Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is there such a thing as buying white hat backlinks? (example)
-
Hi, would you guys recommend using a backlink service like this?
https://www.peopleperhour.com/hourlie/gain-30-links-from-30-top-newspaper-sites-in-the-uk/396519Or is this the kind of thing that leads to being penalised?Over the years, I've always been told this is black hat and dodgy. Is that always the case?
-
When I started my website, https://webylinks.com/, intiallyI was heavily invested in purchasing hundreds of backlinks. However, instead of rank improvement, it dropped from 16 to 15 DA. So, I shifted my strategy to earning quality backlinks through white hat methods. I have also shared my experience on this journey here https://webylinks.com/how-to-create-quality-backlinks/. I strongly recommend to earn them through proper content, make strategies and engage with niche relevent websites.
-
We believe that the only way to get backlinks is to earn them.
What we mean by this, is to write high-quality content marketing, such as well-written blog posts, then other businesses may want to link to you.
Make sure the blog posts are written in a white-hat way.
-
Yes there is, especially for local SEO. Chamber of Commerce for cities are awesome links. The cities usually require a yearly fee to obtain these do-follow links.
-
Hi there,
I'd agree with the other replies in the thread in that these links are likely to be risky. They may well work, but they're not the kind of links that Google necessarily value, so the amount of time they work for could be pretty limited.
Reading the description of the ad, it sounds like they are submitting to the business directory section of UK newspapers which is actually not a bad tactic. But paying someone to do it for you without knowing fully what you'll get in return is where the risk lies really.
More broadly, I think that buying links is always going to be risky and therefore moves it into the grey hat area of tactics. It can still work and in some niches, it's almost necessary, but I still wouldn't advise it for most people.
Hope that helps!
Paddy
-
I agree with Skye AP. There's no lasting value to paid links, just increased risk. I know it's cliche, but your best investment is in creating and publishing truly original, sought-after, high-quality content and then promoting the heck out of it on sites where your best prospects, customers, peers, and influencers like to hang out.
-
I've personally used services like this one and others just to test the efficiency of it vs natural link building techniques and the conclusion I came to is that even if it was legal, it would still be a waste of time. These types of bought links fall away eventually as they make space for the next person wanting to buy it and I think that a certain aspect of those sites are focused on automated / generated content which will get flagged later on turning those high DA links into spammy links that bring over penalties and spam score anyways. The links you can buy that are "safe" would be costing you around $400 per link so unless if you have a huge piggy bank ~ that's not an option either. Advice would be to forget about paid links completely and focus on the guidlines the search engines give you and just go the natural route.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Backlinks from The Sun, New Yor Post, etc...
Hello there, Some of my competitors have backlinks from very well-known newspaper websites like New York Post or The Sun. And it is really obvious that their backlinks are paid ones. On these news websites, they don't talk about ghost writing stuff or "partnership" for backlinks. They only write about banner advertising. So I was wondering how they can get a backlink from them.
Link Building | | Veptune
Do some writers sell those backlinks somewhere else, under the table? Are they in contact with SEO agencies who paid them and if this is the case, does their "manager" know it? or does the company directly have partnerships with SEO agencies? Basically, how to get a backlink from the NY Post or The Sun ? Thanks0 -
Backlink Transparency with SEO Agency
Hello everyone. I recently started working with an SEO agency and today they gave me an updated keyword report which showed some increase in rankings. I was not aware that any backlinks had been created yet so I asked for a report of the links. Their response is below and I am just wondering if this is normal practice being I have not worked with any type of SEO agency yet. "
Link Building | | wonderd24
Hey Daniel, We release a small report on them which the guest blog team will do soon. We don't reveal all backlink sources unfortunately because people have tried to bother the webmasters we have and basically steal our techniques. But rest assured you will be ranking at the top of the pack with our methods 😃
"1 -
Backlinks from translated content
Hello, We have quite a few articles "out there" that give us backlinks. We were thinking of also translating the content and submitting it to local content websites, so it can provide us with more backlinks. The main questions here, will this content be recognized as the same content as the English version? Also, being in another language, some of the anchor text might not hit the English keyword. Not sure how Google sees it. Any advise on the matter? thx!!
Link Building | | PangeaLangs0 -
NoFollow & Directory Scraper Backlinks
I was wondering how important it was to remove/disavow: NoFollow backlinks - many ("buy viagra" etc). Directory backlinks - many questionable/generic directories. Obviously the focus is the equity passing links but both of the above constitute a significant proportion of backlinks to the site - I've seen that "scrapers" are seen as natural and obviously NoFollow do not pass link juice - but does the sheer number have a bearing and therefore make them equally important to address? Thanks in advance for your responses. Regards
Link Building | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Adding backlinks in old articles?
I am trying to get a few more links to get a few of my pages to rank and I am thinking about adding some more backlinks on my own site on some of the old blog articles as well as some of my other related blogs. My question is - is it still beneficial to link from these articles that are say 1 year old or more, or would it be far more valuable to write new articles on the blog containing those same links?
Link Building | | bloggingyourpassion0 -
Top 20 sites for backlinking
My security jobs website was doing very well in Search engines until the penguin got hold of me. I don't profess to be at pro at SEO however seem to have a knack of getting sites to rank well. I think I made some basic mistakes with the original security jobs website, to many links to soon, so I have started again and will build up slowly the backlinks quality rather than quantity this time. My questions is what are the top 20 or so sites that are good to backlink from?
Link Building | | SecJobs0 -
What are "naked backlinks"?
Hello SEOmozers! I have a question for you all. What are "naked backlinks"? Can you also give an example? Thank you! woo aka STPseo
Link Building | | STPseo0 -
How good is a backlink that's in the footer
Hello, The strongest site in our industry (according to domain authority and excluding wikipedia) said that they would put a sitewide link to us in their footer. We're good friends with them. It would be right next to the copyright. Our site is nlpca (dot) com The partner site is nlpu (dot) com The link will say something like "More NLP Training" with the "NLP" as the link. We're targeting the keyword "NLP" How much will this move us up for the keyword "NLP"? Right now we're on the 3rd page for that term. I also want to make sure that it's a white hat move. Thanks!
Link Building | | BobGW0