SEO for my website

[draelectricals]

Hello, I've got a question for the SEO experts on here:

Is the process of buying backlinks a good one?

I currently have approx 400 backlinks to my site, but some of my competitors have in excess of 2000. They are the only competitors stopping me being top for my chosen keywords. So I must gain backlinks, but I just don't have time to spend doing all these links myself.

p.s. the site (linked in signature) has been live since January 2010 and has a page rank of 3.

So do I buy the backlinks, and if so, where from, or is there a way to get lots of backlinks free?

I'd appreciate any help.

 

[Websitehandyman]

What you have to consider is what are google up to ? odds are if your site is not getting the traffic it's going to look very odd having 400 backlinks.

This is currently the key part of SEO for me, some "experts" who sell SEO won't tell you this but a lot of their approaches and technics are being rounded up and made worthless by Google.

Well worse then that, where once a link was valid - a comment on a blog network for example - it may now be pointing from an dropped page. What are google calling these new dropped pages ? will they be referenced as bad or something else, we don't know and they sure won't tell us. Pretty sure at best they will move from a positive to nuteral affect on your rankings.

My advice to anyone who wants to improve their SEO is to improve it with good content. Attract more visitors with advertising if you can. At least till we understand where the sea level.

 

[newagemedia]

A sensible approach would be to avoid creating more links to your site than you have visitors.

For example, If you have 3000 visitors per month to your site then it would be unusual to go out and create 50k links. It would look completely unnatural to Google.

It is possible, however to benefit from buying links, but It needs to be done correctly.

It's also best to start off slow and build up the number you create, in order to avoid Link Spikes.

 

[mugatea]

Your top sig link aint done right! No worky!

 

[johnnysheffield]

Just going back to the original question 'Is the process of buying backlinks a good one?' the answer is generally no. As the other posters suggest it can look unnatural and these links tend to have little or no value, don't reside on pages with relevant content and sit on pages that the big G will probably never index. However they won't do your site any harm since if they did it would be easy to generate them for competitor websites.

Save yourself a few quid and concentrate on a good few rather than a worthless many. You don't say whether your pages have been optimised for the target keywords with a decent amount of well structured on page copy. If you do want to purchase links consider writing and submitting a press release or article on PR Log or similiar, write an authoritative blog post on a relevant website etc

 

[RevaxMedia]

Hello, I've got a question for the SEO experts on here:

Is the process of buying backlinks a good one?

I currently have approx 400 backlinks to my site, but some of my competitors have in excess of 2000. They are the only competitors stopping me being top for my chosen keywords. So I must gain backlinks, but I just don't have time to spend doing all these links myself.

p.s. the site (linked in signature) has been live since January 2010 and has a page rank of 3.

So do I buy the backlinks, and if so, where from, or is there a way to get lots of backlinks free?

I'd appreciate any help.

Firstly the link in your signature leads to a 404 error which will add no SEO benefit to your website. To answer your question regarding paid backlinks it can be pretty complex.

Paid backlinks can range from directory links, adspace to generally spammy backlinks (xRummer blasting, SEONuke and various other black hat software).

Directory submissions can work for your business but the directory days are quickly coming to an end - your local newspaper directory would be a great place to start. Directories such as Yahoo who charge a large fee to join do add to your websites credibility but the ROI form such as large entry fee is a little hazy.

Adspace - such as the space offered on this forum can be a good place to generate referral traffic but Google does state all paid adverts must have a nofollow attribute which for referral is good, SEO not so good.

Buying the usual 1000 backlinks for x amount or what ever will have no benefit to your website - I think around 30% of people who approach us has had their website penalized due to buying backlinks and with Google constantly on the look out for new a revolutionary ways to catch you out - it's really not advised on any level.

Referring to your post on Page Rank also - Page Rank is just a grade exclusive to Google to rate your incoming links - High PR does not always mean high SERP rankings.

 

[Simon James]

So do I buy the backlinks, and if so, where

Google "19 march 2012 build my rank" and see how good an idea it is to buy backlinks.
Now that Google have tasked actual real life people to seek out and destroy link buying schemes, this is just the beginning of the "Mother of All Slaps".

 

[brianwood76]

Well I dont think its a very good idea , especially these free lancers have an habit of delivering cheap products and also as per panda update its not a good habit to build 4000 backlinks in one day coz google will sandbox the website permanently and you can lose everything

 

[draelectricals]

Your top sig link aint done right! No worky!

I know - I used to be a paying member; my payment expired and hasn't been renewed as yet. The link is to my old website, which is now defunct; but I can't work out how to remove it!

 

[draelectricals]

Just going back to the original question 'Is the process of buying backlinks a good one?' the answer is generally no. As the other posters suggest it can look unnatural and these links tend to have little or no value, don't reside on pages with relevant content and sit on pages that the big G will probably never index. However they won't do your site any harm since if they did it would be easy to generate them for competitor websites.

Save yourself a few quid and concentrate on a good few rather than a worthless many. You don't say whether your pages have been optimised for the target keywords with a decent amount of well structured on page copy. If you do want to purchase links consider writing and submitting a press release or article on PR Log or similiar, write an authoritative blog post on a relevant website etc

Thanks Johnny

What you have said fits in with what others have said elsewhere and what I'm reading around the web - articles are the way forward apparently.

My pages are well optimised, yes, and the site does do well in the search engines, but I am hampered by one or two sites, that list higher always, and my meta data is better than theirs. The only difference they have is they have been live longer, and have more backlinks. My PR is even better than theirs. I have been trying to get passed them for more than 2 years, so really could do with any advice to do that.

Cheers

 

[fisicx]

I currently have approx 400 backlinks to my site, but some of my competitors have in excess of 2000.

The number of links is irrelevant. It's all about quality not quantity. It's the relevancy of the source to target page and a whole bunch of other things.

My pages are well optimised, yes, and the site does do well in the search engines, but I am hampered by one or two sites, that list higher always, and my meta data is better than theirs.

It is NOT well optimised. The onsite SEO is naff, if you got this sorted you would probably leapfrog some of your competitors. And the meta data is missing from most pages as well (good for clicks but not for ranking).

(BTW: the old site was far better than the new one).

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Richard.

There have been a lot of replies already that should demonstrate the general concencous but I will try to give you a full answer to get you heading in the right direction.

Firstly: Don't buy links

Google really doesn't like it and whilst it is possible to rank better by buying links, it is a dangerous game to play. Get caught and you instantly lose all your rankings and traffic. Seriously not worth it.

If you don't have time yourself then hiring an ethical link building company to do the work for you, and work with them to get good, white hat links (ie, get good links without paying dodgy link networks).

Secondly: Number of links doesn't matter

A single good link can be more effective than 1000 bad links. So the fact that your competitor has more links shouldn't worry you. Additionally, time line of links matters, an older site should generally have more links than a newer one, but if the newer one is getting more attention right now then it might well rank higher.

It's all very complex, but the bottom line is; focus on link acquisition as opposed to total links gained over the history of the site, as some of the older links may not even be relevant any more (and Google knows this too).

Thirdly: On page SEO

I'm not sure what site you are talking about since your sig is out of date, but on page SEO should be a constant thing too. Let me know your home page and I'll see if there is anything obvious that needs addressing. But in general you should also be looking at your site from a visitor's point of view and also comparing it to those sites out ranking yours and thinking about how you could make your site better.

No site is perfect, so don't assume you've done all you can do.

Finally: back to link building...

Focus on things link out reach, link baiting (if your niche lends well to it), guest posting etc to build really good high quality links. It takes a lot of time, but you might only need 4 or 5 a month to tip the balance and outrank your competition.

Hope that helps.

 

[webgeek]

It's no big revelation that Google would want to clean house a bit. The manner in which it's been done however, has caused some headshaking/pounding.

Instead of thinking of buying links, consider that you're investing money to become a publisher

Pay to develop some remarkable content (and not 100x spun crap), post or guest blog it on the interweb, and enjoy the backlink and attention that comes as a result.

The days of buying blog comment and forum profile blasts, spun content spraying via article sites and blog networks... these techniques will not get you the results you're looking to achieve.

 

[Kevin H]

Hi,

to both re-inforce and to a refute the same point commented upon several times above:

You should not buy backlinks! You can and where appropriate buy advertising that links to you and where that link is handled professionally.

What's the difference?

- The first are links that are bought to try and affect your position in the search engines and need to be followed to give you any benefit all.
- The second is advertising, no different in purpose than any other advertising and should be no-followed.

- The first is a Google no-no.
- The 2nd is fine with Google.

- The first is almost certainly a waste of time, especially if bought in bulk and if the link is not where you customers are.
- The second may well bring you some customers, may get your site seen by people with an interest in your product/service/information, and who then, of their own volition write about and link to you (Bonus!! Result!!)


Google in and of itself does not have a problem with paid links; it does have a problem where paid links are designed to, or taken in the hope that, they will help positively affect a site's SERPs position.

 

[Kevin H]

Post amendment:
Re-read the original post and realised that my answer earlier answered comments rather than the original post!! (and I can't edit the original post any more)
So, whilst taking what I said into account in my previous post you can buy backlinks in at least two ways:


You can buy spam links - the only really FREE ones out there. But DON'T. Please. Really not worth it and getting riskier by the day.


Or you can employ someone to look for opportunities to create good links. Basically these will be links (whether in written aricles/blogs/commenting or a multitude of other opportunities) that will get seen by your likely customers and where they are hopefully going to follow the link and generate income for you. BUT, done well, this is not necessarily cheap - spending time looking for good places link from and possibly taking the time to create content is rarely quick and easy.


For me, in general, if you want good, worth while backlinks you need to either put effort or money or both into it.

 

[draelectricals]

Thank you this is good advice I will take it on board

Very simple answer. U just dont need to buy backlinks.
Instead go for few 5 or 10 LINK EXCHANGES genuine ones with relevant industry of yours. If they accept your website then yes you can rank and also get better traffic. However when doing link exchange many factors depends.
I won't recommend more than 10 link exchanges.

As far as natural links is concerned u will need to do lot of digging within your websites internal structure links.

 

[fisicx]

That is poor advice. Link exchanges only work if they are integrated into your site. So for example if you use a product and link to their site then it's a good link. If they link to your site from their product page then it's also a good link. But only if the links are part of the content and fit into the flow of words on the page.

As already suggested, you need to fix the on site SEO first, it needs a lot of work.

 

[webgeek]

Reciprocal links (link exchanges) carry about as much weight as a single social bookmark, perhaps now less.

6-8 years ago, sure 2 way linking. Then 5 years ago, 3 way linking. But seriously, don't waste your time with reciprocal linking.

Outbound link to true authority sites. Inbound link from similar, but don't exchange.

 

[Hire Centre]

I have a similar issue with increasing the number of inbound links to my website. Basically , it's just the number of links u have , it's the number of domains they come from. You can 1000 links but if they come from the same address then I think google counts it as one. You need quality links from multiple domains. I would use link assist of similar to check your competitors links and try and do similar. I would also probably look on peopleperhour.com and get a link builder who does this as their full timework but wants to earn some extra money and get them on board for a bit of link building. you can offer a job out for what you want and people bid. Stay away from stupid promises and link farms though .
Pete

 

[webgeek]

But you don't need thousands of inbound links copied from a competitor to beat them in the rankings.

Create accounts on the top dofollow web 2.0 sites, create a couple of separate websites of your own, post valuable content, link to authority sites, and occasionally link to your money site.

You'll be winning in no time!