Its easy for Google to tell if you've bought backlinks...

[simonpieman]

"How do you explain the success of all the back-link vendors here on the forum? You're telling us Warriors keep buying services that don't work???"

YES that's exactly right. People buy stuff that doesn't work- taken in by the lure of shortcuts and easy gains. Its human nature.. happens all the time in life ( especially in internet marketing). The people claiming they have fantastic long term results from buying back links?- if you look they're mostly selling back-links in their signature.

But first off lets just make sure we're 100% crystal clear on Google's position on buying links as some people seem to be fudging the issue a bit:

"Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such as excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank. If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank, let us know. We'll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links"
From Google webmaster Tools

So- putting aside all the attempts to crystal gaze into Google's secret ranking formula - lets just at least have the decency to admit it: Paid back-links to manipulate search engine PR results is 100% black hat and Google will never NEVER tire at smoking you out if you engage in it.

Lets also clear up the nonsense that there's no difference between a paid press release or Adwords advertising and buying backlinks to increase Page Rank. Buying links for traffic is not against Google rules. Buying to manipulate PR is. They clearly understand the difference between a press release and paid back link.

So that's right...let it sink in. Every advert you see on this forum selling back links that promise to improve your ranking is in violation of Google's 'guidelines' (i.e RULES). Forget morals. In purchasing back links like this you have just made yourself an enemy of Google. Long term that is a pretty stupid business decision.

A common way that purchased back links fool people is that those who buy them don't actually need them. For example they are trying to rank for a low competition/low search keyword phrase. The job could have been done by writing a couple of articles on Ezine and adding a few social bookmarks and making sure their on page SEO was accurate. But they've been told that back-links are vital and that they MUST have them at all costs. So they buy low grade links and blast them at the site. When...surprise surprise the site begins to rank they think its wonderful. The reality is they could have got the results for free but they paid someone instead- and they have put the site at risk. Great!

The big way that back link sellers fool people, though, is because the links work in the short term. You often get a burst of traffic and everything is wonderful. Then the links start to get devalued over time as Google continually revises their algorithms or the existing algorithm works out what you've been doing- And what you've been doing is purchasing back-links to manipulate rankings (however subtle you think you've been.)

The process of penalizing may take longer or shorter ... but it will usually happen.

Look for Mark Knowles on Hub pages. He provides a more honest account of how buying back links worked: "Inrease your pagerank with automatic software - don't kid yourself"
key quote "I had the page rank reduced on all the sites I was using this on and in one case had a -3 penalty applied". Short term all looks rosy- within a few months...not looking so good.
However, before the links start to turn sour people write all those glowing testimonials to the back-link companies telling them how wonderful they are.

Even if some back-links escape falling foul of Google right now- you will always be at risk of any Google updates in the future. Lets re-iterate it: Google will NEVER stop trying to smoke you out if you manipulate their search engine. I think its safe to say that it is NOT an idle threat from them.

So place your bets....Google and its multi million dollar outfit on one hand. You and your back link peddlers on the other. Who is going to win ultimately???

As I say- when people are offered shortcuts it can blind them to an obvious truth.

Of course if you're a committed black hat practitioner then you should already know that back link purchasing is a short term strategy: bump your sites up with artifical link juice, cloaking and keyword spam, grab the cash and then run before the site gets de-indexed. Rinse ad repeat. Getting harder to do though apparently and you do have to look yourself in the mirror every day.

[Steadyon]

The best way to avoid any google penalties, imagined or real, is to curl up inside a box like a dormouse, go to sleep and never do any backlinking ;-)

But don't moan and groan if you make zero income and you starve!

[simonpieman]

No, the best way is to do back-linking in a way that doesn't violate Googles' RULES. If you are interested in building long term gains over short term satisfaction. As I say- most back-linking services will do your sites considerable harm after a few months.

[Steadyon]

Originally Posted by simonpieman

No, the best way is to do back-linking in a way that doesn't violate Googles' RULES. If you are interested in building long term gains over short term satisfaction. As I say- most back-linking services will do your sites considerable harm after a few months.

Utter nonsense.

[yukon]

What in the world is natural backlinking, LMAO (doesn't even make sense)!

[simonpieman]

I'm a beginner and, after researching hard on this topic the sources I trust advise a beginer NOT to try purchased back links and certainly not to try it on any site you have long term ambitions for. At this point I have no reason to distrust these sources and every reason to distrust the various shady back-link hucksters that populate this site and others.

If its working for you then well done. Question is will it still be working for you in a year's time? Maybe you're more expert than me. Again well done but I still maintain that for most people it seems buying back-links that pass page rank is extremely inadvisable- resulting in, at best, wasted effort and, at worst, devaluing of your sites.

[Fraggler]

Originally Posted by Danny Cutts

negative SEO , that's quite funny!

if that was true, would you spend more time doing good SEO on your website or would you spend the time trying to damage your competition?

Corporate SEOs don't spend time analysing their competition and reporting them for paid links to try and knock them down?

No company has been penalised for buying or selling links in the past?

JC Penney, Forbes, 1800 Flowers, Overstock, BMW are just some examples of companies that I know of that have been penalised.

We are just talking about crappy affiliate sites though, aren't we?

[SEOAffordable]

I call BS on the whole :links grow gradually argument.

The fact is, for big companies, they don't grow gradually at all.

Major prescription drug companies don't gain many links at all for long periods, but if they receive approval on a new drug by the FDA, they would gain thousands of links in only a few days.

How does that fit?

[mattlaclear]

Originally Posted by simonpieman

"How do you explain the success of all the back-link vendors here on the forum? You're telling us Warriors keep buying services that don't work???"

YES that's exactly right. People buy stuff that doesn't work- taken in by the lure of shortcuts and easy gains. Its human nature.. happens all the time in life ( especially in internet marketing). The people claiming they have fantastic long term results from buying back links?- if you look they're mostly selling back-links in their signature.

But first off lets just make sure we're 100% crystal clear on Google's position on buying links as some people seem to be fudging the issue a bit:

"Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such as excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank. If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank, let us know. We'll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links"
From Google webmaster Tools

So- putting aside all the attempts to crystal gaze into Google's secret ranking formula - lets just at least have the decency to admit it: Paid back-links to manipulate search engine PR results is 100% black hat and Google will never NEVER tire at smoking you out if you engage in it.

Lets also clear up the nonsense that there's no difference between a paid press release or Adwords advertising and buying backlinks to increase Page Rank. Buying links for traffic is not against Google rules. Buying to manipulate PR is. They clearly understand the difference between a press release and paid back link.

So that's right...let it sink in. Every advert you see on this forum selling back links that promise to improve your ranking is in violation of Google's 'guidelines' (i.e RULES). Forget morals. In purchasing back links like this you have just made yourself an enemy of Google. Long term that is a pretty stupid business decision.

A common way that purchased back links fool people is that those who buy them don't actually need them. For example they are trying to rank for a low competition/low search keyword phrase. The job could have been done by writing a couple of articles on Ezine and adding a few social bookmarks and making sure their on page SEO was accurate. But they've been told that back-links are vital and that they MUST have them at all costs. So they buy low grade links and blast them at the site. When...surprise surprise the site begins to rank they think its wonderful. The reality is they could have got the results for free but they paid someone instead- and they have put the site at risk. Great!

The big way that back link sellers fool people, though, is because the links work in the short term. You often get a burst of traffic and everything is wonderful. Then the links start to get devalued over time as Google continually revises their algorithms or the existing algorithm works out what you've been doing- And what you've been doing is purchasing back-links to manipulate rankings (however subtle you think you've been.)

The process of penalizing may take longer or shorter ... but it will usually happen.

Look for Mark Knowles on Hub pages. He provides a more honest account of how buying back links worked: "Inrease your pagerank with automatic software - don't kid yourself"
key quote "I had the page rank reduced on all the sites I was using this on and in one case had a -3 penalty applied". Short term all looks rosy- within a few months...not looking so good.
However, before the links start to turn sour people write all those glowing testimonials to the back-link companies telling them how wonderful they are.

Even if some back-links escape falling foul of Google right now- you will always be at risk of any Google updates in the future. Lets re-iterate it: Google will NEVER stop trying to smoke you out if you manipulate their search engine. I think its safe to say that it is NOT an idle threat from them.

So place your bets....Google and its multi million dollar outfit on one hand. You and your back link peddlers on the other. Who is going to win ultimately???

As I say- when people are offered shortcuts it can blind them to an obvious truth.

Of course if you're a committed black hat practitioner then you should already know that back link purchasing is a short term strategy: bump your sites up with artifical link juice, cloaking and keyword spam, grab the cash and then run before the site gets de-indexed. Rinse ad repeat. Getting harder to do though apparently and you do have to look yourself in the mirror every day.

We have enough testimonials to choke a horse and you have the audacity to say all the Warriors who left them were incorrect in the fact they really did not get to page one?

Our thread in which we sell ouyr service is over a year old. Not sure how you would think we were cut and running.

[mattlaclear]

Originally Posted by paulgl

LOL! That's so friggin' true, it's funny! Google has a dang safe system!
You wouldn't know it by all the BS people do and spout off. Look at
the worriers, the google haters, the google fear mongers!!! The people
who have been banned, dropped, penalized, de-indexed! You'd think
google is unsafe!

99% of the people use google just fine and have no fear. In fact, they
have no clue they should fear google! The other 1% are here at the WF.

How does the all-knowing google know a paid link? Why is
it such a myth that google hates paid links? Their whole
empire is based on paid links.

Problem is, people take what google says and does
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of context. They only
quote half.

I make more money off of paid links, and more adsense money on
the sites I have MORE paid links! Many of these sites carry
authority, appear in google instant, get bread crumbs, etc.

Go figure.

Why would google hate and care if you bought links? They
friggin' sell links!

So, they would love it if you got 100,000 spammed links, but
hate it if you bought 10 fantastic links? And their crack staff
could tell that those links were bought?

Get logical people.

Oh but here's a big tip. Don't offer any WSO that links to
any page you care about. You know. Those pages are
doomed. Paid links dontcha know.

Paul

Sometimes the folks most vocal about SEO really should be the most quiet about it. The more they talk the more they reveal their ignorance on the topic. Present company not included of course.

[LiamP]

Originally Posted by sam770

I think that artificial backlinks aren't very helpful to the site and it is also not very responsible to use them since a site can get penalized for them....The more "natural grids" you have, the better the reward from Google will be. .... backlinks are important but they must be created the right way....

Really? Then why did BeatThatQuote.com build a ton of artificial backlinks and get bought by Google themselves for 60 million? The artificial backlinks had to be pointed out to Google after they'd bought it.

If Google don't even spot the artificial backlinks on a site they are buying (and presumably doing due diligence on), why do you think they care about your site?
I'll take an unhelpful $60 million dollar penalty any day of the week
Google Bans Itself Again By Banning BeatThatQuote.com

[Fraggler]

Originally Posted by Izaya

I love warrior forum, so much bad information here sometimes it's remarkable. For the people saying build links slowly and don't buy links have fun in position 400+ or position 1 for your obscure term. I would love to see you try to rank for a CPC 40+ term with 40k+ searches doing that. I regularly hit my sites with 1k+ links at a time with ZERO side effects.

There's no denying that buying and blasting links work but that's not to say it isn't building your house on the sand.

I am very happy with the results I get from buying and blasting backlinks but I also know that isn't a service I could offer a 'real' business with a reputation to uphold and with a desire for a low risk approach. If I wanted to be a real SEO provider then I know I would have to focus on search engine marketing rather than how to acquire mass backlinks. I would have to focus on viral content creation; selective and discrete link buying opportunities; create a resource that others want to talk about without being paid.

I go the easy route with my affiliate sites because at the end of the day I don't have much to lose. If one site drops I will put up 3 more in its place. Mass article network submissions, forum profiles, blog comments, all that crap still works but I don't think it will always work. That's risky but a risk I'm willing to take.

(There are 3rd party tools that already profile a URL/domain's backlink history so I can't see why Google can't soon cull the crap).

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Fraggler

Corporate SEOs don't spend time analysing their competition and reporting them for paid links to try and knock them down?

No company has been penalised for buying or selling links in the past?

JC Penney, Forbes, 1800 Flowers, Overstock, BMW are just some examples of companies that I know of that have been penalised.

We are just talking about crappy affiliate sites though, aren't we?

That was a manual review by Google that tanked JC Penney & didn't happen until after it hit the media (WSJ).

I doubt very much that Google cares about anyone like JC Penney trying to game the SERPs, it's just that Google doesn't want to be in the media in a negative spotlight, they have shareholders to keep impressed.

Nothing would have ever happend to JC Penney If someone didn't nark them out, besides I'm sure they made a rebound in the SERPs.

Just saying...

[simonpieman]

- I don't care much for reading testimonials. They send me to sleep...especially when they're on sales pages.

- I happily admit I don't know much: But fact of the mater is you may have found some very clever ways to make the purchased backlinks look 'natural' for now - maybe they'll even last for a cople of years. But you're still putting yourself in opposition to Google. They DON'T want you doing it - they're crystal clear about that.

Pitching yourself against Google (one of the biggest organizations on the planet) is in no way a sensible or long term business strategy whichever way you cut it.

Reliable marketers with many years of experience and no reason to lie all advise against manipulating page rank through purchased links. When i'm able to post links I would happily include a dozen or more high trust sources all giving thorough explanations of why paid links of this kind are mostly useless.

In choosing which direction to place my efforts I follow their guidance over someone trying to sell back-links ...every time.

[Greg guitar]

Originally Posted by simonpieman

- I happily admit I don't know much:

Props for saying so, but the admission begs the question; why do you argue so vociferously with those that do?

[LiamP]

Originally Posted by simonpieman

Pitching yourself against Google (one of the biggest organizations on the planet) is in no way a sensible or long term business strategy whichever way you cut it.

I think this is a failure of imagination on your part.

Strategy A
Build a site. Follow Google all guidelines to the letter.
Chances of short term success - low.
You're just hoping.
Chances of long term success - low.
You're still hoping.
Essentially it's a crap shoot. The internet is full of wonderful, wonderful websites which don't rank for anything. Having never 'link baited successfully" .

Strategy B
Build a site. Follow Google guidelines for onpage factors (under your control) but ignore them for offpage factors (out of your control).
Chances for short term success - medium
All you have to do is keep building backlinks. You'll probably get there.
Money earned in the short term reinvested in website quality and continuous link building
Chances for long term success - medium->high.
All you have to do is keep building backlinks. You'll probably get there.
So long as your on-page is good Google will only ever devalue your links. That's ok 'cos you can just get more. Invested funds form early success (which Strategy A rarely gives) means you'll get more and more "natural" (whatever that means) links anyway, thus shoring up your site further.

Overall Strategy B has much, much better odds of long term success.

I also don't hold any truck with "buying links is bad for the internet". The great majority of bought links are never, ever seen by humans. So what are we left with? Businesses willing to invest resources to promote their business.
In general terms businesses that are investing in their businesses will provide a better result for their clients as they are investing more in themselves.
So buying links actually provides (in general terms, there are of course many examples where this is not true - but many more where it is) BETTER search results for everyone.

[mesmerist]

sam770, you are wrong. Totally.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by sam770

Hi Mike,
With all respect I must disagree with you,
According to my experience (over 9 years) a massive amount of backlinks in a very short time can definitely raise a red flag.
Believe me, I have several powerful tools that I can use to create REALLY big amounts of backlinks in a very short time, if it was good for my business I wouldn't think twice and do it. I am not doing so because of the reasons I mentioned in this thread.

Well Rebecca, my experience in SEO goes back to it's beginnings in 1994. I have tested, tracked and analyzed virtually every SEO technique that has come along over those years.

The difference is that my analysis of said techniques was and continues to be objective and not based on promoting a link bait service like yours.

On your website, you claim, "We simply know to "speak" the "Google Language"! We know what Google likes and we know how it likes it.
", - really? Have you researched and analyzed Google's algorithms? Have you tested their core linguistics technology (LSA/I)?

What empirical data do you have backing up your OP? I can say emphatically that you have none. Want to know why I know that?

I checked out your site at loyalwriter dot com. It's among the most poorly optimized (SEO) sites I've seen. I did a quick search on your keywords and here are the results (kind of amusing):

1. Writer - you didn't rank for that one. Ironically, one of my sites, Incansoft.com ranks on page 1 in the 9th and 10th positions for that term.

2. Quality - not ranked.

3. SEO - not ranked.

4. Content - not ranked, but again my incansoft.com site is ranking on page 1 for that keyword in the 9th position.

5. Article - not ranked and guess what? Incansoft.com is on page one at positions 9 and 10.

NOTE: Not Ranking in this case means the domain was not listed on the first 3 pages (wasn't wasting more time than that, LOL).

Those are ridiculously broad keywords for anyone to tackle, let alone non-aggressively. I even tried a variety of phrases from your site and description with no luck. I had to enter the entire description to get your site to come up.

On your website you state, "If you own a website, you already know that the major way to increase the incoming traffic to your website and get more business is to rank high in the search results of Google™, MSN™ and Yahoo™."

I do not see your site ranking high at all without intentionally skewing the search criteria to find it. By skewing I mean long phrases copied from your site - phrases far longer than a typical searcher would enter.

That said, you also asked this question on your site, "But how will you get there?"

I'm kinda wondering that about how "You" expect to get there. Rebecca, your site is coming up on being one year old and you're just not "Walking the talk".

You can throw Matt Cutts name out there all you want - he doesn't impress me in the least, mainly because he often give intentionally misleading or uneducated advice.

I am not dissing your article writing capabilities because I do not know what they are, but I am calling you out on your claims to know Google and SEO. Your OP is a fallacy, an Internet or SEO myth, that you're simply parroting to promote your article writing service.

But one has to question the efficacy of your services when you are obviously unable to get your own website optimized for SEO and ranking well in SERPS.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by simonpieman

But you're still putting yourself in opposition to Google. They DON'T want you doing it - they're crystal clear about that.

Tough ****...it's my site and I'll do what I want with it. It's none of Google's business how I obtain my back links.

Pitching yourself against Google (one of the biggest organizations on the planet) is in no way a sensible or long term business strategy whichever way you cut it.

Reliable marketers with many years of experience and no reason to lie all advise against manipulating page rank through purchased links. When i'm able to post links I would happily include a dozen or more high trust sources all giving thorough explanations of why paid links of this kind are mostly useless.

Not the least bit interested in what people I don't know are saying. I go with what I've tested and know works over the long-term. This is why I tend to ignore matt Cutts too.

The point you're missing is that Google created the situation by factoring the number of back links as a ranking criteria. Poor quality sites wash out of SERPS regardless of back links anyways. There are a couple hundred elements to Google's algorithm, most of which cannot be directly manipulated that still impact poorly optimized sites, like the OP's.

But we live in the age of automation, so getting paid or automated back links is not only smart business sense, it's an excellent use of the available technology.

The key point all the naysayers seem to be missing on this topic is the residual traffic that comes from those back links. You get 50K decent back links out on the net and you don't even need Google. That's what they really don't like - you're bypassing them altogether by gaining traffic directly, the old school way.

It's also the point the OP missed and for a self-proclaimed SEO expert, that's astounding to me.

I'll say again that there is a right way and a wrong way to do this - but I guarantee you, it's not the OP's way - I'd suggest you stop and listen to Matt laClear....

[rochan]

Negative SEO is impossible, otherwise people would just build "bad" links to competitors so their sites get sandboxed. In the same way the more testimonials one method has over the other would tell me everything I needed to know about which method was more effective.

[michael scott]

BIG Mike,

Are you sure you rank 9/10th of page 1 for "writer"? I just checked and can't seem to find you anywhere.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by michael scott

BIG Mike,

Are you sure you rank 9/10th of page 1 for "writer"? I just checked and can't seem to find you anywhere.

Could be a difference in data centers? Saw them in there a couple of minutes ago...

[yukon]

Originally Posted by michael scott

BIG Mike,

Are you sure you rank 9/10th of page 1 for "writer"? I just checked and can't seem to find you anywhere.

Not even top 100, when I search.

[cooler1]

Originally Posted by rochan

Negative SEO is impossible, otherwise people would just build "bad" links to competitors so their sites get sandboxed. In the same way the more testimonials one method has over the other would tell me everything I needed to know about which method was more effective.

Not true. People have been knocked down the SERP's for months for getting a sudden influx of backlinks. If that isn't negative SEO, what is?

Using your logic, that's like saying that sending dodgy traffic to a competitors site which automates clicks, couldn't get their adsense account banned. Which is definatly not true.

[michael scott]

could be that or something else. But I doubt it's anywhere in the top 3 pages for that keyword since that particular page isn't even optimized for the phrase and the majority of your backlink anchors are branded terms

[Aussie_Al]

Originally Posted by SEOAffordable

I call BS on the whole :links grow gradually argument.

The fact is, for big companies, they don't grow gradually at all.

Imagine if you had a little sports blog and one day your site was the onyl one to feature some crazy fan doing something insane that was captured on a cell phone video?

Back links to your site would be in the millions in a day as people told their friends "OMG you have to see this video" Would Google then penalize this site? No they would not it would come up straight away.

I am sure and someone correct me if I am wrong - didn't something similar happen with the Huffington Post breaking some political news and that put them on the map?

[michael scott]

Originally Posted by Aussie_Al

Imagine if you had a little sports blog and one day your site was the onyl one to feature some crazy fan doing something insane that was captured on a cell phone video?

Back links to your site would be in the millions in a day as people told their friends "OMG you have to see this video" Would Google then penalize this site? No they would not it would come up straight away.

I am sure and someone correct me if I am wrong - didn't something similar happen with the Huffington Post breaking some political news and that put them on the map?

Everyone forgot the most important thing here and that's trust and authority.

A sudden influx of links from Huffington Post, NYtimes, WSJ, etc.

is alot different from

A sudden influx of links from comment blasts, profile blasts, article blasts, etc.

The latter approach will definitely get you caught in the filter for a while.

The key thing here is trust/authority. I'd rather take a spike of millions of authoritative links than some ****ty spam links that can be bought from fiverr. This is why big companies who start new domains hardly get filtered by Google because their links come from authority parent company sites and links coming from credible sources.

As far as sniper sites go, how many of these thin affiliate, MFA sites ever get high profile PR coverage that allows them to receive good links like that?

Also for those who say Google doesn't give a damn about your site (not naming any names) because they're such a huge billion dollar company - don't forget who made them such a huge billion dollar company, and that's us webmasters.

[Bulldozer]

Originally Posted by Clyde

Negative SEO is impossible, otherwise people would just build "bad" links to competitors so their sites get sandboxed

I read that many black hat people do exactly that - they create tons of spammy back links to their competitor's sites and get those competing sites penalized / sandboxed.

[JamesGw]

People are running some tests in this thread: Google is Flawed - You Can Influence Other Sites’ Rankings With Backlinks

I don't know why everyone has to turn this topic into some big argument. There's anecdotal evidence from both sides. For the most part, I feel like backlinks will not negatively affect a website's ranking, but I believe there are cases where they might.

Just spewing the whole correlation=/=causation thing isn't really a solid argument for backlinks not causing a penalty. The whole point of that statement is to look at the whole picture - not to automatically discount the part of it that contradicts your theories. I'm sure there have been several instances where backlinks were built and a site's ranking increased, but the backlinks actually had little or no effect. Hell, you can see that in the thread I posted above. Most of the sites haven't moved at all despite being hit with a fair number of links.

Anyway. My request is to stop slinging mud and to band together to do some real testing. I think I'm going to start an SEO Tests thread, actually. Maybe we can do something productive with this forum.

[SEOExpertforYou]

I never do or recommend buying links, but as long as you don't buy a lot of links in a short period of time you will be fine. For example if you buy 30 links that are very good and they are put up at the same time you will be fine, but if you buy 300 links at the same time then there is no links after that then that may look suspicious. I would just recommend a continual and natural type of link-building so you have a very low chance of getting penalized now or in the future.

[trishseo]

Originally Posted by sam770

I think that in many cases, Google WILL know if the backlinks to your site are real (natural) or "artificial."
I think that artificial backlinks aren't very helpful to the site and it is also not very responsible to use them since a site can get penalized for them.

When a backlink is real it will usually get reproduced on similar sites in the same area till there will be a grid of sites related to each other, linking to you site. The more "natural grids" you have, the better the reward from Google will be. It is also important to know that in this natural way the amount of backlinks will increase gradually and not through a "backlinking explosion"

Just my 2 cents to you guys - backlinks are important but they must be created the right way....

No offense but sometimes it's funny to me how people think that no matter what you do, Google will somehow find out. It's an algorithm that scans billions of pages online. It's not a guy who walks around with the eye of Sauron knowing you have broken the rules.

Sorry don't mean to be abrasive, just respectfully disagree.

[blogworker]

a. The amount of backlinks to your site needs to grow constantly and gradually.
b. They need to be related to each other in a natural way which is something that Google's alogrithm can determine.

yes, i also stand on the side of sam770.
i do not understand, why some guys have question on backlink quantity, i think it's easy, the more,the better. if not, why we pay much attention on backlinks? if not, what online marketing focus on?
besides, make backlins related with each other is much better than stand alone, isn't it ?

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by yukon

Not even top 100, when I search.

DoH! My bad - they were add on links from Google+ that friends had liked!

When I saw them, I thought it was ironic, because they were keywords we weren't targeting in the first place.

To see them in those positions, you would need to be one of my Google+ followers and sharing your +1 choices.

Although off topic, that makes for an interesting twist on SEO as well. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before +1 links displace those at the top of the page rather than the bottom.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by simonpieman

- I
Pitching yourself against Google (one of the biggest organizations on the planet) is in no way a sensible or long term business strategy whichever way you cut it.

Relying on Google period isn't a sensible strategy. You can do everything by the book, and they can still put you out of business.

Reliable marketers with many years of experience and no reason to lie all advise against manipulating page rank through purchased links.

How do you know they have no reason to lie? Because they told you so? That point aside, just because they aren't lying doesn't mean they aren't wrong. But if you prefer being a blind follower instead of thinking for yourself, more power to you.