SEO

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Backlinks for SEO

Last updated on May 8, 2018 by Nathan Gotch 6 min read

Table of Contents

Introduction

If you’re a digital cowboy and love the thrill of potentially being caught for buying backlinks, you should leave right now.

The folks who purchase backlinks or who want paid backlinks shouldn’t even start reading this article.

This article isn’t for those of you who wanna buy quality backlinks, or for those who are looking for the best place to buy backlinks cheap.

Buying backlinks is a poisonous practice!

If you wanna buy high quality backlinks, you belong in the internet’s Wild West, where black and grey hats play a digital Russian Roulette.

However, if you’re the more cautious type who is willing to play by the rules and do things as they should be done, I’m about to reinforce your stance.

How?

By telling you the following:

Don’t buy backlinks to your site.

Backlinks: The Easy Way Out

Buying backlinks is what you want, right?

“It’s so quick and easy to buy high quality links or to get backlinks for sale like it’s no big deal.”

This is the first thought in most people’s heads, right?

You probably came here because you wanted to know where to buy backlinks.

You’re all excited and elated about this backlink article.

Buying backlinks?

It’s easy.

Whereas actually going at it the other way is remarkably hard.

Let’s face the truth about why people buy cheap backlinks, shall we?

It’s simple.

Why would you want to go through the motions of:

Creating an A-grade content asset
Prospecting for link opportunities
Making sure they’re actually opportunities
Developing a relationship with the website owners/editors
Asking to feature your content
Testing your outreach – then testing again
Actually producing awesome content, if you’re accepted
Finding and interviewing a writer to create your content, if you’re not accepted
Waiting for the writer to write the content
Submitting the content for approval
Repeat!

That sounds like an awful lot of trouble just for a few backlinks.

Doesn’t it?

This is valuable time that you could be using to create strategies and work on more important things.

Then there’s the non-existent social life.

You’re done with a long day at the office, only to come home and work tirelessly to uncover those precious backlinks.

Does this sound familiar?

Plus:

Buying backlinks will ensure you see results faster, because you don’t have to grind through all of the above, which can take days.

Pretty much all SEO agencies (mine included) have, at some point, bought backlinks.

Yes.

I used to purchase backlinks for my website.

In fact, most agencies will have spent a small fortune to create mini backlink empires.

Sure:

It’s a quick and easy way of getting results, but it very often comes with a price – a heavy one.

That price is a tarnished reputation with Google and a big, fat, black mark next to your website’s name.

Once you’ve been caught, it’s a long, hard slog back into Google’s good books – if you can even get there at all.

Instead of trying to shortcut your way to the top of the ranking, you should play the honest game.

Links: The Honest Game

I know you’re wondering if buying backlinks is actually that bad.

After all, most SEO agencies can teach you about how to buy backlinks since they’ve bought them at some point.

Well…

Buying backlinks goes against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines – the rule book Google lives by.

Is that serious enough for you?

In case you decide to buy homepage backlinks, or wanna buy SEO backlinks for some reason, you’re gonna be entering a deep and mighty obscure cave.

Yes.

If you’re caught, all those months (or years) of hard work will have gone to waste in the blink of an eye.

You’ll get manual action against your site, which means your organic search traffic will be butchered.

Without tons of SEO expertise and even more work than you’d have originally done, there’s no real way back out of that little black book.

I did say buying backlinks was a bad idea.

However, maybe you are the Wild West’s risk-taking gunslinger – Billy the Backlink Buyer (doesn’t have the same ring to it as Billy the Kid).

You live for the now and are prepared to take the hits.

Well, are you also prepared to hand over vast sums of money?

Oh, didn’t you know?

Buying backlinks can be extremely expensive.

It isn’t only Black Hat links.

People who buy PBN links for sale or even White Hat backlinks can get into hot water.

I thought that might catch your attention.

You can very easily spend over $1,500 on a NoFollow link placement.

$1,500 because you decided to buy backlink packages like a dweeb.

$1,500.

Once you’ve finished reading this article, go ahead and make a list of all the marketing activities you could go for with $1,500.

To start, you could reach over 200,000 people with Facebook by boosting your content.

You could even pay a copywriting rock star to write four top-notch articles for you.

And then you’re onto backlinking gold.

However, remember that – even though buying backlinks is a bad idea – there are different levels of risk involved.

For example, buying links on real websites, which have genuine content, is much less dangerous than dumping loads of content into fake websites.

This means you can buy backlinks online with minimum risk.

But still, the risk is always there.

And, in most cases, especially if you buy website backlinks and you decide to bulk buy, you don’t have the foggiest idea where your links are going to end up.

Final Thoughts

There you have it!

The reality of buying backlinks and why it’s better – in the long run – to develop your own.

It will take longer as opposed to just deciding to buy dofollow backlinks like a sleaze.

And it’ll mean a fair amount of work for you.

But, if you persevere, you’ll benefit in so many ways.

How?

Check this out:

You can sleep easy, knowing Google’s enforcers aren’t just around the corner
You’ll nurture strong relationships through guest blogging
You’ll save A LOT of money, which can be invested into other marketing activities
You’ll develop your SEO arsenal for the future
You’ll feel honest – everyone likes to feel like honest, even if they’re not

Those are just a couple of reasons why not buying backlinks will really work for you.

I could go on.

I’m pretty sure you get the message, though.

Balancing everything up.

Is it worth it?

It’s your call.

But guess what?

When we meet again, you can rest assured that all my websites will be safe and sound.

Got it?

Don’t buy PBN links, don’t buy edu links, and don’t ruin your chances of SEO success!

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