Buy Backlinks & Links – How To Pick The Right Sites

Buying backlinks is probably the worst-kept secret in SEO…

Agencies do it. Affiliates swear by it. In-house teams sneak it through the budget as “editorial partnerships.” And despite Google’s documentation disapproval and regular penalty propaganda, the reality hasn’t changed in 20 years: Links are the #1 signal for moving rankings, and the more competitive you get, the more it becomes almost entirely about link profiles as most mega authority sites have already ticked every box on OnPage, topical and technical checklists they can…

But here’s the kicker: Almost all of the industry are still buying links using outdated advice, poor to no due diligence and paying way over market rate for the privilege.

They spray and pray. They chase DR over equity and relevance. They choose quantity over quality. They don’t track ROI. And then they wonder why their sites flatline after an update…

We’re going deeper than just “buy guest posts” or “use niche edits.” We’ll show you how to evaluate link quality with metrics that actually matter, stack trust the right way, and build a defensible link profile in a post-HCU, penalty paranoid ranking environment.

For those who are reading this and seeing a lot of jargon for the first time, let me explain what the premise of this article is first.

What is Link Buying?

Buying links, or link buying, in laymen’s terms, is paying for influence on Google’s search pages, or in SEO terms, buying backlinks to boost your rank in SERPs.

While the average post explaining buying backlinks will tell you this means “paying a site owner to place a hyperlink,” the actual mechanics, and consequences, are FAR more nuanced.

Link buying isn’t just handing someone money and magically teleporting up the rankings…

• You’re not buying a blue tick.
• You’re not buying traffic.
• You’re buying algorithmic trust, authority and relevancy.

At least, if you’re doing it properly that is!

When you pay for a link, what you’re really trying to acquire is a blend of:

• Relevance (Topical + Contextual)

• Equity (The authority passed through that specific URL and link position)

• Indexation (Quality links help further boost your crawl rate/crawl budget)

• Visibility footprint (Can Google actually crawl and count this without filters?)

• Risk profile (Does this link look manipulated? Would it set off anti-spam triggers?)

The problem? Most SEOs treat link buying like a vending machine. Insert coin. Get link. Rank page.

But Google’s not that stupid anymore, and hasn’t been since Penguin 4.0 went real-time and I dropped my research all the way back at the first Chiang Mai SEO Mastermind in 2016.

The days of thinking “just get a DR80 guest post” are over… DR is a vanity metric. It’s not used by Google. And worse, it’s more easily (and cheaply) inflated than ever. Entire link farms are built around selling high-DR placements that Google algorithmically discounts, if not outright devalues on crawl.

And to make it worst, manipulating Ahrefs for fake search volumes is easier than ever too! Though they have added delays to try and combat this.

But let’s get one thing clear:

You’re not buying a backlink. You’re buying how Google perceives that backlink.

That means this game isn’t about price or volume, it’s about calculated signal stacking. And whether you’re spending $20 or $20,000, if you’re not buying the right kind of trust, you’re burning cash for nothing nowadays.

When Should You Buy Backlinks?

Let me be brutally clear upfront: You don’t need backlinks for every site, every niche, or even every phase of your project – Especially if you’ve run into previous penalties, hard drops or built dodgy links that have gotten caught out before.

But when you’re entering any remotely competitive vertical (e.g. finance, legal, health, SaaS, iGaming, crypto etc) then you’re either buying links… or falling behind the people who are, and any SEO in these industries will tell you the same.

So when should you actually pull the trigger and put together a competitive budget?

1. You’ve Tapped Out OnPage & Content ROI

If you’ve cleaned up your technical, mapped out your topical clusters, published genuinely helpful content that hits intent and has solid quality signals, and your traffic is still flatlining, then you don’t have a content issue.

You have trust & equity issues!

Buying backlinks at this point isn’t optional. It’s necessary. Your site simply doesn’t have the authority to compete, and you’re sitting on a content investment that will never pay out without external validation.

2. You’re Entering A Market With Heavy Link Inflation

Try ranking in any YMYL niche without getting on the linkgraph (which means sites that are “powering” a topic by linking to the same sites) and see how far you get…

Markets like crypto, supplements, gambling/iGaming, travel, and even high-end B2B SaaS are inflated beyond belief! The top players aren’t just building links, they’re mass buying placements with VC budgets.

But even in SEO you still see a huge amount of overlap at the highest levels – Above, I ran PressWhizz against Diggity Marketing, Ahrefs & SEMRush in the link intersect tool and all 3 have links from Shopify, NYTimes, Inc, Cnet, Elementor, Namecheap, Envato, Moz & Clickfunnels. Meaning I want to try and get all of those sites to link to us over the next several months or years too!

In these spaces, it’s not about whether paid links are “allowed.” It’s about how smart your buys are compared to your competitors! And a lot of that means finding the links powering the linkgraph and relentlessly acquiring them all.

3. You’re Running Parasite or Launchjack Campaigns

If you’re going for speed, especially with Parasite SEO, ORM, or launchjacks, links are a massive amplifier.

You already have authority (borrowed, via the host site). But stacking a few powerful, relevant links within 12–48 hours of publishing can catapult the page above others sitting on that same domain, or even take it to #1 on day one. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. It works.

Time is your enemy in these campaigns. Paid links from the PressWhizz link building marketplace with <48 hour delivery times are how you flip the script though! Cheeky plug as always!

4. You’re Recovering From A Hit or Building Back Trust

Sometimes you don’t just need links, you need the right kind of links.

If you’ve been devalued by a core update, spam classifier, or HCU hit, and you’ve fixed the content issues? Good.

Now go earn your trust back, with branded, clean, topically aligned backlinks from authority sources.

This is also where most SEOs mess up recovery. They fix the site, wait, and cry on Reddit when nothing happens…

Fixing is step one. Rebuilding trust signals is step two. And in most niches, step two involves opening the wallet.

Most in SEO call this link rejuvenation, but there’s not that much material or case studies on it.

5. You Have Product-Market Fit, But No Rankings

Let’s say your offer converts. Your product solves a real problem. But your site’s buried on page 3…

Buying links at this stage is a growth lever, not a risk. You’ve already validated demand and user signals, now you just need traffic. And in 2025, organic search traffic still delivers the highest intent users on the internet!

Buy some test links. Measure the results. Scale what works – And if you aren’t 100% certain at the beginning, then consult an SEO professional first.

How Much Should You Pay For a Backlink?

Most SEOs overpay for links that don’t move the needle.

The average “guest post provider” is charging $300–$600 for a DR60+ link that’s indexed today, deindexed in six months, publishes 50+ posts a day, and gets zero REAL traffic. That’s not a backlink, that’s a bonfire for your budget and a party for the provider.

Let’s break down link pricing properly.

What You’re Really Paying For

Forget DR, DA, TF, or whatever metric the vendor’s trying to impress you with.

Here’s what actually determines a link’s value:

• Topical Relevance – Is the domain (and page) in your niche or adjacent to it?
• Page-Level Equity – Does the page you’re getting a link from already rank or get traffic?
• Placement Position – Is your link buried with five others in a 2,000-word blob of fluff, or contextually embedded near the intro with relevant anchor text?
• Traffic Signals – Not just to the domain, but to the exact page you’re placed on.
• Link Profile Health – Is the site propped up by real links, or a tangled web of expired domains, redirects, and tier-2 spam?
• Indexation Durability – Does the site have pages staying indexed for 18+ months consistently, or does Google yeet them out on the next crawl?

Realistic Price Ranges (For Links That Aren’t Trash)

Here’s what you should expect to pay in 2025, assuming you’re not buying from the bargain bin or a Discord seller with five email addresses and a Gmail drive folder:

Link Type	Price Range (USD)	Worth It?
DR30–50 niche edit (relevant, clean)	$50–$150	✅
DR50–70 on a real site w/ traffic	$200–$500	✅
DR70+ guest post on a clean vertical blog	$400–$800	⚠️ Only if it gets traffic.
Mass-published “news” site (PR wire link)	$30–$200	❌ Mostly ignorable, unless doing entity stacking.
DR60+ homepage sidebar link	$150–$350	✅ If niche relevant and trafficked.
DR80+ authority site w/ real editorial process	$800–$2,500+	✅ For long term assets, entity & parasite.
Marketplace resellers / Fiverr links	$10–$150	❌ Absolute trash 99% of the time!

If you’re paying outside these ranges, you’re either getting scammed—or missing out on real firepower.

But Price Means Nothing Without Context

A $150 link on a local plumber’s blog with 3,000 monthly visitors and a 100% US-based audience might outperform a $1,000 link from an overused DR90 domain that’s selling placements to casinos, CBD vendors, and crypto bros on the same page.

The goal isn’t to “get backlinks”, it’s to build a profile of link assets that match your niche, support your topical clusters, and don’t scream manipulation.

So ask yourself every time you’re quoted a price:

“Is this priced based on actual value transfer to my target URL, and which target would get the most benefit from this indiviual link?”

If you don’t know how to answer that? You shouldn’t be spending money yet…

How to Evaluate Link Quality (Beyond Metrics)

If you’re still measuring links by DR and whether a site “looks clean,” you’re still playing link roulette.

You’re guessing. Google’s systems are not.

They’re running link validation algorithms at scale. They’re assessing trust, anchor context, internal link graphs, co-citation networks, and site-level behavior that you won’t see in any vendor’s Google Sheet.

So, if you want to buy backlinks properly, here are my main 5 rules for 2025:

1. Topical Relevance Isn’t Optional Anymore

This isn’t 2010, you can’t just get a link from “any DR70 blog” and expect results.

If you’re a SaaS tool getting links from beauty blogs, parenting sites, and general news farms? You’re feeding the algo garbage.

Relevance works on two levels:

• Domain Level: Is the site about your topic? (The higher authority site, the less relevancy required though)
• Page Level: Is the specific article where your link lives covering a relevant topic?

Google looks at both. If either one is weak, the link’s weight drops like a rock.

✅ Actionable: Use NLP tools like Surfer, MarketMuse, or Google’s NLP API to check topical alignment between your link prospect and your target page.

2. Page-Level Strength > Domain Metrics

Domain Rating (DR), Domain Authority (DA), and Trust Flow are all root domain aggregates. They’re fine for sorting large lists, but irrelevant when evaluating individual links.

What actually matters:

• Is the page already indexed?
• Does it have any referring domains of its own?
• Is it internally linked from key site pages?

✅ Actionable: Plug the actual URL of your target placement into Ahrefs or Majestic and look at referring domains, crawl depth, and internal link count.

If it’s orphaned? It’s dead weight!

3. Anchor Text Context

You don’t just want a link, you want a contextual link surrounded by semantically related terms.

Google reads before and after the link. That’s how it determines why the link exists.

Here’s the spectrum:

• ❌ “Click here” or generic links in author bios = weak
• ⚠️ Stuffed exact-match in unrelated paragraphs = risk
• ✅ Naturally placed, partial match or branded anchors in a related paragraph = strong

4. Link Velocity & Outbound Link Profile

If the domain is publishing 20+ outbound links per post and pumping out 50 posts a week?

It’s not a publisher, it’s a link farm.

Google sees it. Trust me. Those links don’t pass anything anymore, 99% are now neutral signals, but some can still be toxic.

✅ Actionable: Check the outbound link profile of recent articles using tools like Ahrefs or just a raw “site:” search + backlink audit. If everything is clearly paid or commercial… walk.

5. Traffic Is Only Useful If It’s Real

Traffic matters, but not the way people think…

You don’t care if the domain gets 100,000 hits a month if your link lives on a blog post that gets zero and was never promoted.

Look for:

• Organic traffic to the actual placement page (or ways you can build it for guest posts off target topics)
• Historical traffic trend (not just last month)
• Clean, tier 1 country breakdown (US/UK/CA > India/Pakistan/Indonesia)

✅ Actionable: Run the URL through SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, or Semrush, and always cross-check multiple sources. If numbers vary wildly, it’s probably fake.

If your links pass 5/5 of these tests then you’re good to go!

How To Buy Backlinks (The Right Way)

Realistically, if you do outreach, 90% of sites that email you back will ask for money – That means if you have a 30% reply rate, you would need to send at least 34 personalized emails to expect one site owner to reply that MIGHT give you a free backlink.

So, here’s my step-by-step guide on how to buy links properly:

Step 1: Decide Your Risk Tolerance

Before buying anything, define your campaign’s goal and risk level:

• White Hat (Low Risk): You want long-term growth, brand visibility, and minimal penalty risk. Stick to branded anchors, niche-relevant placements, and sites with editorial integrity.
• Grey Hat (Moderate Risk): You’re willing to use niche edits, media placements, and maybe even link group buys. You’ll fly under the radar, but you accept some risk of devaluation.
• Black Hat (High Risk): You’re launching churn-and-burn campaigns, parasite SEO, or spam-heavy domains. Here, it’s all about ROI before the nuke hits!

My Personal Take: Most affiliate and lead gen SEOs live in grey hat whether they admit it or not. Google knows. You know. We all know… Stop pretending!

Step 2: Know Where To Buy

You’ve got a few options. Some are obvious, others are behind closed doors:

✅ 1. Link Marketplaces (Fast & Easy, But Can Be Risky)

• Examples: Authority Builders, WhitePress, Loganix, PressWhizz (😉) etc…
• Pros: Huge inventories, instant filtering, quality controls on most.
• Cons: Frequently used footprints with the wrong publishers, repeat buyers, paying more than your own outreach.

Best Use Case: Need to scale up link campaigns, have multiple site campaigns or need to save time. Don’t rely on these for 100% of your profile, you should always add in manual entity links and link bait where possible.

✅ 2. Direct Publisher Outreach (A LOT Slower, But Cleaner)

• Build a vetted list of sites in your niche
• Reach out offering a “collaboration” or “sponsored feature”
• Negotiate one-on-one — this cuts out resellers and gets you actual editorial buy-in

Best Use Case: Long-term projects where trust and relevance matter. This is the cleanest source of paid links if done right, but it will take you a week to setup anything before you get a single result, even when paying.

✅ 3. Private Link Brokers & Vendor Networks (Hidden Gems)

• You won’t find these on Google! Think Telegram, Discord, invite-only (or premium) Facebook, Slack or Whatsapp groups.
• These guys trade in bulk deals, aging link placements, and under-the-radar link farms.
• But they also have access to networks and sites you can’t get through most services or marketplaces.

Best Use Case: Parasite SEO, launchjacks, blackhat affiliate plays, scaled campaigns needing 100+ links fast.

Warning: Vet the hell out of anything you buy here! Lots of crap, lots of gold. Learn to tell the difference fast.

❌ 4. PR Distribution & Syndication Networks (Mostly Useless)

• You’re not fooling Google with 8 different press releases distributed across 400 PRwire clones picking up your “announcement”.
• These links don’t move rankings, and even if they index, the equity is garbage.

Best Use Case: ORM, noise-making or entity stacking sometimes. Never for actual SEO weight.

Step 3: Secure the Deal Properly

This is where most people fumble:

• Always check: Is the site indexed? Is the category indexed?
• Always verify: Is this a guest post or a sticky niche edit?
• Always clarify: Can the post be taken down, or is it permanent?

My Personal Pro Tip: Send your own pre-written content and ask for internal links from other pages on the site. Most vendors will publish whatever you give them as long as they’re within the publisher criteria. Own the narrative, optimize it yourself and build more assets!

Step 4: Track Everything

Don’t just buy and hope. Monitor link velocity, indexation, anchor distribution, and whether the page you’re linking to actually moves.

Use:

• Ahrefs or Majestic for link tracking
• Google Search Console for impact assessment
• Indexation tools to monitor the post itself (e.g. IndexMeNow, URL Inspect API etc…)

If you’re not tracking, you’re likely losing out on equity and value, especially over time as all sorts of issues arise with links.

The Risks of Buying Links

Let’s not pretend this is a zero risk game. It isn’t. If you buy links, you’re violating Google’s guidelines, full stop. But guess what? So is 90% of the industry and most of your real SERP competitors.

Still, there’s a fine line between playing the system and getting played by it.

The real risk isn’t in the act of buying links… it’s in buying the wrong ones, over and over again. As the saying goes “If you plant weeds and expect roses, you’ll be disappointed every season”.

The SEOs that end up crying in forums and tweeting about “random deindexing” are always the ones buying garbage. They’re stacking paid placements on overused domains, with obvious commercial anchors, surrounded by casino and adult outbound links, in articles Google’s spam team could detect in their sleep.

And that’s the thing, Google isn’t actively hunting every paid link. They don’t have the resources, in fact they are actively trying to cut processing costs in search. But they absolutely still run passive systems to detect manipulation patterns at scale. Same anchors, same sites, same templated outreach language? That’s how footprints are formed. And once they’ve seen enough, they don’t penalize you, they just quietly ignore your links.

That’s worse than a penalty. You keep spending and building… and nothing moves.

But the biggest risk? Ego.

It’s assuming you can shortcut authority without thinking. That you can scale garbage links and beat teams who are doing proper due diligence and stacking authority, relevance, trust, and traffic all in one motion and likely with budgets that are dwarfing yours too.

Buying links is an art form. Done wrong, it’s a liability. Done right, it’s the most scalable SEO edge still left in the game…

But if you think you can just throw cash at the problem with no strategy?

You’re the next laugh when a competitors SEO opens your Ahrefs overview…

So, let me give you my strategy and advice on:

How To Build a Bulletproof Link Profile

If you’re going to buy links, you better build a profile that can survive algo changes and take a random signal swing.

Because Google’s not just looking at the individual link anymore. It’s evaluating the entire ecosystem around your site: where your links come from, how they connect to your content, how naturally they accumulate, and what kind of footprint you leave behind.

So what does a bulletproof profile actually look like?

First, you’re diversified, not just in link type, but in intention.

Your ideal profile has got:

• Branded links from relevant media sources.

• Contextual links from niche blogs.

• Entity-driven links on directory and business profiles.

• Occasional exact-match anchors from highly contextual placements.

• Internal links dialed in to support the externally linked pages.

• Supporting tier 2 links to push authority further without creating noise at the surface.

• And anything sending signals should be optimized for traffic and user engagement too.

You’re not over optimizing. You’re not link bombing one page with 20 identical guest posts from questionable sources. You’re spreading trust across the site, feeding key nodes of your topical authority and linkgraph.

Second, you blend earned and engineered.

Even if you’re paying for 90% of your links, you make it look like you didn’t. You mix in link bait, social embeds, unlinked brand mentions you turn into links, and digital PR that actually earns citations…

Third, your anchor profile tells a story.

It’s not 40% exact-match on your money page. It’s based on analysis and uses branded anchors, modifiers, partials and exact match is reserved only for the best link sources and signals.

Lastly, your links ONLY live in good neighborhoods, unless you’re doing adult or full black hat SEO.

Being in good neighborhoods means the referring domains have clean outbound profiles, aren’t overloaded with paid casino links, and get crawled consistently. They’re not just DR numbers, they’re sites with actual audiences, real signals, and domain-level trust in your vertical.

You don’t need a thousand links. You need 100 that Google believes in.

Stack trust. Diversify risk. Control the narrative.

And don’t just build to rank, build to thrive but most importantly, survive.

Final Thoughts

Buying backlinks isn’t really controversial anymore, especially as Google slowly killed their credibility (and likability) within the SEO industry over the last few years.

Whether you’re running affiliate sites, client campaigns, or scaling SaaS brands, you’re not playing in the real SEO leagues if you’re not investing in off-page equity.

But the difference between ranking and tanking in 2025 is simple: Intentionality.

Most SEOs still spray links like it’s 2013, chasing DR, ignoring context, and stacking liability like it’s leverage. Then they whine when updates wipe them off the map.

The smart ones? They’re surgical. Deep analysis and planning first. Every link serves a purpose. Every placement supports a broader structure. Every decision is mapped back to ROI.

That’s the level you need to operate on now.

So take what you’ve learned in this guide and start auditing your current link portfolio. Cut the dead weight. Rebuild with relevance and trust. Invest with strategy.

And if you’re tired of gambling with vendors who don’t get it? You can book a call with us below!