Long gone are the days when you could buy links and expect them to create lasting search engine optimization (SEO) value. Google is very good at detecting unnatural linking patterns, and frankly, most paid links are so shoddy and obvious that they're not hard to find. When it comes to link acquisition, focus instead on strategies that will create lasting benefits.
Are links important?
Yes, links are important, but not as important as they used to be. When Google launched in 1998, the company relied on PageRank to race to the top of search engines. PageRank is a ranking system that determines the value of a page based on citation analysis. Essentially, the more high-quality links pointing to a page, the more likely it is to rank.
Yes, links still help search engines discover new sites and new content, and PageRank is still an active part of Google's ranking system, but links are no longer in the top three ranking signals like they once were, in part because they are easily spammed.
What is link spam?
Links originally had such a big impact on organic search rankings that they became a commodity to buy and sell. This worked for years, but since the Penguin Update that began in 2012, their value has declined.
Google now denounces link buying as a spammy practice and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to algorithmically detect paid links and devalue them when they do. For example, Google's guidelines consider buying or selling links for ranking purposes to be spam, and this includes the following practices:
- Earn money in exchange for links or posts containing links
- Exchange products or services for links
- Send someone a product and ask them to write about it and include a link
How does Google detect link spam?
Google has previously stated that buying links creates unnatural patterns between the sites they link to. These patterns are easy to identify, and links that form unnatural patterns are easily devalued.
Since 2018, Google has been rolling out an AI-based spam prevention system called SpamBrain. Not much is known about SpamBrain: Google mentions it every year in its annual report on the amount of spam its search engine has detected and disabled in the past year.
For example, in April 2023, Google announced that SpamBrain “detected 50 times more link spam sites compared to the previous link spam update.”
This is in addition to the regular link spam algorithm updates that Google launches specifically to improve its process of detecting and disabling link spam. The last of these updates was in December 2022, but there was a general spam update in October 2023 that also included wording about link spam.
What happens when I buy links?
Well, not really. Back in the days of Penguin, link spam was actively punished with demotions. Now, Google is quietly removing the power of paid links in a process called link devaluation. Essentially, the value that links provided is removed by the algorithm, leaving sites with fewer valuable links to boost their ranking ability. There is no warning when this happens, just a loss of value.
Essentially, you're paying for something and feeling good that you've done something for your SEO program, but it's got zero value. Sure, buying links is easy and they're easy to track, but that paper value doesn't translate into long-term gains in the real world of rankings.
Buying links is a waste of resources that could be better utilized in other SEO strategies, not just improving organic search but also improving your site for visitors.
These days, Google representatives frequently advise against link building by saying:
- “Of course, most of those links are useless. We've been ignoring them for years.” John Mueller, Google Search Advocate, April 10, 2023
- “There are more important things to do on a website these days, and focusing too much on links often leads to wasting time on things that don't improve the website as a whole.” Mueller, April 1, 2024
- “You only need a few links to rank a page. Over the years, links have become less important.” Gary Illies, Google Analyst, April 19, 2024
What to do instead of buying links
The money you spend on buying links can be used in a variety of more effective ways to improve your site for both SEO and site visitors.
Google today highly values helpful content that is written for people. Great content isn't easy to find; the internet is full of low-quality, poorly written content. Creating great, helpful, people-first content takes time and resources; money that you would otherwise spend on link building would be better spent on this.
Great content not only increases the contextual relevance of the page it appears on, but it is also an indicator of the quality and relevance of your entire site as a whole. It also serves as a way to acquire links organically. People love to share content that speaks strongly to them. These shares can take the form of on-site mentions or links, both of which add value to your site. These editorial, freely provided links are extremely valuable.
If you're adamant about paying for link value, digital PR is another great avenue to consider. It's similar to regular PR in that the people working at digital PR agencies have contacts and connections with media professionals. But they combine their PR expertise with content creation skills to create content that they pitch to partners in the media world to help them gain mentions and links. Either way, the content creation aspect of SEO today is unavoidable.
Take a good, hard look at your SEO practices around link building. Consider how much you’re spending and what it means to see zero return on investment for that amount. Ethical link building based on content creation is the only way forward for 2024.