PubCon 2010 Session Review: Buying Links

I made it to the 3rd day of PubCon. That in itself is a great feat. Thursday morning I attended a “Buying Links” session. Below are my notes to this session:

The session was moderated by Christine Churchill of KeyRelevance.

Jamie Steven, VP Marketing with SEOmoz, started the session filling in for Rand Fishkin. Jamie enforced SEOMoz’s continued statement on buying links – “don’t do it”. First, he laid out the reasons most SEO’s buy links.

Why do SEO’s buy links?
• To improve rankings
• To diversify link sources
• To get keyword-targeted anchor text
• To get the links pointing to precisely the right page

SEOMoz Survey – People who buy links are twice as likely to file a spam report. In other words, it’s a high risk industry. It’s best to stay out of that game.

SEOMoz’s broken record statement “don’t buy links”. Why?
• Not because they don’t work
• They are too risky
• There are better ways to spend money

SEOMoz believes there are much better options to get links:

1. Earn links through business development.
   • WalkScore partnered with Zillow to show walkscores with each property
   • Docusign partnered with REALTOR to promote efficacy of electronic signatures
   • Rhapsody partnered with CMT to allow music playback
2. Political / Non-Profit Donations
3. Events, Events, Events – Throw / Sponsor Events
4. Buy Existing Content
5. Corporate scholarships – Will get linked on dozens of colleges and high school sites (high authority)
6. Target Influences on Facebook – Create Facebook Ads targeted to specific employee

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Jim Boykin, CEO of WeBuildPages, had some interesting points in buying links

• “I’ve never bought links. I’ve just sponsored sites”
• Three years ago on the same panel, Jim Boykin said “Don’t piss off Google & stay under the radar”. It still applies today.
• If you are not buying links … the link buyers will beat you in the short-term

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Todd Malicoat (@stuntdubl), of Market Motive, discussed a guide to getting links.

6 Action Items and 6 Traits of Successful Link Acquisition
1. Process for the Actions
2. Evaluating (link equity)
• Where does the target site get its links from?
• Look at placement and anchor text
• Evaluate number pages indexed
3. Building (quality site list)
• Various types of links such as authority, directory, reciprocal, run of site, .edu/.gov,
• Defining quality of links helps set priorities
4. Building (contact lists for quality sites)
5. Approaching (your contact list)
6. Building (relationships)