We discovered that the average cost of purchasing a connection was $352.92 in 2016.
What method did we use to learn this number?
One of our regular writers, David McSweeney, contacted 250 websites on five prominent themes. He had two questions for me:
Do you provide links for sale?
If so, how much do you charge for them?
In 2016, the following were the results:
However, we wanted to bring these figures up to date for 2018.
So, last month, I re-ran the experiment with new websites in different sectors.
I then conducted a second experiment in which I emailed 180 guest post pitches to determine how many of them demanded payment.
Sidenote In this email, I made no reference to money in any way.
I'll share my findings from both trials in a bit.
But first, let's take a look at the industry of link buying and selling.
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A link-building primer for beginners
A Brief History of the Link Buying and Selling Industry
Backlinks have been a commodity for as long as Google has used link popularity to rank webpages.
And, just like with any other commodity, there are those who want to purchase it and those who want to sell it.
Link purchasing, on the other hand, comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Some are completely black-hat, while others are grey-hat or white-hat.
The following is a timeline of how link buying has changed throughout time:
Directories of Authorities (Mid-1990s—2000s)
One of the earliest kinds of link purchasing was paid directory submissions.
A "review" fee was usually imposed by these directories.
One of the most well-known instances is the now-defunct Yahoo directory.
Yahoo! Online Directory
They charged about £300 ($402) for inclusion, while some sites were rejected.
Make no mistake: the connection was not purchased for the purpose of driving traffic.
It was always purchased with the intention of improving Google results.
The Surge in Link Purchases (the Mid-2000s onwards)
By the mid-2000s, selling connections had become a full-fledged industry.
Text Link Ads, for example, sell links on a "rental" basis.
TextLinkAds
thanks to Google Plus
You usually have to pay a monthly charge for these site-wide sidebar links. The price was determined by the stats of the website.
Back then, PageRank was the statistic that mattered.
PageRank
For a link from a PR1/2 site, prices started at roughly $30 per month. Fees for high-PR sites were in the $100 range.
Keep in mind that this is a monthly cost. As a result, $100 per month will cost you $1,200 every year.
Many websites also offer in-content links for sale. You could even select your own anchor text.
Unfortunately, Google quickly responded by identifying and devaluing these links.
Link sellers are being forced underground by Google (late-2000s onwards)
Google began to devote more resources to its webspam division.
They also started fining those who were caught selling links on broker sites or in forums.
This penalty was usually a decrease in PageRank, but it may also be de-indexing in extreme circumstances.
They also urged people to report paid links to Google directly.
Matt Cutts is a well-known computer programmer.
Has this put a halt to link buying?
Nope. Those purchasing and selling links, on the other hand, were forced to exercise caution.
As a result, Google had a harder time catching sites that were breaking their guidelines.
To be clear, buying links to manipulate rankings is a clear violation of Google's policies.
In their quality guidelines article, they give the following example of a "link scheme":
The following are some instances of link schemes that can have a negative impact on a site's search engine ranking:
Purchasing or selling PageRank-passing links Exchanging money for links, or posts containing links; exchanging products or services for links; or offering someone a "free" product in exchange for their writing about it and including a link are all examples of this.
So, what is the current condition of link purchasing?
A COMMENT FROM THE EDITOR
Google may penalize your site if you are detected buying links to increase your rank. We do not recommend purchasing links, but if you do, be aware of the dangers.
Buying/Selling Links in 2018 (and Beyond)
Here are a few options for buying links for SEO purposes in 2018:
Paid Guest Posts (sometimes referred to as "sponsored" posts)
A fast Google search for "buy guest posts" turns up a slew of websites that promise to earn you links from guest posts in exchange for a fee.
Guest posts for sale
All of these services can be classified into one of three groups:
Genuine guest blogging services go out to legitimate blogs on your behalf and secure guest post positions.
PBNs disguised as real outreach: They market their service as genuine outreach, but they actually utilize PBNs. Because they're so cheap ($100 per post), you can typically see these services a mile away. We don't recommend utilizing them unless you're aware of and willing to accept the dangers.
Link buyers and sellers who act as intermediaries They pay sites for inclusion on behalf of their clients, mark up the price, and pocket the difference. They act as middlemen (or ladies) in the process of purchasing and selling links.
The most common is #3, in my opinion.
At Ahrefs, we frequently receive requests from intermediate link buyers or sellers (#3).
Here's an illustration:
We received an email
We once had a man who tried to get a backlink on our blog by contacting all of our previous contributors without their permission. He did this without their permission.
Tim is trolling the guy, and rightly so:
our trolling retaliation
After that, I don't think we heard from him again!
But here's the point...
We would have probably accepted it if he had instead taken the time to produce a high-quality guest piece. He would have gotten a link for nothing!
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