SEO: Buying backlinks - these are the opportunities and risks

Backlinks are still an important ranking factor. The temptation to increase in ranking with purchased links is therefore understandable. However, it is also important to consider the risks.

With backlinks, the traffic to your page increases - however, purchased links are not without risk.

Organic links, i.e. those that are voluntarily placed to your page, are the ideal state. However, this does not apply as often as desired, which makes the idea of buying links seem all the more attractive.

Buying backlinks: Sensitive penalties not uncommon

Search engine optimization largely refers to Google. According to the company's guidelines, however, purchased links are not permitted. The risk is thus obvious:

• Google evaluates a huge number of backlinks every day and tries to identify purchased links as such. Of course, this does not work in all cases, but even the suspicion is enough for a penalty.
• What the penalty looks like varies: by the (allegedly) purchased links become invalid, the page suddenly loses a lot of "link juice", which results in worse rankings.
• In severe cases, Google can also impose a manual penalty on the website. Severe drops in visibility are then likely.

From this follows: Should you decide to push a page with purchased backlinks despite the risks, it is even more important that the link purchase is of high quality. A trustworthy, reputable platform or SEO agency is therefore essential. Temptingly cheap offers, on the other hand, should be understood as a warning sign: Here, often only short-term effects are possible, as a penalty is all the more likely.A direct influence on the links you get when buying, you usually have nevertheless not. Therefore, it is advisable to follow the process and check all links yourself. Factors like the authority and relevance of the source site are key here.