Buying text links. does it increase your SE rank?

[ramprage]

I'm curious what you guys think about buying text links and if it does actually increase your SE rank for the term you decide to use.

Like if my site is optimized for the term: Green Apples and I wanted to get a better rank for that, would I be best buying text links as: Green Apples or maybe Apples because it's a broader audience?

I'm wondering if you're better off going for a more popular term or trying to nab up a few little ones?

Thanks

[Cutter]

Do both.

Here is a technique the best adult SEOs use:

Bill's (main keyword -- hyperlinked to fron't page) Site -- (targetted keyphrase hyperlinked to sub-page)

Often these links are link exchanges, not purchased.

If you ever buy links, follow these rules unless you have a huge budget:

1) Front page on a high quality site with traffic in a position where you will actually get clicks

2) Site doesn't have to be on-topic, but it should be for a related market. Example: T-shirt site gets paid links from CollegeHumor.com

Even better, get a square image link (forget banners) with your keywords in the alt text.

[chromate]

I've never done it, but buying high PR links probably does increase your rank. The more on-topic the better - but it's not essential. Also keep in mind that it may take months for the links to make any real difference.

[ivan doe]

yeah, having a higher rank doesn't happen overnight. you have to give attention to a keyword-rich contents and more links every now and then before you achieve this goal. good luck to your site!

[Peter T Davis]

Buying links can help your search engine results if you do it right. Just make sure you have some manner to measure the effectiveness.

[dondor]

Just like natural links..... the more links without a reciprocal link from the same page to the one pointing to you.
Take a look at major websites in the money making industries.
they have thousands of links pointing to them, some are reciprocal and some not, so relevancy is not important as long as you promise you get more then enough pages and ofcourse PR is very important.

dondor
http://www.internet-casinos-information.com
seo blog

[thebillionaire]

well it can depend on how many times google actually crawls the page, if the website has the meta tag telling the spiders to crawl on to the site ever month, and ur paying of ur link to be placed for a week, then it prob wont matter much pr wise

[LuckyShima]

The price and demand for paid text links is way down on what it used to be so the market seems to be telling us that it might not be as effective as it either once was or was thought to be.

[Masetek]

meta tag telling the spiders to crawl on to the site ever month

Could you post a copy of that tag here?

Cheers.

[dondor]

The price and demand for paid text links is way down on what it used to be so the market seems to be telling us that it might not be as effective as it either once was or was thought to be.

I believe the price is down, not because it is not effective, but because more and more websites offers this service and therefore - reducing the price is the ultimate solution to draw buyers.

[Peter T Davis]

Can't say I'd disagree with that. I am still hoping that advertisers will figure out that it's better all around to put ads on sites that are vaguely related by topic.

[LuckyShima]

I believe the price is down, not because it is not effective, but because more and more websites offers this service and therefore - reducing the price is the ultimate solution to draw buyers.

What people look for in marketing is return on investment. With paid text links the return comes not from branding or click throughs, but from search engine rankings.

It is now a lot cheaper to pay for text links. Does this mean that the return on investment has increased as the cost of marketing has decreased, that it is now a lot cheaper to get a high ranking from paid text links than it was before?

Of course not, the value of a high ranking is now greater than before so the cost of getting a high ranking should likewise have increased. Instead it means that either the results, and therefore the return, that comes from this form of marketing has decreased, or the return, the potential of using this strategy to get a high ranking, was overrated to begin with and is now closer to its real level.

Although, I suppose you may be able to get the same return by purchasing a greater number of cheaper text links for a total cost equivalent to what would have bought you only one text link in the past.

[Peter T Davis]

What people look for in marketing is return on investment.

While that may sound nice, and logical, it's only true for a very tiny portion of the whole. Probably not even 1% of the money spent on marketing would be able to directly consider ROI. Direct marketing, yes, PPC campaigns, yes, but the rest, not likely. Do you think that Godaddy can calculate the ROI on their slutty Superbowl ad? Can Google caclulate ROI on the cost of attendence at the last search engine convention? What's Stop & Shop's ROI for their banner on the Green Monster? When you think of the grand scheme, you see how really insignificant the text link market really is.

With paid text links the return comes not from branding or click throughs, but from search engine rankings.

I would say that this thinking is very short-sighted. Sure, you can do well in the SERPs by buying link, but I think it's as short-sighted as any other black-hat type strategy.

[kingsimon999]

Is there websites which have a catalogue or method of finding related sites which are selling text links?

[chromate]

something like, http://www.linkadage.com/ ?