I spent $800 on a 'guaranteed' backlink package from a forum user and it got my site penalized

The guy had a ton of posts and seemed legit. He said the links were from 'high authority' sites in my niche. They were all from the same network of spammy blogs, and Google caught it within a month. Traffic dropped by about 60%. Has anyone actually had a good experience buying links, or is it all just a bad idea now?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahs8215d ago

I used to believe buying links was a necessary shortcut. A similar penalty a few years back, where my traffic got cut in half, was my wake-up call. The market is flooded with these fake networks, and Google's gotten very good at spotting them. Building real relationships for links is slower, but it's the only safe path now.

johns1815d ago

Honestly, I used to think buying a few links was a smart move to get ahead. Tbh, I got burned almost the same way, just a smaller package for like $300. They were all from those fake review sites that just repost the same article. Ngl, it tanked a client's rankings and took forever to fix. I have to agree with @noahs82 now, that penalty is a brutal lesson. It's just not worth the risk anymore with how good Google is at finding those networks.