Buying Backlinks - The Direct Deal
Building backlinks today is easier and more automated than ever. Any number of services that let you purchase links from websites, have others post blog articles about your site, or other link exchange arrangements.
As an owner of several websites, I’ve signed up with a few of the more well-known text link brokers. Never got a sale. Not even a nibble. Now these are PageRank 4 and 5 themed websites, so they were decent advertising opportunities. I know a lot of people do well with these services from both the publisher and advertiser sides. Why they didn’t work for me, I don’t know.
I get an occasional link exchange request. These are typically automated messages, and almost always ignored. Sometimes I get a personal request from someone who wants to purchase a link from one of my sites.
Like any transaction, it’s based on an element of trust. On one hand, there’s an existing, seemingly reputable website. On the other is an advertiser who is going to hand over money to the website publisher with the promise that the publisher will put up the link and keep it in effect for a set period of time.
The proper way to structure the deal, of course, is to have a contract in place to protect the rights of both parties. But, being that this the free-wheeling World Wide Web, the ‘contract’ usually consists of a few email exchanges and some money exchanged via PayPal.
I consider that ‘freestyle’ link purchasing. While brokered exchanges are best for many people, there a lot of reputable website owners who will gladly do a ‘direct deal’ with advertisers. Advertisers may find a better price than would get from a broker, and a publisher might actually make more profit than selling through a broker. It’s a win-win situation.
Of course, it’s a little more work to deal one-on-one, but who knows - the direct deal could lead to other opportunities that are far more fruitful than one-time link sales.
