Buy Backlinks: What Works, Hurts & How to Do it in 2025

Last Updated on 02/05/2025

As we know, Link Building, also known as Inbound Links, is the process of gaining backlinks from other websites to your website. These backlinks assist search engines in determining the significance and popularity of the information on your website.

However, link building should be done naturally and ethically, avoiding spammy or black-hat practices that can result in fines or even block your website from search engines.

Buying backlinks is a way of paying for a link to your website from another website. The main aim of a link buyer while purchasing backlinks is to improve the ranking of their website in SERPs, increase referral traffic, and generate leads. Paid links can come in many forms, like paid guest posts, paid link insertions, private blog networks, etc.

Key Takeaways:

• Buying links can accelerate short-term growth, but it comes with risks if not done carefully.
• Natural link building is slow but sustainable and aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T standards.
• A hybrid strategy—high-quality paid placements + earned editorial links—is often the most effective.

Do people buy backlinks?

The answer is yes!

Buying Backlinks vs. Natural Link Building: A Side-by-Side Comparison

Factor	Buying Backlinks	Natural Link Building (Outreach)
Cost	Varies widely ($50–$500+ per link)	Mostly time and effort; some cost if hiring outreach help
Time Investment	Fast results, minimal effort after payment	Time-consuming (research, outreach, follow-ups)
Risk Level	⚠️ Higher (if done on spammy or irrelevant sites)	✅ Low (Google-friendly and sustainable)
Scalability	Scalable with budget	Harder to scale; depends on quality content and relationships
Control Over Links	High – you choose the anchor text, page, and placement	Medium – depends on the editor or site owner
SEO Effectiveness	Quick gains if links are high quality and relevant	Long-term authority growth with safer outcomes
Compliance with Google	❌ Not officially allowed (against Google’s guidelines)	✅ Fully compliant if done naturally
Ideal For	Startups, affiliate sites, and agencies needing fast wins	Brands building long-term authority & reputation

What is Link Buying?

Buying links (or purchasing links) involves paying another website to include a link to your website on one of their pages. This trick tricks search engine algorithms to make a website appear more prominently on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Link buying was a common technique used by SEO experts to raise websites’ rankings. However, search engines are increasingly intelligent and penalize websites that use this approach, especially when using unethical SEO techniques like link scams.

Why Buy Backlinks in 2025?

Search engines interpret backlinks as indicating that other websites find your material interesting and relevant, making them crucial for search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines evaluate the authority and reliability of a website using backlinks. Therefore, many high-quality backlinks may help your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Buying backlinks may improve your website’s search engine ranking, authority, and overall online exposure. The following are some other reasons for buying backlinks:

• It saves time
• Boost Domain Authority
• Improve Search engine rankings
• Drives more traffic to your website
• Helps to get results faster
• Enhance Online Visibility
• Enhance client loyalty
• Speed up indexing

Let’s take a look at what Google says about buying backlinks

Google does not appreciate it when people purchase backlinks or use other strategies to manipulate search results. Google does not oppose buying backlinks, but is against doing it unethically. Therefore, it’s important to understand Google’s stance on purchased links since you don’t want to cross the line.

In its Webmaster Guidelines, Google views purchasing or selling links as part of a link scheme.

Link Scheme states, “Links that are part of a link scheme or that aim to influence PageRank or a site’s position in Google search results may be considered against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any actions that affect links leading to or leaving your website.” As per Google’s original PageRank algorithm, Link building is among the top three search ranking factors.

Google urges webmasters to concentrate on producing top-quality content that inevitably results in backlinks from other reliable websites. They advise website owners to avoid using strategies intended to increase the number of backlinks pointing to their site intentionally, such as link purchasing, link trading, and participating in link schemes.

According to Google, examples of link schemes that destroy your site’s reputation in SERPs include buying or selling links that pass PageRank.

Search engines, including Google, use links to determine a website’s reputation. Link-based analysis is a handy way of calculating a website’s value. Both the quality and quantity of links are important for rating. Some webmasters buy and sell links without considering their quality, sources, and effect on their sites.

However, according to Google, not all paid links violate their guidelines. It is a normal part of the web economy when links are bought and sold for advertising, not to manipulate ranking in SERPs.

The action below needs to be taken as per Google’s guidelines:

Should You Buy Backlinks in 2025?

Buying backlinks is a controversial practice, but also a common one in competitive SEO. If you’re a startup trying to break into a saturated niche, or a site with great content but no traction, buying backlinks can give you a much-needed jumpstart—but only when done strategically and transparently.

Case Study Example:

“A niche affiliate site bought 100 contextual backlinks over a 3-month period. By filtering only for DR 40+ websites with 1,000+ organic traffic, the site went from 0 to 22K monthly visitors and gained 50+ keyword rankings on Page 1. No penalties, but 12% of links had to be disavowed later due to poor quality.”

When You Should Consider Buying:

• You’re in a high-competition industry (finance, SaaS, health).
• Your site has solid on-page SEO and content, but a weak link profile.
• You’re using manual outreach with a trusted agency (no PBNs or spam).

When You Shouldn’t:

• You’re buying from Fiverr, resellers, or sellers offering “DA 90 links for $5.”
• Your content quality is low or AI-generated spam.
• You have no strategy—just chasing numbers.

Read our guide on ethical link building for safer alternatives.

Link Building Pricing

In 2025, we conducted a link-building survey, reaching out to over 100 SEO professionals to understand how much they typically pay per link.

Most reported paying over $1,000 per link, which likely reflects PR-style placements. The second largest group indicated a price range of $250 to $500 per link, commonly associated with editorial backlinks, niche edits, and guest posts.

Why shouldn’t you risk your money buying backlinks?

It may seem attractive to give $XX and get a link since there would be no need to spend hours researching, customizing outreach emails, or facing rejections. However, this approach has disadvantages.

1. You can buy links for a significantly low price.

A website will not rank with a single link. Spending $362 on a link will burn your money fast. The links built via natural outreach are paid links, too, because outreach takes time, and time is money. Now, it is entirely up to you whether you spend $360+ and buy a link or spend time and effort to earn a link ‘naturally.’

2. Paid links are usually low-quality

If a website accepts links based on exchanging cash, it will link to much unrelated junk. It will create a bad link neighborhood, which is unsuitable for your website’s reputation.

3. You will receive a manual action.

Suppose your website is not in compliance with Google’s guidelines. There will be a drop in your search rankings, and your site will be removed entirely from Google. However, manual actions are rare nowadays, and you can recover from them.

Google will send you a warning in the search console. It will provide information about the types of pages affected and guide you through fixing the issues.

If you want Google to know about these links, you can use the paid links report option to bring them to their attention.

Are you planning to buy backlinks? Check out the Good and bad before you proceed.

We will discuss some ways you can buy backlinks and the risks and rewards of each one.

There are many freelance websites like Fiverr or PeoplePerHour that offer link-building services. These services are primarily inadequate, as they provide many backlinks for a low price. Be careful when signing up before using one of these services, as any service that offers many links at a low cost takes shortcuts and may use a black hat approach.

A good white-hat approach involves contacting good websites, negotiating with site owners, and creating high-quality content. Some freelancers also generate links using spammy forum sites. It is best to avoid such link-building services.

A. Niche Edits

Niche edits is a popular link-building service for SEO that has grown in popularity over the years. The primary benefit of using niche edits is getting backlinks from aged content that has already built authority. This means your link will have more authority than brand-new backlinks acquired using other link-building methods.

The website owner will ask for payment to do this, or you can offer payment in advance.

It is hard for Google’s algorithm to spot this type of backlink. If you are careful, it will be tough to differentiate a niche edit from an organic one if a website owner is willing to link to your site for money.

You must be vigilant about how many other sites they have the same agreement with. But if these websites do it in excess, then Google’s algorithm will detect this link farm, and being associated with one of these sites can negatively impact your ranking in SERPs.

It is best to thoroughly analyze any website you plan to pay for niche edit links. Just make sure you buy only quality backlinks.

B. Choose Reliable Backlinks Services

One of the most effective and easiest ways to get backlinks is to buy them. You can order such links or buy them, for example, through various SEO agencies such as Marketing Lad. You get the opportunity to:

• Reach the top 10 in Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and over 500 other search engines with lightning speed
• Easily attract +30,000 monthly visitors to your website within the first 3-6 months
• Make your backlink profile unbeatable
• Increase your sales and site traffic 3-5 times in 60 days.

This way, you can be sure that your backlinks matter. Buying backlinks has been proven to be the fastest and most effective way to promote your website. If you combine organic free ways to get backlinks and the way of buying them, believe me or not, you’ll be very impressed with the results.

C. Paid Guest Posts

A paid guest post is a guest post you write for another site. The site owners sometimes pay you in return for contributing content. Sometimes, they ask you to pay them to publish your content. It is a good way to buy high-quality backlinks.

However, if you place a guest post on the wrong site, you will get a penalty. Also, you must create the article, which will add to your costs if you choose to outsource or take up time if you decide to write the post yourself. It has many advantages, too, as you might also find sites that won’t charge you. In many cases, this is especially true if you have already created good content.

D. Sponsored Content

It is one way to buy completely safe links. You can pay to place sponsored posts on websites. The difference from guest posts is that the website owner will make it clear, keep the post as sponsored, and give the link a rel=’’sponsored’’ or rel=”nofollow’’ tag.

This tag will make it clear to the Google algorithm that you have paid for the post. In that case, Google bots will not crawl the link. But these links are less valuable than regular follow links. You may generate traffic from the website and increase your brand exposure.

How Much Do Backlinks Cost?

The cost of buying backlinks can vary widely depending on several key factors:

• Domain Authority or Domain Rating (DA/DR) of the linking site
• Link Type (DoFollow vs. NoFollow)
• Placement Type (Guest Post, Niche Edit, Sidebar, etc.)
• Relevance of the Site’s Niche
• The level of manual outreach or editorial control involved

Generally, the more authoritative and relevant the linking website, the higher your price for the backlink.

Backlink Cost Comparison Table

Pro Tips:

• DoFollow + Niche Relevance = Best value for long-term SEO.
• Always check for real traffic, not just DA/DR. A DR 60 site with no traffic may offer little SEO value.
• Use trusted platforms like Collaborator, GetMeLinks, or manual outreach for high-quality placements.

Why Should You Pay for Backlinks?

Due to the importance of backlinks to organizations like yours, website owners charge for them. Your search engine rating may increase if you purchase backlinks, so long as you avoid getting identified. None would do it if the risk weren’t worth it.

Placing a link on a website also requires time and work. Website owners believe that getting paid for their value is only fair. Bloggers are one type of website owner who could demand money from you to include your hyperlink in their content.

If you’ve ever seen an ‘income report’ from a well-known blogger, you’ll note that sponsored posts account for a sizable amount of their money.

Bloggers Who Sell Backlinks

We found some bloggers earning enormous monthly money via “sponsored posts.”

1. Fitmommyinheals.com

Here is a blogger who made a mind-blowing $9500 from sponsored posts in a month!

2. Wanderluststorytellers.com

This independent travel blogger’s revenue report is much more modest. Even yet, making $1,000 monthly from sponsored articles isn’t terrible.

3. Fitnancials.com

This personal finance and money blogger said that she made $4,612, with sponsored posts being her primary source of income.

The motive is quite evident from the above. Bloggers and content websites rely on the link-building business to generate money and, in many cases, to realize their ambition of working from anywhere in the world as a digital nomad.

A website that links to another website in its content transfers PageRank to that website. However, their SEO efforts will be more challenging because the site they link to is more likely to rank for rival keywords.

What is PageRank?

Google has implemented an algorithm like this to help it assess the overall authority of a website and its pages.

A website’s PageRank, a number between 0 and 10, is determined based on its usefulness and relevance to users.

What Is a Blogger Income Report?

Blog income reports show how much a blog earns from advertising, affiliate links, web hosting fees, and sponsored content.

The Risks of Buying Backlinks

That is the most often-asked question about links. To respond to it, you must understand precisely what a purchased backlink is. A link is considered a paid link whenever money, goods, or services are exchanged in return.

Google frowns on exchanging money for links or posts containing links, exchanging goods or services for links, or sending someone a ‘free’ product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link.

It’s not always a good idea to purchase backlinks. There are risks, especially if you don’t have a reliable SEO plan or experienced link builders working for your business. There are two key reasons to avoid purchasing backlinks.

1. Purchasing Low-Quality Links from Spammy Sites

Some bought links, such as those sold on forums or directories, are openly ignored by Google and other search engines as black hat SEO practices, which means you’re unlikely to profit much from them.

Paying for links on less reputable sites or sites with a low domain ranking will not help you either. While the possibilities of such connections flipping around and harming your rating aren’t huge, you’ll be wasting your money at best.

2. Google May Take Manual Action Against You

This occurs when a human reviewer determines that one or more of your website’s pages violate Google’s standards. This might cause your website’s traffic to collapse, which would be difficult to recover. Your website can be deleted from Google.

However, manual link spam operations are pretty uncommon today. Google is becoming more skilled at disregarding spam or poor links.

How to Buy Backlinks Safely?

Let’s be clear about what you shouldn’t do if you’re thinking about purchasing backlinks:

• Don’t purchase backlinks from Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, or any other website offering cheap tasks. The cost is low for a reason. Such websites almost always sell poisonous link spam that causes more harm than benefit.

• Don’t purchase backlinks from any link network, such as private blog networks (PBNs), or any website that openly sells links. These kinds of sponsored links get a rather harsh smack from Google if they can find them.

These link-building experts might offer a risk far more significant than any potential profit.

While buying backlinks can be an efficient approach to boosting your website’s rating, it is essential to do so securely and responsibly. Here are some ideas to help you acquire backlinks properly:

1. Is the Site Trustworthy?

Based on your initial impressions, does the website appear trustworthy? If you landed on the page, would you stay and read it? If the answer is no, following the link is usually not worthwhile.

Here are a few indications of a questionable website in case you’re having trouble responding:

• A poor design
• No connections inside the text
• The text contains no graphics.
• Author biographies that are unclear or absent.

2. Is the Site Selling Links?

Never attempt to obtain links from sites with clear link dealers since a Google penalty is not far behind. The links you get from the websites will then lose their value.

You can typically detect if a website has been selling links by looking at recent articles for weirdly placed links with profitable keywords in their anchors.

3. Avoid Purchasing Low-Quality or Quantity Links

The quality of the website from which you wish to obtain links determines whether or not you should purchase backlinks. This is true of all link development strategies, not just link buying.

Google and other search engines can’t tell if a link was purchased. All they have are clues that a site is paid for links. If the search engine decides it doesn’t like a site that connects to yours, you might face a penalty, regardless of whether you paid for the link.

Before paying for a link, you should thoroughly research the website. Look for unique, high-quality material and flexibility regarding who owns or controls the site, how much traffic it receives, and whether it has an active audience.

If the website you wish to connect from satisfies these requirements, you can consider paying for a link. If it doesn’t, you should stay away from it.

4. Keep an Eye on Your Link Profile

You must constantly check your backlink profile to ensure you aren’t purchasing spammy or low-quality backlinks. Use a backlink checker tool to monitor the quality of your backlinks and eliminate bad ones. You can use Google Search Console, Semrush, or Ahrefs.

Conclusion

Buying backlinks may help or hurt your business, so follow the regulations. Follow these tips to get the most sponsored links and prevent a Google penalty.

Developing an action plan before investing in backlinks involves choosing the sites and keywords you want to target, ranking them in order of importance, and researching your competition. Remember that not all backlinks are created equal, so ensuring that the backlinks you buy will help your website is essential.

Everyone benefits if you don’t purchase links to trick Google’s algorithm. Buying backlinks may be advantageous if you adhere to strict link selection procedures and criteria. When careful link-building is used, there is no need to distinguish between a sponsored and natural connection.

We have given an overview of whether you should buy backlinks. Although the success rate is high, the threat of a Google penalty is significant. Before buying backlinks, you should carefully analyze the website.

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