Can Buying Incoming Links Affect Your Rankings?

Yes! If done correctly, your rankings will soar like an eagle. If it's done wrong, you'll sink like a rock.

Ok, personally and morally, I don't see anything wrong with buying, or exchanging links. Most internet marketers and SEO professionals agree.

I don't see buying a link from a high PR (PageRank) private site, any different from buying a link from a directory like Yahoo. Either way, you're buying the link.

Here's a little snippet on the topic from the Clickin' it Rich "Action Plan," that's helps explain part of what I do...

"In addition to reciprocal linking partners, try to get as many f.ree incoming links as you can get. Remember, you don't need to link back to the directories. These "one way" incoming links can be of great benefit, especially if they pass their PR (PageRank) on to your site.

Some directories will charge a small fee to review a site, but that s ok. If you can get listed on a high PR page with few outgoing links. (Each outgoing link gets a portion of the PR score.) If you can get listed on a PR5 or 6 page and it has less than 10 outgoing links, that s at least a PR4 that s going to be passed onto your site.

I usually start at: http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php

They show a directory s PageRank, Alexa visits, number of links (saturation), submission fees (if any) and even tell if the directory passes its PageRank along to your site (many don t, so pay to submit only to directories that do pass along PR.)"

Ok, that said, you'll need to pay for at least three months if you're buying links. That's because it takes at least 3 months for the PR value to change and get spread around the web to all the interlinking pages.

(Some say only pages with PR4 and above distribute PR. Others argue that, if that's the case... where do PR2s and PR3s come from? All pages "distribute" PR. Either way, just try to get the highest PR possible.)

The more links on the page, the less PR that gets passed on to you. But also remember that PR is not a linear scale, it's exponential. The exact formula is a secret, but it's something like a PR5 is 8 times better than a PR4 which is 8 times better than a PR3. So starting at PR1 it's 8x8x8x8 etc, all the way up to a PR10.

In other words, a link from a PR5 page with 20 other links on it, is more valuable than a link from a PR4 page with only 5 links on it. Simply put, go for the highest PR page with the least amount of outgoing links on it.

Here's another very important aspect. Have a topic drift of around 30% or so in your incoming links. Or in other words, don't have them all saying the same thing. Use synonymous or thematically related words.

Using new keyword combinations is especially important, if you're participating in link exchanges. Every month or so,
change the text you use for your incoming links and switch them to a new landing page on your site.

You might also want to avoid sudden jumps in the number of incoming links. It's better to build up the numbers gradually, just like what happens "normally" on the internet.

You'll also want to avoid the "run of site" type links, where the other site links to you with every single one of their 1,000 pages. They are super easy to get flagged as bogus and filtered out.

And finally, what links to you, "generally" cannot hurt you. It may not help, but it "usually" doesn't hurt. The logic being, that if incoming links could hurt, some psycho competitor would start linking to you like crazy, and you'd get penalized for what someone else was doing.

So that said... be careful of who you link TO... that CAN hurt you. Do not link to web rings, link farms, banned sites or other questionable web pages. If in doubt... leave it out.

So to summarize:

1) Yes, rock on dude... it's ok to buy incoming links
2) Get non reciprocal links from directories that share PR
3) Change your recip partner linking text every few weeks
4) Have linking partners link to your internal pages
5) Don't buy run of site links or bulk linking
6) Build your incoming links gradually
7) Be careful what you're linking TO

Keep those thoughts in mind, and your search engine positioning will likely to soar. And in weeks to come, I'll be telling you more about a new ebook and reciprocal linking software, that makes it super easy to find and maintain top quality linking partners.

by Michael Campbell
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Michael is also the author of Revenge of the Mininet

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