I’ve been following search engine optimization for a few years now, but one thing I never really took a liking to was link buying. I hated the idea that you could pay for links back to your website, and that would somehow contribute to your overall ranking, putting you up above some other guy talking about the same deal, who maybe doesn’t quite have the budget to go out and buy a bunch of links. With the search algorithms getting so good though, I kind of thought link buying was all done with and what not. Although, you should know, most of what’s commonly perceived to be known as search engine optimization is simply a couple clever guys finding the holes in the current search algorithms. With that said, I’m at no shock at all to find sites claiming to be authorities on the topic, yet writing articles on how to evade the mighty Google in the detection of paid for incoming links.
Curious, I decided to have a stab at it myself, at the very small but possible chance of Google smiting me. I started with the Best of the Web Directory (at the time, BOTW was at a PageRank 7 but has since fallen to a PageRank 6), which offered either an annual recurring charge of $100, or a one-time only charge of $300. I personally like to jump in head first when I do on the rare occasion, take risks, and so I went for it with the one-time only for $300. What I can’t believe is that you don’t have any guarantee that your site will even be added to the directory, despite the very expensive cost. People have no problems buying into it though, and it’s amazing how many websites are in the directory; imagine all that money being made! Well, I’m $300 poorer than I was before, and all I’ve got to show for it is one link, which isn’t even on the homepage by the way. You see it’s only the homepage that actually has a PageRank 6, which is important to know.
Not feeling satisfied, I thought I’d give it a little extra push by buying a few more premium links in paid directory listings, which also included 100 submissions to free directories. The rate was $160, which is a lot less; however the PageRank of these websites is a bit lower, mostly averaging PageRank 3 or 4. Now I’ve spent $460, supposedly have 106 incoming links, and I’m hoping that my money is going to either bring me traffic, boost my PageRank, or both. Now remember, these things don’t happen overnight. It takes time for Google to make an update, determine how your website has changed and where it should fall. I don’t really know what kind of a time frame we’re looking at, and honestly I don’t think anybody but Google knows. To be safe, I thought I’d give it a solid 2 months from the day of buying the links to start looking around. Based on the data from my analytics, none of these directories that are supposedly linking back to me are directing any traffic, maybe 5-10 unique visitors in one month.
Naturally none of the very little traffic is proving any sort of conversion, and my PageRank hasn’t shown any movement. Granted, if my PageRank did show an improvement in the last 2 months, it could’ve been due to other factors, but it just so happens I was really busy in that time period working on client websites, leaving me unable to further push my website. In consideration, I can confidently say that if you were to buy almost $500 worth of links, you too would be suckered with no results. Link buying and in my opinion directory submitting is dead. If you want a real back linking strategy, build great content for your site and don’t look back. Save your money for something useful like a great copywriter or maybe an even better web designer, like myself! Har har.
