In my quest to learn more about optimizing blogs and web sites, I have noticed many recurring patterns.  One of them is the idea of buying links.  I have received lots of advertisements offering thousands of links for less than a hundred dollars.

On the surface, the idea seems to be a very good one.  You only need to shell out a relatively small amount of money and you will get a lot of links just like that.  You do not have to surf, you do not have to network.  Then again, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, right?

In this case, the “too good to be true” part is highlighted mainly because of how Google treats paid links:

This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.

Examples of link schemes can include:
•    Links intended to manipulate PageRank
•    Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
•    Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
•    Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

Take note of that last point.  Google does frown upon this practice.  More so, Google looks not only on the quantity of links but on the quality as well.

Have you been tempted to purchase one of those link schemes where they guarantee a thousand links for $50?  If so, then you might want to think about it.  It might not be worth it in the end – especially if Google finds out and penalizes your site.

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