There are several places to buy links. Some types of purchasable links have been around for years, and others are quite new. Expect to see this list change in the future, as it's one of the more volatile parts of SEO there is.
- Directories
- Forum Signatures
- Text Link Ads
- Blog Reviews
- Directly Contacting a Webmaster
Directories
There are literally millions of directories that you can submit your website to. Not only that, but there are services out there that will automatically submit your site to hundreds of directories, for a fee. These directories and services are, for the most part, worthless. The search engines caught on long ago to the people mass-submitting to directories, and now, only a select few directories pass on the link love they used to.It should be noted that directories which are easy to get into are most likely going to contain a great deal of poor-quality sites. When the search engines figure out that a directory is not filtering submissions, the value of the link will be worth next to nothing. This is why we recommend that you focus on the three directories listed below (or niche directories for your industry). Avoid low quality general directories!
DMOZ
Viewed as the golden child of Google, the dmoz directory has often been the source of much anger and frustration from webmasters trying to get their site listed in this king of directories. Although the value of a link has decreased over the years, a link from dmoz.org can still significantly affect your search rankings. To be listed on dmoz all, you need to do is navigate to a category related to your site and submit a free submission.However, don't expect an immediate response. dmoz is notorious for being slow to add links (and sometimes never) for a variety of reasons they probably won't tell you. Also, if you resubmit your site to a category you are often placed at the end of the queue, so don't submit more than once a year and hope for the best!
Best of the Web
One of the oldest sites on the net, Best of the Web has been around since 1994 and is pretty strict about who they let into their directory. To be considered for a listing you must pay a fee. They also have two different types of payment plans: annual or lifetime. If you're serious about your site being successful on the search engines, pay the lifetime fee, as it will pay for itself soon enough.Yahoo
Yahoo's directory is similar to Best of the Web, but the quality is a little less. However, all search engines still consider this a valuable directory and a listing here will definitely boost your rankings.Forum Signatures
Forums are a great source of traffic and link love for sites that are just starting out. First you need to find a forum that supports links in the signature, then you simply have to post on the forums to get links. Another option is to sponsor a member of that forum in exchange for them including a link to your website. However, it should be noted that some forums do not allow this, and you should research this issue before investing any money.Important note: Some forums have a system where links are automatically marked with the attribute "nofollow", which means that they are marking the links as untrusted. Read up on our no follow lesson to see how this will affect the link love you receive from that site.
Text Link Ads
Although this isn't exactly a permanent form of advertising, these types of links tend to be a bit more below the radar than a typical site sponsorship deal. There are several text link ad brokers that have a network of sites that are willing to put text links on their website in return for a monthly fee. At some of these sites you can even get placed on a single page on the site, rather than on every page (this is good because then your link doesn't look like a normal sponsored link!).Blog Reviews
With the rise of blogging popularity, it was obvious that something was going to come along to allow the massive amount of bloggers to make an extra buck. Well, there is a new option for bloggers to make money using ReviewMe, SponsoredReview, PayPerPost, and V7NContextual. All of these sites have a network of bloggers that are waiting to make a post for your company if you're willing to pay a fee. These posts can range from a full review of your product to a simple mention of your website in a post that's about the industry you work in.These links are forever, but make sure you don't purchase links from blogs that have too many paid posts. The search engines are getting better at sniffing these sites out and will often penalize these blogs, preventing them from giving out link love if all they do is post sponsored reviews.
