It may seem easy to simply hire a link broker to purchase several links for your website, but there are several reasons why you should reconsider this tactic.

Google Has Declared War on Purchased Links

Google has declared very openly that if they find sites that are selling links, they will disregard the value of those links. It has come to light over the past few months that Google has 10,000 site reviewers worldwide actively looking at sites to determine their quality. This no doubt includes looking for evidence of paid links.

Many link brokers have a standard “stable” of websites that they broker links through. Since a link broker normally uses the same sites to purchase paid links, eventually these sites will be caught in Google’s net and will stop being able to pass PageRank (PR) through links. Essentially, the money you spend on links will eventually be thrown away.

Because there is no way to determine if a site has been tagged / no longer able to pass PR, there is no way to determine if the sites you are buying links from can pass PR. You could, in fact, be buying links from a site that from the very start can’t pass PR.

Not All Link Brokers Do Their Homework

Link brokers also rely heavily on the toolbar PR of a site to determine which sites they will broker with. The true PR of a site is now kept hidden from the public, so link buyers are making decisions based on information that is, at best, several months old and, at worst, absolutely inaccurate.

There is also the issue of link brokers looking at surface issues and not examining any more deeply. There many ways a site can manipulate toolbar PR, traffic and backlinks and many link brokers do not look any further than these few indicators as to the quality of a site. You could be overpaying for links from an unscrupulous site owner.

Many Link Brokers are Less Than Honest

There is also the issue that many link brokers are unscrupulous themselves. The unscrupulous link brokers may use a client’s lack of knowledge of how link building should best be done to overcharge for links or to provide low quality links.

Overall, the industry of link brokering is still in uncharted waters. Legitimate and thorough companies may exist but they are greatly outnumbered by those who are looking to take advantage of unknowing clients.

By now, you may be asking yourself, what is the difference between buying links and paying to be be included in a directory. Keep an eye on this blog to find out why directories are much better than link buying.