Where To Buy Permanent / Cheap Text Links in the UK?
This article looks at the contentious practice of buying text links on other websites, either directly from the site owner or a text link broker such as Direct Link Ads in the UK (now called Adbeans).
If you have a website and wish to improve your search engine rankings with search engine optimisation, then the question of link building will come up with your SEO provider. Chew Valley Web always advises clients to take link building seriously and the question of buying links is sometimes discussed.
Let’s take a quick look at why link building is important and the risks of buying text links.
Why are text link ads relevant to search engine rankings?
Search engines such as Google use a wide variety of metrics to determine your website relevance and results ranking for a particular search query. One of the most influential metrics, particularly with regard to Google, are the links pointing to your site from other places on the web. In SEO jargon, these are called backlinks.
Everything else being equal (which it rarely is) a web site with many high quality permanent backlinks will always out rank a site with fewer/lower quality links.
So, getting backlinks is important to us.
Why would I want to buy text links for my website?
A backlink that is useful from an SEO viewpoint can have a number of features but there is a particular kind of “open” link that really gives your site the benefit. Without going into too much detail, that link is a text link.
It is possible to get high quality optimised text links from other websites for free. But because the search engines have turned the humble link into a highly prized currency, it can take work to get them. Particularly if your website is pretty average.
So, as with all commodities, you can buy text links through a link broker which gives you a degree of control over those links.
Just to be clear, you are not buying these cheap links in the hope that they will encourage clicks through to your site. You are buying the text link for it’s inherent value as a search engine optimisation tool.
Now for the most important bit - should you decide to buy links.
What are the risks of buying text link ads?
As Google and other search engines rely on links to rate and rank websites in their results, they don’t want anybody manipulating their algorithm and making them look stupid. This means that, for the moment, backlinks acquired for “free” are judged by the search engines to be fair while paying for links (and selling them) is not.
Rightly or wrongly, this is life on the web at the moment and Google has come out and declared war on link buying or selling for the purposes mentioned above. In other words, if you buy text links or are a website owner that sells links – you are mean and nasty.
On the face of it, the web world has turned it’s back on buying text links while in fact link brokers, like Direct Link Ads in the UK, still do a good trade. What happens now is that that everybody buys and sells links and nobody will admit to it. Funny, huh?
The search engines threaten to penalise, ban, and do other nasty things (in their search results) to websites that buy text link ads to increase Page Rank. This is no idle threat and is something to bear in mind when you are thinking about buying links for your website.
Chew Valley Web would think very hard before advising a client to actively buy text link ads as the consequences for the average site of a Google penalty could be pretty unhelpful. You have been warned.
Where can I buy text link ads in the UK?
Many link brokers that sell text links are based in the US and often don’t take on UK based clients. The advantage of using a link broker, rather than trying to negotiate directly with a hundred different websites, should be obvious.
As you may have guessed, I have experience of working with Direct Link Ads who are a good link broker based in the UK with a wide range of web publishers that you can buy cheap permanent links from. All I can say is that I have never had any problems with them and would recommend anyone looking to buy text links from a UK broker to give them a try.
