The Frowned-Upon Practice of Buying Backlinks To Improve PageRank
New website creators frequently wonder how they can quickly boost their PageRank score to show up higher in Google’s search results. Should I focus on the quality of my site or should I spend money on advertising my site? The latter takes less effort and may be more time-efficient. This same curiosity traces back to the mid-1990s into the early 2000s when people first realized the importance of backlinks and their relation to search rankings. With this realization, there soon was a large market for buying and selling links to websites.
To understand why someone would want to buy links, it is important to understand how PageRank works. In class, we learned that PageRank is essentially a voting process where in-links to a page determine that page’s PageRank score. Pages, based on their current estimate of PageRank score, then pass endorsements to their out-going links. The pages that are considered to have a higher PageRank score then have stronger endorsements since they are splitting their PageRank score with their out-going links. A page’s PageRank score is determined by summing the in-link scores, so in theory, the more in-links a page has the better PageRank score it will have, which will translate to higher search rankings.
After understanding this PageRank algorithm, we are now able to see why so many people jumped into this big market for trying to get backlinks to their websites. Buying and selling links was standard practice and considered good business to get your website to reach as many people as possible. However, pretty much as soon as this craze for links started, Google started cracking down on the whole process. The purpose of Google’s search algorithm is to provide people with the most relevant sources for their respective queries, however, if people are buying links to manipulate the algorithm to promote their content that may not be as useful or of quality then this worsens Google’s role as a search engine. Google has a publicly released statement that states buying or selling links for your site that pass PageRank will be punished, putting your site lower in the search rankings. Buying and selling links even include services like sending someone a free product in exchange for them writing about it and adding a link.
Many people wonder today if they should still think about buying links, the best answer is no. Over the past two decades, Google’s algorithm for detecting paid links has improved significantly making buying links a great risk that is simply not worth the cost. So what is the best way to improve search results? The less exciting but most effective way to improve PageRank of your site is creating quality content that provides value to people so they would want to link to your site themselves. Although this is not a fast and easy answer that many people are looking for, it remains the most consistent way to have a better PageRank score.
Easley, D., & Kleinberg, J. (2010). Networks, crowds, and markets: Reasoning about a highly connected world. Cambridge University Press.
Barysevich, Aleh. “Buying Backlinks For SEO: Yes, This Is Still A Thing.” Search Engine Journal, 21 Oct. 2022, https://www.searchenginejournal.com/buying-seo-backlinks/462856/.