Being approached by link buyers

[owldeath]

Since one of my sites started rising in the rankings I'm being approached every day by people wanting to buy text links.

1. Is it a good idea to sell text links and will I be punished in google even if it is just a few, relevant links?

2. What is the going rate for a text link? They do not want to give a figure but are asking me about prices.

Many thanks if you can help.

[rak]

I get a tonne of people asking this. Anywhere from 100-500 a year for a text link.

I avoid them.

[gamblingdomainer]

I don't think there is any harm in selling text links as long as they are relevant and your site has some quality content.

[owldeath]

Thanks, can anyone confirm these posts? No penalty if relevant and $100-$500 a year? And is that for one page or sitewide, sub-sitewide etc?

[casinobonusguy]

if they come from gmail or other free emails ignore them , there are a few good sites who do buy links that iw ould consider safe to work with.These days we delete everything 100%

[casinoplanet]

No penalty to my knowledge, if it's not a bad neighbourhood site.

I recently got an offer from a decent company of $25 a month, so I guess the price range is correct.

[arkyt]

Ive found that most of them are looking for cheap deals - Just tell them you want $5000/year for the link - they will remove you from their list real quick.

[rak]

Thanks, can anyone confirm these posts? No penalty if relevant and $100-$500 a year? And is that for one page or sitewide, sub-sitewide etc?

One page or one article. They usually want the keywords on an article I am ranked well for on my blog network.

[johnbenjamin]

Since one of my sites started rising in the rankings I'm being approached every day by people wanting to buy text links.

1. Is it a good idea to sell text links and will I be punished in google even if it is just a few, relevant links?

2. What is the going rate for a text link? They do not want to give a figure but are asking me about prices.

Many thanks if you can help.

If you are looking to make money besides just your aff commissions, then yes it is a good idea. So long as the site is relevant. However bear in mind other factors such as not to have too many outgoing links on your site as well. Most paid text links will require a dofollow, so be prepared for that.

The market rate is what you and the buyers can negotiate on. If in doubt, you can visit sites like TextLinkAds. When you register they usually give you a certain price, based on whatever their algo is. Considering that the price they set for your site is minus commissions, hike up the price by a couple of $$'s. Avg price is somewhere between $25 - $75/article with 'one' dofollow link.

Also consider where they want the text links to be placed (site wide =NO). In article always works best as it looks more genuine and also offers your buyer a fair deal.

Hope this helps.

[sherone]

If there is some extra Out bound links in your site, There is a high chance to get penalized by google.

[Karima AffiliateClub]

The way i approach such questions is:

1) see who is buying (company - site content & relevancy - etc)
2) use your common sense: if it is too good to be true it often is, settle for a smaller amount with a more reputable company
3) will MY visitors benefit from it

[michael1981]

I personally just ignore these emails. If your site rises to the top of Google for a good keyword, you don't want to risk making $25/month to lose potential thousands in player commissions.

You also run the risk of linking to a website that is black hat, or might become black hat in the future, at which point you will get penalized for linking to them.

[Zoorana]

I'd normally ignore these emails. If you are interested however, i'd strongly advise you to give that domain a good background check before you accept.

[Ixian]

If there is some extra Out bound links in your site, There is a high chance to get penalized by google.

Seriously, WTF?

[topboss]

I actually had a situation with one of my sites where google sent me a message in webmaster tools to say "unnatural links detected" - They didn't ban the site but they did remove the page rank.
It is all sorted out now...but this tells me that they do keep an eye on outgoing links.

[RyanTheRave]

Selling Links is fine and it's a great way for you to make some extra money however there is something - having Outbound Links on your site basically drains the link juice from your site and passes it onto others so if you are conducting SEO on your site to appear well in Google then the more links you that are leading out to other people's sites then the more link juice you are giving away and you are taking more power away from your site

[WinYourWayKyle]

I have never been a fan of buying links.
The best kind of links are the ones you get yourself and link up to yourself.

[evilgenius]

Hello. One quick question here regarding google penalizing my site for outbound links. I'm planning to add a free directory service to my site where everyone can submit there own site for free listing. What are my risk here? ...and regarding that 'link juice' mentioned above, will I lose that much if this will be the case?

[RyanTheRave]

No risk to you really but your site will be discredited like hell and will have all the "link juice" taken from it so I would highly recommend against it.

[evilgenius]

No risk to you really but your site will be discredited like hell and will have all the "link juice" taken from it so I would highly recommend against it.

Im confuse no risk then I will be 'discredited like hell'? Can you please define what 'discredited like hell' means?

Basically what are my prons and cons in doing so? (Creating a directory service on my site.)