Buying backlinks. Is it legit?

[bestbunt]

Hello all, I've noticed after running Semrush searches or various other backlink checking tools that many of the high ranking websites have many related and unrelated backlinks.

I can't help but feel a lot of these are not organic and have been bought, yet these sites clearly haven't been punished by google.

Can anyone shed some light.. Is buying related gambling backlinks considered black hat and does anybody do this?

Thanks in advance

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[Sherlock]

Buying backlinks. Is it legit?

Yes it is legit if you are asking if it is legal.

Is buying ... backlinks considered black hat

Yes it is blackhat, as any unnatural link manipulation (like exchange) is unwanted by search engines.

It seems like almost no people make a difference between what law wants and what one (albeit very powerful company) wants. You as webmaster have no contract with Google. You never signed anything like that you will not buy links or something like that. Asking about legitimity makes no sense.

There is simply one huge monopoly that is stretching from East to West and the monopoly has a huge power. But you are free to not follow anything the monopoly wants. But the monopoly can ofc destroy you if you are not careful enough.

The most successful people are the ones who can outsmart the Google. Not the ones who are constantly looking for some stupid rules and who hope that if they follow all the rules from Big daddy they will be rewarded. Economy, society and even SEO simply does not work like that.

[bigdogsportspicks]

the most successful people are the ones who can outsmart the google. Not the ones who are constantly looking for some stupid rules and who hope that if they follow all the rules from big daddy they will be rewarded. Economy, society and even seo simply does not work like that.

epic!!!

[Moonlight Cat]

The most successful people are the ones who can outsmart the Google. Not the ones who are constantly looking for some stupid rules and who hope that if they follow all the rules from Big daddy they will be rewarded. Economy, society and even SEO simply does not work like that.

+100
The problem is, that some naive people as me, understand this too later...

[Sherlock]

You are not in terminal stage of cancer, right? Never too late to fight with own naivety. We all are just now getting lesson from most of affiliate programs, who wipe their scrotums with us.

I think I already recommended it, but if you want to get some laughter about "a too naive guy in gambling", watch this: https://myanimelist.net/anime/3002/G...imate_Survivor

[Triple7]

+100
The problem is, that some naive people as me, understand this too later...

Nobody understood it from the beginning. We all trial and error.

[sweetbet]

The most successful people are the ones who can outsmart the Google. Not the ones who are constantly looking for some stupid rules and who hope that if they follow all the rules from Big daddy they will be rewarded. Economy, society and even SEO simply does not work like that.

I couldn't have said it better myself !!

[bestbunt]

Yes it is legit if you are asking if it is legal.


Yes it is blackhat, as any unnatural link manipulation (like exchange) is unwanted by search engines.

It seems like almost no people make a difference between what law wants and what one (albeit very powerful company) wants. You as webmaster have no contract with Google. You never signed anything like that you will not buy links or something like that. Asking about legitimity makes no sense.

There is simply one huge monopoly that is stretching from East to West and the monopoly has a huge power. But you are free to not follow anything the monopoly wants. But the monopoly can ofc destroy you if you are not careful enough.

The most successful people are the ones who can outsmart the Google. Not the ones who are constantly looking for some stupid rules and who hope that if they follow all the rules from Big daddy they will be rewarded. Economy, society and even SEO simply does not work like that.

Thanks for the reply can't help but agree with a lot of your points. I suppose it comes down to a lot of affiliate gambling advice... people can steer you in the right direction but nobody's going to tell you the winning formula, for obvious reasons.

I guess it's trial and error I just have no idea what a quality backlink is, and if I'm acquiring one how likely I will be penalised.

I suppose another question I keep asking myself is, how would Google discern somebody actually referring one of your articles/blog posts/website pages and you buying the back link? That's something I don't understand.

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[xecutable]

Various suspicious ways like taking you 2 years to get a 100 backlinks and then getting a 1000 overnight. By getting them from sites known to be spammy.

However Google has changed their methods by simply ignoring the links rather than punish the website. Hell when I switched my domain, I wanted to retain my old links and did 301s from the old ones.

A few days later I've received a manual penalty on some links being ignored. I wrote back, removed the 301s and they removed it 8 days later.

To answer your questions. A quality link would be a link on a fellow webmaster website, a site designed for humans, that has been active for years and is making money. At least that's what I'd consider. Google cannot know, in fact if there's anyone to blame is them for using a 15-20 year old "Voting System" of links.

Like the end user cares if the website in question is 22 years old and has 2000 year old link from God dot com, before the creation of the world. The end user cares about 2 things: does the site satisfy my visual needs and does the site answer my question. It's a flawed system that Google hasn't figured out how to transit but it's getting there.

Until then your strongest signals are content, links and rankbrain. That's for those at least looking for a long-term venture.

Bottom line is: it's your business. You choose what to do with it and what risk/reward ratio you wanna put into it.

[Sherlock]

Thanks for the reply can't help but agree with a lot of your points. I suppose it comes down to a lot of affiliate gambling advice... people can steer you in the right direction but nobody's going to tell you the winning formula, for obvious reasons.

I would even tell you what worked for me, but it was some time ago. I do not know if BHW or things like that work at least a bit anymore. I do not do SEO for long for few reasons: 1. the desired content gets SEO by itself 2. Gambling affiliate biz goes south

But I have new projects, so I will be testing everything again

I guess it's trial and error I just have no idea what a quality backlink is, and if I'm acquiring one how likely I will be penalised.

I suppose another question I keep asking myself is, how would Google discern somebody actually referring one of your articles/blog posts/website pages and you buying the back link? That's something I don't understand.

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Just read what google said. I wrote it even here at least 5 times. You are not supposed to get any unnatural links. Any link that your website gets by your action is bad and Google definitely does not want to count it. Google is coming from the quoting analogy in research papers. Is there a difference if you, as the scientist, get a quote if you pay someone at some publication or if the person likes you personally or if you also have some science paper where you quote him? It makes no sense.

The only difference between black hat and white hat SEO is that with black hat you are probably more likely to get caught/penalised.

Your question "how would Google discern somebody actually referring one of your articles/blog posts/website pages and you buying the back link?" is crucial ofc. Google does not care if you sell it or you put there some links with no sense. For google this is the same. I got some warning from Google years ago that I am selling links, but I was not. I just put garbage links to my own sites to my site.

Probably google has some bots and manual reviewers that are trying to catch selling links, but that is not the point. The point is that Google is slowly trying to make AI that will simply understand which links make sense and which make no sense. For example my link to Kaiji anime makes much more sense than many links in signatures, because they were made only for the purpose of backlinking. My link to anime here was honest try to recommend something good, so it is relevant and the keywords on this page are relevant too. It should not matter that GPWA is about gambling affiliate marketing and the anime is not and Google will learn this sooner or later (or already learnt). So Google's goal is to understand what is going on. If you were Google, would you count links from signatures? Most likely in most cases no (there are exceptions ofc, when the link in signature is really interesting for readers and that means that also the person with the signature is interesting and we know that he is not just doing a promo of something good for him, but also for us etc etc.). Of course we people will be always smarter, but Google is playing the cat and mouse game.

Just do not be afraid and do not listen to the people who pretend they understand something that is happening online. The world is just a big chaos and much more important is the energy you put into the work than some hard skills. Be accustomed to work with uncertainty and do not buy advices from people who pretend they can take the uncertainty from your shoulders. They are all scammers who feed on your fear.

[PROFRBcom]

Hello all, I've noticed after running Semrush searches or various other backlink checking tools that many of the high ranking websites have many related and unrelated backlinks.

I can't help but feel a lot of these are not organic and have been bought, yet these sites clearly haven't been punished by google.

Can anyone shed some light.. Is buying related gambling backlinks considered black hat and does anybody do this?

Thanks in advance

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Yes, some of the biggest and baddest websites buy links. For example, you will find PokerStars and 888 at the top of many searches for a massive swath of poker keywords and terminology. Each of these websites gets an enormous amount of natural organic backlinks. Yet each month both sites are spending 6 figures plus sourcing backlinks.

I have had both of these massive websites contact us, via proxies of course for deniability's sake, to try to purchase dofollow links from us. The operators are doing it. You can be damned sure affiliates are too!

How can google tell if a link is purchased? Well, in many cases, it's obvious. Exact match anchor text that doesn't fit the article is a big give away. Another big give away is a link that says "advertising" in the header or footer, and when you click it it literally states "If you are interested in guest posting, the price is xyz and you can included two backlinks". Talk about stupid!

I've seen many of my competitors over the last couple years fall out of the rankings. They were all buying links. I presume Google finally got smart enough to pull the juice and/or penalize them.

[jiriprochazka]

The most successful people are the ones who can outsmart the Google. Not the ones who are constantly looking for some stupid rules and who hope that if they follow all the rules from Big daddy they will be rewarded. Economy, society and even SEO simply does not work like that.

Exactly! You are very right.

If you want to be the best in your niche, you can't follow Google's rules and be scared of some penalties. Sure, you shouldn't buy 10000 domains to your website, that makes sense, but if you want to rank you need links and links usually don't come free and from nothing, if you understand me.

Have a nice day

[Max]

Doing it right is much better then 100s of cheap back links that end up doing more damage .

You'd be paying $1000-$7000 for a nicely planted link on a high authority site.