I stopped Buying Paid Links - Now What?

[cz]

I have been spending about $89 a month for paid links from a relevant forum, articles, and more website. They are clearly marked as paid ads and the guy just got hammered by Google to PR3's and 2's (1/2 his PR was taken away).

I only had 175 visitors from that site last year - 2007 - and no sales. He has implemented some company that all of his text is filtered through and the links aren't straightforward looking but a code I would imagine in from Mars or something?

I decided that discussions here cause me to believe these links are doing anything fro me. 33,000 links with the same 50 characters in anchor text throughout is no longer looking very good. After I cancelled - I read a thread here that said don't shut of the IBL's too fast or I'd get penalized. So what do I do now? They don't sell a smaller package?

How long will I get sandboxed for? Should I just keep them up? I may be able to get him before they come down - but would like to rid myself of that yoke - but not at the further loss of placement in SERPS (which I think is the catch-22 here)

No links no Google, Google says no paid link love, webmaster nofollows 33,000 IBL's - I dump him - then Google dumps me?

I'm getting dizzy!!

[crankydave]

First, I'm unaware of any "penalty" for losing links.

Second, it really doesn't matter if they get taken down or have to go through a redirect. If any "value" was being passed you lose it.

Third, based upon your question, all you were trying to do was buy PR and not generate traffic and sales. Not the best recipe for advertising dollars.

Finally, if you were receiving any "ranking value" from the links you'll lose it. If you were not, there's nothing to lose.

Dave

[cz]

Thanks Crankydave,

I appreciate your insight (especially about not being penalized for a drop that many links).

You surmised correctly, the traffic the links brought was minimal, but the old link juices were realy helping until GG got tough on the advertiser. I "had" PR5 index and PR5 sections and PR4 & 3 item pages. Not too shabby for a 100%, out of the box, hosted solution store. I had some great SERPS for about a year and I hate to see that little catalyst disappear.

I don't know of anymore avenues to pursue. I'm in a ton of directories, (I even join and edit for them just to be included), pay for Y! directory, used to exchange links (but that's getting tougher nowadays) everybody wants a link placed in their little PR0 Arelis directories, in a PR0 section for a straight PR4 link (with only 3 other OBL's sharing). Blogs? I've got three of those too, one for each website, place articles - done that too. Submitted stories to Social communities like Digg, Stumbledupon and many more........

At least I can sleep better knowing I'm not in any way gaming Google for paying for a link though! I don't know if the $89 dollars will buy enough high quality boat mooring line for constructing a decent one man hangman setup.

[scot184]

Best way nowadays to get link love is to creative something meaningful and useful to the web community. I blog constantly and some of my articles naturally get links. I don't solicit them, they just happen. I think that's the best way forward, although it takes work...

[Seminole386]

Your math says you were spending $6.10+ per visitor. What was your conversion ratio? I don't see where these paid links produced any value. Maybe they are what is holding you back. I am also having a problem with "33,000 links with the same 50 characters in anchor text" How could you have 33,000 revelant links for a site that doesn't generate any traffic? Remember if the links are to sites that are not revelant you will be penalized....it sounds like that is your problem.

[dann]

Don't assume a drop in Page Rank means penalty.
PR0 would have me concerned. The trend of the last toolbar page rank update was a loss of PR for all of the sites that I am involved with. I noticed Yahoo! dropped by 1 and My Yahoo! dropped by 2. But I noticed on my sites also page rank was more evenly distributed and accurate. BTW just an example nothing scientific.

I don't think Google has penalized me or Yahoo!, but the toolbar PR algorithm or whatever it's called now that it's not completely automated has changed. It makes sense, Google's index just became one instead of two seperate indexes.
PR Must change when you add that many pages at once to the index. And as the web grows PR will be affected similarly.

But you said 33,000 links with the same anchor text??
That would be my concern, you need to come up with a better linking plan than that. That is way out of line and IMHO will lead to a penalty if not an outright ban.

I'm no expert, and might be completely wrong, if so I hope someone corrects me.
Good luck, dan

[businessdata]

I think Scot184 has a good point. Spend your SEO time writing a quality blog attached to your site, talk about your industry in forums and comment in third party relevant blogs.

I never saw a penalty for shutting down links, as you described. On the other hand I just witnessed a competitor site being penalized for most probably is buying a huge number of paid link placements.

We received a penalty on a minor site not long ago for buying one site-wide link on another site, and that was definitely the reason, no question.

[SemAdvance]

Or concentrate on building a business online, the same way you would off line.

Advertising!!!!

If your business relies on a search engines organic rankings for it's existence, then your half way out of business.

[cz]

That would be my concern, you need to come up with a better linking plan than that. That is way out of line and IMHO will lead to a penalty if not an outright ban.

This was my concern and why I posted. I just looked at Yahoo! link:http://my domain..... and have now -

Inlinks (181,000)

I have never done any math, but the visitors in the last 6 mos. is 175 so we'll extend that to say 350 visitors last year from that site. No purchases.

What these are is small ads on every page of the site, forum, and other sections. The links have built up at the speed of light since it is a real Mecca for posters who love the past-time that my website provides relevant products for.

What messes up the relevancy is probably the spamming of the same text in every little box of that site and every thread in the forums which spring up daily like brushfires all over the forums there - we are long winded folks..lol!!

I was hoping for a quick "out" to deal with the loss of this volume of links and all at once, to offset this sudden decrease. I'm not gaming Google - I thought it was a great find and it was for a year & 1/2 or more until GG got tough on all of this nofollow stuff. No one was talking like this 2 years ago (maybe somebody was? - not sure)

To continue to do it I believed, would be gaming the systems and before I got hammered - I stopped, but fear the worse. I feel like having to do reciprocals and blog as heavily as I was and still do is a very difficult task after 3 years of pulling posts out of my backside to "feed the blogs" - which is a "gaming" of sorts - except the price is time and not dollars.

[incrediblehelp]

OK so no more paid links. That is a good idea. How about building great content so that people will link to you for free? Offering the best products and services is probably the best way to get links.

[jeffposaka]

I think the paid links, if they were on topic, stopped helping you but I don't think they would hurt you. If you bought links from casinos, porn sites, etc. Then it could hurt you hard.

Do you have listings in the major directories?

[digital2]

Pages designing, 33000 links, 175 visitors and no sales sounds like lots of effort for futile.
Consider changing business model.
Business dependant on dream of getting somebody to pull out his wallet to
pay you for some goods online is basically weak. There is thousands marketers on Internet
subscribing to this model and end up getting NOTHING.

Need to enter business in which there is already money on the table and there is GUARANTEED
share of it coming your way.

[cw1865]

Originally Posted by dann

But you said 33,000 links with the same anchor text??
That would be my concern, you need to come up with a better linking plan than that. That is way out of line and IMHO will lead to a penalty if not an outright ban.

I'm no expert, and might be completely wrong, if so I hope someone corrects me.
Good luck, dan

Yes, seriously if you don't own that phrase by now, give it up

[qh4dotcom]

I only buy paid links if they will generate traffic to my site since there's no guarantee that they will help me at all to rank better with Google

[dburdon]

There are still people out there buying paid links. They just do it in a more subtle manner. In the end though its about worthwhile, original content that encourages linking.

[chrisranjana.com]

Yes subtle advertising is the way to go !
People ask blog writers to write about their website sometimes. etc.

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by cz

You surmised correctly, the traffic the links brought was minimal, but the old link juices were realy helping until GG got tough on the advertiser. I "had" PR5 index and PR5 sections and PR4 & 3 item pages. Not too shabby for a 100%, out of the box, hosted solution store. I had some great SERPS for about a year and I hate to see that little catalyst disappear.

I don't know of anymore avenues to pursue. I'm in a ton of directories, (I even join and edit for them just to be included), pay for Y! directory, used to exchange links (but that's getting tougher nowadays) everybody wants a link placed in their little PR0 Arelis directories, in a PR0 section for a straight PR4 link (with only 3 other OBL's sharing). Blogs? I've got three of those too, one for each website, place articles - done that too. Submitted stories to Social communities like Digg, Stumbledupon and many more........

Sounds to me like you're doing all the right things. My only suggestion would be to work on doing them better. One great article, video, or tool can get you more links and traffic than 100 mediocre ones.

- Paul

[jonpoh]

This may sound like a dumb question but if I pay a directory for a listing is that a "paid link" that will hurt me? If that same directory gives me a free link, will that hurt me or help me. And how can google pretend to know if I have paid or not. There is NO WAY for them to KNOW if I have paid or not paid.

I have a few free links on sites that are otherwise paid sites. So now what?

In my Opinion Google is making linking a negative thing now so the only option we all have left for online advertising is paying them for adwords.

The whole thing smells to me. If someone can explain how they could ever know if a link is paid or not I would be willing to listen but my experience proves to me that many times they will be wrong. I charge companies for product placement on my site and some I do for free, there is no way for anyone to know which are paying and which are not.

I am sure there is some "artificial intelligence" software that they think tells them what is paid and what is not. But I promise you with my site for example they would be wrong many times, all the links look the same and some are paid and some are not.


I would like to hear your opinions.

[susannice]

i know still many websites who benefit well from paid links, it seems google is not enforcing much real penalty for that.
my websites dropped in page rank but rank better in the search results lately.

the only think that seems not good is buying so many liniks. few hundred relevant links on pages with rank are quite enough to get to the first pages of the google search results for even quite competative words - at lest that is my personal experience for some years now...