Google are always updating their algorithm to address any artificial gains companies get from grey hat techniques such as paid links, directories, guest posting, etc. Any boost you get from these efforts will be short lived and may ultimately end up hurting your rankings in the long run.
There's a reason they're the #1 search engine in the world and it's because you generally get what you're looking for from organic search, rather than just websites with the biggest SEO budgets.
I'd just focus on creating new and interesting content for your website such as resources, news, articles, anything people will find useful and interesting. Try and get people sharing your content and linking to your site naturally. It might be a slow process but it'll save you money and gain trust. The longer you operate in that way, the more Google will reward you (in theory anyway).
There's a reason they're the #1 search engine in the world and it's because you generally get what you're looking for from organic search, rather than just websites with the biggest SEO budgets.
I'd just focus on creating new and interesting content for your website such as resources, news, articles, anything people will find useful and interesting. Try and get people sharing your content and linking to your site naturally. It might be a slow process but it'll save you money and gain trust. The longer you operate in that way, the more Google will reward you (in theory anyway).
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B
boring-friday
- Original Poster
- #5
Theres different types of paid links.
Option 1:Nearly all big agencies and big companies doing their own SEO pay for links, if you pay for links from huge sites its effectively white hat (obviously isn't technically but you'll never get penalized for links from the bbc etc).
Option 2:Then grey hat which is what 90% of 'blackhat seos' do now, generally mimic what a white hat site would look like and speed it up, most of the power comes from pbns. Buy a expired domain with good links going to it, build a legit looking site and link to your money site.
This is what the white hat planks get mixed up on here, they assume these sites always get penalized, they very rarely get penalized, why would they? They're just high quality domains with a legit looking website on.
Option 3:Then theres churn and burn which is just lots of spam mostly on tier 2, pbns again but shared with more sites on them so much easier for google to spot, redirects,link shortners,lots of web 2.0s etc.
People doing this know that they'll get penalized at some point generally from 1 day-6 months but they don't care. If it takes 10 hours and £500 for them to set up and they make £1000+ then they'll just keep doing it.
A lot of the guys doing this are in gambling niches etc so the income is still long term as most of the affiliate sites offer payment on revenue share from their sign ups
Option 1:Nearly all big agencies and big companies doing their own SEO pay for links, if you pay for links from huge sites its effectively white hat (obviously isn't technically but you'll never get penalized for links from the bbc etc).
Option 2:Then grey hat which is what 90% of 'blackhat seos' do now, generally mimic what a white hat site would look like and speed it up, most of the power comes from pbns. Buy a expired domain with good links going to it, build a legit looking site and link to your money site.
This is what the white hat planks get mixed up on here, they assume these sites always get penalized, they very rarely get penalized, why would they? They're just high quality domains with a legit looking website on.
Option 3:Then theres churn and burn which is just lots of spam mostly on tier 2, pbns again but shared with more sites on them so much easier for google to spot, redirects,link shortners,lots of web 2.0s etc.
People doing this know that they'll get penalized at some point generally from 1 day-6 months but they don't care. If it takes 10 hours and £500 for them to set up and they make £1000+ then they'll just keep doing it.
A lot of the guys doing this are in gambling niches etc so the income is still long term as most of the affiliate sites offer payment on revenue share from their sign ups
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S
Sudha
- Original Poster
- #7
You should not buy any links for ranking purpose. Google or any paid tool to check backlinks can never reveal all the backlinks for any site. So chances are there for what you see as backlinks may not be a strong reason for the ranking. Always go for natural backlinks, which is good for long run.
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They might pay for links to be at the top of Google's list, but how much business (as opposed to just click-throughs) are those links bringing them?
Just because someone is at the top of the list doesn't mean they're the best. I would assume most customers would do more research than just clicking through and hiring them straight away.
Don't get yourself caught up in the "must be on the front page". As others have said above there are plenty of other ways of getting your site better ranked. But then also spend the time getting your name out there in other ways. Do you current customers refer you to their friends or associates when they need your service? If not, why not?
Just because someone is at the top of the list doesn't mean they're the best. I would assume most customers would do more research than just clicking through and hiring them straight away.
Don't get yourself caught up in the "must be on the front page". As others have said above there are plenty of other ways of getting your site better ranked. But then also spend the time getting your name out there in other ways. Do you current customers refer you to their friends or associates when they need your service? If not, why not?
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I do lots of training, seminars and present to groups. I remember presenting to a networking group that 'used to have an SEO' and they'd invited me in to talk about what to do with their online strategy since he'd left.
I asked what had happened. Well he'd done such an amazing job with ranking the first few clients they all used him. Google updated their penguin algorithm and the whole group got wiped out online.
Just because someone is winning now by overtly manipulating the rankings doesn't mean they'll keep winning and that you should copy them.
You can get links naturally through making great content and writing to people to share it on their sites. People will say 'oh but my industry is boring' but to be honest that's just because they don't build links for a living, so it's understandable. Tangentially related content is the easiest way to win eg:
"5 Hidden Dangers To Your Kids Hiding In The Carpet"...
Just rinse and repeat with different niches (that one was kids obviously) and think of proper content ideas and titles.
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N
Nochexman
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Z
ZeroDouble
- Original Poster
- #11
There's no problem buying links as long as you're discreet about it, and the person selling them to you makes them look natural (and doesn't advertise the fact that they're selling them).
Coming on a public forum and shining a spotlight on what you're intending to do, probably wasn't the best idea you've ever had though...
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You don't pay for links, you pay bloggers, journalists, article writers, etc. to either publish one of your articles or write an article about you.
The bloggers, journalists article writers know only too well that if a link isn't somewhere in the piece they won't be asked again.
Off course this is perfectly White hat because you didn't pay for the link, you paid for the article, cough, cough.
What I would love to know is how much exactly the owners and editors know, do they know what their writers are doing and turn a blind eye as it gets them content, or are the writers stitching up the owners/editors/publishers too?
Interesting to see the Independent going online only, bet those journalist will have people buzzing around them, especially with Johnston Press taking over i
The bloggers, journalists article writers know only too well that if a link isn't somewhere in the piece they won't be asked again.
Off course this is perfectly White hat because you didn't pay for the link, you paid for the article, cough, cough.
What I would love to know is how much exactly the owners and editors know, do they know what their writers are doing and turn a blind eye as it gets them content, or are the writers stitching up the owners/editors/publishers too?
Interesting to see the Independent going online only, bet those journalist will have people buzzing around them, especially with Johnston Press taking over i
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C
Court Jester
- Original Poster
- #15
problem with link building, is this - too many SEO spammers from foreign countries doing form filling. The sites will boot them so fast, its pointless nowadays, and to get on anything of quality is next to impossible, and the stories of super-seo boyz is bs.
Paying for links isn't bad, after all Google sells them via adwords, so their guilty of the biggest crime of all.
Links should be:
Quality - this means on websites that have respect, traffic and content. Its users are targeted, knowing they'll find what they need quickly and avoid all that clutter you don't need at that time.
Never buy links for links sake, many think a link-profile is about 50k of links like its a twitter account - No! twitter lets you get away with this, but building links the twitter way, is asking for trouble and you'd never do it anyway as the kind of sites that have 50k of links aren't normal anyway and clearly the average biz site isn't worthy of such mass due to zero content - so unless they have 20'000 pages of unique content, their buggered basically, you got to be a certain type of site to attract links and even they get lots of low quality links pointing their way, but just more top-end links too, which is the aim of good content.
------------------------------------
Link-building relies on paid quality, or you'll not get onto the quality sites. So many think they can talk or spam their way onto such web quality - I laugh at that as its just ridiculous to even think that.
Why would a huge site that probably has 200k of links or more, let some little 20 page effort swell its pages, when they can charge ££££ - it doesn't make sense to own a beast, then let everyone take advantage. What starts off as totally free, must go paid once its quota of content/users maxes out - it will go paid for sure every time, then kiss goodbye to free link heaven as most models leave out extra options, cannot get that big or are the wrong model/type to attract enough traffic.
I don't believe in the super-seos and this negotiating cobblers to build link profiles, its lies as I explained above. I checked the links of one in-demand SEO and the links were all naff.
Before you buy links, you must find out more information, you must! Form filling isn't the way, the form cannot talk back... but link buyers won't pick up the phone or email to get the facts, they think spamming is the answer.
Paying for links isn't bad, after all Google sells them via adwords, so their guilty of the biggest crime of all.
Links should be:
Quality - this means on websites that have respect, traffic and content. Its users are targeted, knowing they'll find what they need quickly and avoid all that clutter you don't need at that time.
Never buy links for links sake, many think a link-profile is about 50k of links like its a twitter account - No! twitter lets you get away with this, but building links the twitter way, is asking for trouble and you'd never do it anyway as the kind of sites that have 50k of links aren't normal anyway and clearly the average biz site isn't worthy of such mass due to zero content - so unless they have 20'000 pages of unique content, their buggered basically, you got to be a certain type of site to attract links and even they get lots of low quality links pointing their way, but just more top-end links too, which is the aim of good content.
------------------------------------
Link-building relies on paid quality, or you'll not get onto the quality sites. So many think they can talk or spam their way onto such web quality - I laugh at that as its just ridiculous to even think that.
Why would a huge site that probably has 200k of links or more, let some little 20 page effort swell its pages, when they can charge ££££ - it doesn't make sense to own a beast, then let everyone take advantage. What starts off as totally free, must go paid once its quota of content/users maxes out - it will go paid for sure every time, then kiss goodbye to free link heaven as most models leave out extra options, cannot get that big or are the wrong model/type to attract enough traffic.
I don't believe in the super-seos and this negotiating cobblers to build link profiles, its lies as I explained above. I checked the links of one in-demand SEO and the links were all naff.
Before you buy links, you must find out more information, you must! Form filling isn't the way, the form cannot talk back... but link buyers won't pick up the phone or email to get the facts, they think spamming is the answer.
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My advice: Ignore all the nonsense about not buying links. There is far too much SEO FUD on this issue (mostly from people who read it somewhere or who think SEO is about following the tripe Google pumps out now and again through the Matt Cutts stooge).
Go ahead, buy links. Then buy more links. Just make sure all the links are such that Google can't detect or suspect them as paid. And that's not as difficult as it sounds.
Go ahead, buy links. Then buy more links. Just make sure all the links are such that Google can't detect or suspect them as paid. And that's not as difficult as it sounds.
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I can't believe you'd cast aspersions on Matt Cutts! He's whiter than white and always tells the truth.
Except for that time he claimed that guest posting was the very devil, and all sites allowing guest posts without nofollowing all the links would be taken out and shot - on a site where he let all his Google mates guest post with dofollow links.
The man's a pillock.
The reason Google have to put all their guidelines out through a mouthpiece like Cutts is because they can't reliably implement these things through the algorithm. By scaring SEOs into not doing things Google don't like, Google don't have to work on counteracting these kinds of tactics.
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Probably the best advice you'll get on this thread.^
If you want better SEO results, sort out your landing page. You've given your best meta title to an un-optimised page and your worst meta title to your optimised page.
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