started putting a lot more importance on the quality of the sites you get backlinks from.
For instance, a backlink from a reputable site like Mashable is worth a lot more than 100 backlinks from an article directory. Why does Google think a link from Mashable is more valuable than one from an article directory?
- It’s harder to get a link on Mashable
- Mashable is an authority site
- Mashable has a stronger presence online
- Mashable is filled with high quality content
So basically, Google favors backlinks from high quality reputable sites much more than low quality ones.
Link Building: Quality over Quantity
My whole point of this post was to help you change the way you view and think about building links. If you’re buying a link building service, don’t just look at the number of links you’re getting. Look at the quality of the links. You can find this looking at what type of links they’re going to be building. If they involve posts to article directories, a bunch of low quality Web 2.0’s (some Web 2.0’s are very great though), or spammy blog comments, then I would probably look elsewhere.
Here are some basic tips when you’re ordering link building packages:
- No spun content: Spun content is crap. I don’t care what anyone says. Unless there is someone manually rewriting the articles, the final product isn’t going to be quality.
- Legit links: A lot of people bash blog comments for link building. But the truth is that they are very great links, but they have to be done right. The comments have to be real and genuine. With any type of links you get, make sure they’re legit.
- Link variety: If you can get a package that offers links on document sharing sites, video sites, blog posts, Wikis, legit blog comments, quality Web 2.0’s, presentation sites, image sites etc., that is awesome. This sends Google a ton of great signals from a variety of types of sites and media.
- Contextual links: There’s a reason Private Blog Networks are winning right now. Contextual links are links within a body of text, typically blog posts. The more of these you can get, the better.
- Good metric sites: When I first got into online marketing, I had no idea that the age, domain authority, page authority, etc. mattered. But from my personal experience links from sites with great metrics kick ass and will give you much better results.
These are just some of the things you should look for. Also look at reviews for any link building or SEO services you’re thinking of using.
My Link Building Recommendation (YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT!)
Are you sitting down? You might want to brace yourself for this golden nugget I’m about to give you on the best method for building links. Are you ready? Are you sure? Here we go. Drumroll. PBN’s!
Just like I mentioned earlier and in previous posts, private blog networks are where it’s at. Links from high quality PBN’s are probably the best route to go if you plan on buying a link building service. I’ve personally had great success with them and plenty of other online marketers have too.
In addition to PBN’s, you can also mix in some of the other types of links I mentioned like document sharing sites, Wikis, and even social media. I’ve reviewed two different PBN’s on this site that should give you a good starting place if you’re looking for a PBN. I suggest checking them out:
Marvel Authority Network Review
Say Goodbye To Link Blasts
Hopefully I’ve done a decent job of convincing you to focus on quality backlinks vs quantity. I really suggest avoiding services that blast your site with a shit ton of low quality links. Not necessarily because it will get your site removed from the SERP (a lot of times it actually won’t). The reason I recommend avoiding them is because you’ll get much greater and longer lasting results by building quality links.
With all that said, I’m a huge believer in testing things out for yourself. The advice I give is based on my own opinion and experience. If you’ve been building sites and ranking them and getting the results you want by doing the exact opposite of what I’m suggesting, more power to you. But this is the way I’m building links and I invite you guys to give it a try too and see what type of results you get. What link building methods have worked best for you?
