Do you feel like most backlinks are paid?

[Jason]

They're not supposed to be. Well, Google, and other search engines also probably, punish paid links with low rankings. Anyway, a big problem with spotting paid backlinks is maybe the sheer difficulty, but I don't think that's the case. In fact, I don't think most backlinks are paid, cause I think it would be found out. Do you all agree? What have you observed?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I think a lot of them are paid in not so obvious ways.

I sell sponsored content on my blog. It includes do-follow links for the buyer. However, I'm super picky about who I sell it to. I reject 9 out of 10 requests even if that means I lose a good financial opportunity.

It has to be relevant. It has to be high-quality. It has to be valuable.

Or it doesn't get on my blog...

 

[Joeychgo]

Well, I have many thousands of backlinks, including one from the NY Times, and I have paid for zero of them.

 

[Shortie]

I believe that many backlinks are paid even though it is not made obvious at all.

I do know that search engines penalize for paid backlinks as I believe it is a form of what they call Black Hat SEO.

 

[cpvr]

Well, I have many thousands of backlinks, including one from the NY Times, and I have paid for zero of them.

Same here. I don’t see a point of spending a dime on a backlink that I can get for free and more than likely of better quality. I have links from various social media sites, other related websites and various other websites. I’ll continue to build backlinks the organic and cheap way.

 

[Jason]

Ideally, backlinks should come from other sites because the sites find your site awesome. However, of course, ha ha, that's a really powerful feat to obtain.

 

[cpvr]

Ideally, backlinks should come from other sites because the sites find your site awesome. However, of course, ha ha, that's a really powerful feat to obtain.

It’s not that hard if you’re building them on social media. You can easily build them on tumblr, quora, reddit and twitter.

 

[Tracy]

What is a backlink?

 

[cpvr]

What is a backlink?

It’s a pebble to a rock.

 

[Nomad]

I believe a large number of backlinks are paid. If you have money to pay, you can even get backlinks from prestigious publication like Forbes for your little known finance blog. If you check popular publications you can see a lot of sponsored posts and the main motive of these posts are to provide backlinks