Buying Text Links – Day 26

Any important SEO consultant/developer understands the importance of incoming links, preferably one way links. Some websites have no problems gaining one way text links naturally, but many websites have a hard time gaining links and as a result have a hard time competing for Google SERPs due to the lack of quality links.

Thus the link purchasing business was created and sprouted into a thriving niche in the SEO industry, although times have changed and pitfalls were created.

Link text exchanges is a touchy subject around the SEO community, some consider it blackhat while other consider it essential. Google considers link exchanges as a very touchy subject and will remove websites that participate and abuse link exchanges.

Google Removes Link Exchanges Websites from Listings

Google has been actively taking actions to thwart such text link exchanges, so much so that they have begun to sandbox websites that have been actively abusing such services.

Sandboxing occurs when a website has unusual activity occurring, or when new websites are created and target highly competitive keywords. The ‘sandbox’ effect is a portion of Google’s algorithm to analyze new incoming links to websites. In order for the ‘link’ to benefit the actual website it can take 3 – 9 months of linking before that link becomes active.

Link Exchanges Are Dead but What About 1 Way Links?

Purchasing one way links is a great strategy for achieving steady results over-time. There are one way text link brokers that have created some really great tools to get around Google’s sandbox police to make sure that you don’t end up hurt in the long run. How does it work?

Quite simply the programs are created so that two websites never link to each other, and so that there isn’t even a round robin setup for links. A webmaster can purchase a one way link from a list of websites that has similar content. The list is broken down from HIGH PR websites, all the way down to low PR websites.

Here is the catch though, price. The higher the PR website, the more expensive the link obviously. Not to mention the fact that Google may sandbox any incoming links (depends on competitiveness of keyword). This means that it could take anywhere from 3 months – 9 months to start seeing results from a single incoming high PR link. Just to give you an estimate a PR 5 link averages anywhere from $30-$50/mo.

Buying Links = Long Term

Really it comes down to a long term investment, and I use the term investment correctly. You are investing and taking a risk by purchasing one way links from link brokers. You have no guarantees (like with most SEO work) and you could be out a lot of cash before you begin to rank well. So make sure that you know this when purchasing text links.

How to Choose a Link Broker

You want to make sure that you are purchasing links from a reputable broker. One that has been keeping up to date with the changes with Google’s ‘police’ crawlers and knows how to get around them. Remember to not partake in round robin setups, in which one person links to another person which leads to another person. These are all traceable and will get you sandboxed.

I personally recommend LinkXL for their innovations with the exchange programs. They have really taken things to the next level with their innovative widget approach. Their patended system allows webmasters to buy and sell text links directly within existing content. Let’s take the keyword “bass fishing” for example, head over to LinkXL, log in, and search “bass fishing”. You will be produced with a list of websites that are similar content for your keyword and will list pages with pages that already have the targeted keyword in their text.

The real catch and reason I love LinkXL is because they are all natural links within the existing body, not the sidebar or footer. This eliminates the risk of being tagged as a link buyer or seller because you are buying or selling links in the sidebar and footer of your website. Keep in mind that there are rumors that Google doesn’t credit ‘blocks’ of links found in sidebars and footers like they do with in-body content orientated links. HTML contextual links are the future of link purchasing, but play fair and safe to stay under the radar.

[tags]buying text links, buy links, purchase links, link exchange reviews, link exchange help[/tags]