Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Buy Backlinks: The Google Cardinal Sin?

A ton of SEO newbies constantly ask me if paying for backlinks, or buying backlinks, is a bad idea, and can it get their website banned or slapped from the Google SERPs? buy backlinks I give the following advice: "Nope, if you go about it the right way you won't have a problem". Allow me to elaborate:

Buying backlinks isn't necessarily a poor idea, given that you understand a few simple things. For example, you can outsource your website's article writing to a reputable freelancer, who will usually post the articles to his or her own account. Article backlinks should always be of very high quality in order to please the search engines- in other words, they should provide real value to the reader.
Or say you decide to outsource your online public relations (forum commenting, blog commenting, social media management and so on).

One way links will be generated to your website in this way. The key here to pleasing Google is that social networking, blog commenting and so on is evidence of participation in the broader online community. Buying these types of backlinks, as long as you stick to the tenets of providing quality and value, will see you rewarded by Google, not slapped or banned.
Lots of business owners will use outsourcing with professional web/SEO providers to manage their work load. Most frequently, a business' very survival rests with having an online presence and this is established most often with outsourcing.

As noted above, this is also a form of purchasing one way backlinks that is palatable to the search engines, given that high quality is adhered to.
So as you can see, there are plenty of legitimate ways to outsource your link building, which is also technically "paying" for backlinks, without incurring a Google slap, or any kind of Google penality for that matter. Now that you have an idea of the "do's", here are a few of the "dont's":
Number one is to stay away from buying backlinks solely with the purpose of passing Page Rank. This is a surefire way to violate the terms of Google's service, which will incur a slap or ban once they catch up with you. Unfortunately, there are a ton of sites out there that actively sell links to pass Page Rank, and in many cases the sites that are highly ranked for competitive keywords all buy these links to stay ahead, making it tempting to follow suit. But rest assured Google will eventually catch all these sites out, and you don't want to be one of them on the day that happens.

Another kind of paid backlink to avoid is what's referred to as "link schemes". In a nutshell, these are intended to artifically manipulate the search engine results with great amounts of reciprocal linking. There are a ton of examples, but basically, if the only reason you're paying for backlinks is to get higher in the Google SERPs, more than likely - in their opinion - your website is participating in a scheme, and can and will be banned or slapped. This is something to avoid at all costs.

So there you have it. There's no shame in buying backlinks, buy backlinks so long as they are providing value and not just being used as a ranking scheme. Online communities you choose to participate in, or have your outsourcer work with, is absolutely fine despite the generation of inbound links. Also, getting your website listed and noticed in the major online directories is perfectly acceptable practice, even if you pay for it. Just don't do anything to manipulate the Google search results - EVER. Because if you do, you may get it away with it for now, but sooner or later, you'll be sorry.