Should You Buy Backlinks?
No, you should not buy backlinks. Google’s spam policy lists paid links as link spam, and since December 2022 its SpamBrain system strips the credit from bought links, so the usual result is a link that stops counting while the seller keeps your money. A sponsored placement that is tagged as one buys traffic, not rankings.
Short answer: buying backlinks is renting a signal Google is actively canceling, and the stores I work with rank without spending a dollar on links.
What Counts as Buying Backlinks?
Buying backlinks means giving anything of value in exchange for a link that passes ranking credit, and Google’s spam policies define link spam as links created “primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.” The paid examples on that page cover most of what gets pitched to a store owner.
The list is wider than cash. Google names these as link spam:
- Money for a link, or for a post that contains one
- Goods or services in exchange for a link
- Sending a blogger a free product in return for a linked review
- Guest posts and “advertorials” with paid keyword anchors
- Link exchanges and partner pages built only for cross-linking
The free product one surprises most store owners I talk to. Gifting a hoodie for a review with a link sits on the same page as buying from a link farm, and the FTC’s endorsement guides say that reviewer has to disclose the gift in the post too. Two rulebooks, same answer.
But Google is fine with you paying for exposure. It is not fine with payment disguised as an editorial vote. The same dollar can be clean with one link tag and spam with another, which is the whole reason the sponsored tag exists.
So the common thread is ranking credit changing hands, not money by itself. Before you spend anything on links, it helps to know how many backlinks you actually need for the keywords you care about. The number is usually smaller than the sellers want you to believe.
What Happens When You Buy Backlinks
When you buy backlinks, the most likely outcome is that Google ignores them. Its December 2022 link spam update said SpamBrain now detects “sites buying links” directly and that “any credit passed by these unnatural links are lost.” The penalty you fear is the rare outcome; the refund you never get is the common one.
The Quiet Outcome: The Link Stops Counting
The quiet outcome is a link that stops counting with no notice at all. You buy five guest post links in March, watch a keyword climb two spots in April, and by summer it is back where it started because SpamBrain caught up with the seller. Nothing shows up in Search Console. There is no warning and no penalty, just an invoice for a two-month bump.
Read that from the buyer’s side. You paid ranking prices for a line in a database Google is training against, and the seller keeps the money whether the link ever counted or not. That is the everyday result, and it is why I call bought links a cost, not a risk.
The Loud Outcome: A Manual Action
The loud outcome is a manual action, a human-reviewed demotion that Google’s manual actions documentation lists under “unnatural links to your site.” You have to clean the links up, file a disavow, and appeal, and the process runs months. The 2012 Penguin update was the first version of this, and Google said it visibly changed about 3.1% of English queries the day it launched.
That cleanup is where the whole toxic backlinks industry gets its scariest stories. Just know the manual action is the tail risk. The everyday outcome is duller and more expensive, because you paid for nothing.
How Much Do Paid Backlinks Cost?
Paid backlinks cost about $141 for a link inserted into an old post and about $220 for a paid guest post, rising to about $609 on a site the seller calls “quality.” Those are BuzzStream’s figures as collected in Search Endurance’s roundup, which also cites Authority Hacker’s finding that 74% of link builders buy links.
The practice is common, then, and the prices are set against the value of ranking rather than the value of the page.
| What you pay for | Typical price | What you usually get |
|---|---|---|
| Link inserted into an old post | About $141 | A link SpamBrain has seen that seller place before |
| Paid guest post | About $220 | A post on a site that publishes anyone who pays |
| “Quality” site placement | About $609 | A higher price for the same seller’s client list |
| Bulk package | Under $100 for hundreds | Links on pages Google already distrusts |
The pricing makes the math worse, not better. A placement priced in the hundreds of dollars is priced against the value of ranking, but what you receive is a link on a site that sells to everyone. Bought links are priced like rankings and delivered like lottery tickets.
Even so, I will concede that some bought links work for a while, and a seller can always show you a win. You are seeing the survivor, not the graveyard. If a seller promises placements on “real sites with real traffic,” ask why a site with real traffic is selling links in bulk. Sites with something to lose do not run link stores.
Why Bought Links Lose Even When Google Misses Them
Bought links lose even when Google misses them. The sites selling them sell to everyone, so your store ends up next to casino and crypto offers on pages Google has every reason to distrust. A link from that neighborhood says nothing about your store except that you paid to be there.
Beyond that, detection is not a coin flip you can win for long. Paid links cluster on the same sellers, the same networks, and the same over-optimized anchor text, and spotting patterns at that scale is exactly what an AI system does well. Buy once and you are in the dataset, tied to every other buyer that seller ever served.
Also, plenty of keywords rank with no backlinks at all, which makes paying for risky ones a strange place to start. The stores I see winning on Shopify are not out-linking anyone. They are out-covering a narrow subject and letting the links show up on their own.
Can You Pay for Links the Right Way?
Yes, you can pay for links the right way, and the right way is a placement that carries a sponsored or nofollow tag. Google’s guidance on qualifying outbound links says rel=”sponsored” is for links created as part of ads, sponsorships, or other paid agreements.
The tag keeps the referral traffic and drops the ranking credit, which is the trade you want.
So the tag is not a tax on doing it right. It is what makes the placement safe, and it keeps the two invoices separate. Pay for eyeballs on one, and never let that money touch the other.
That second invoice is where I make clients slow down. Before any sponsorship, I ask two questions:
- Does the site’s audience overlap with the store’s buyers?
- Would you pay the same price if the link passed no ranking credit at all?
If the answer to the second one is no, it was never a traffic buy. It was a link buy wearing a costume. A tagged sponsorship on a site your customers read can pay for itself in orders without ever touching your rankings, and that is the only version of paid placement I sign off on.
What I Do Instead of Buying Links for Shopify Stores
Instead of buying links for Shopify stores, I rank the pages first and let the links follow. Rankings turn into backlinks when a writer searches for a source, finds your page, and cites it, and that order has held on every store I have run it on.
The playbook in earning backlinks without outreach is the long version; the four steps below are the short one.
Step 1: Fix the Pages That Already Rank
The pages that already rank get fixed first, because moving a page from position 12 to position 4 needs no links and takes an afternoon. On Ergomotion, rewriting one product title to “Ascend High-Low Adjustable Bed with Tilt” put that page at #2 for “hi low adjustable bed,” above medical suppliers. Ergomotion’s total sales are up 103% in the Ergomotion case study, and none of it came from a link invoice.
Step 2: Claim the Links You Already Earned
The links you already earned come next: your suppliers, your manufacturers, the marketplaces and directories that list your products, and the press that has mentioned you without linking. A brand you stock usually has a “where to buy” page with your name on it and no link. One email fixes that, and it is the only outreach I do.
On a Shopify store that list is longer than owners expect. Every app you review on the Shopify App Store, every podcast you have been on, every local business group, and every wholesale customer with a “our partners” page is a link you earned and never collected. Ten of those beat one bought guest post, and none of them can be canceled by an update.
Step 3: Publish Something a Writer Would Cite
Something a writer would cite is the asset that earns links for years: a sizing chart, a real test, a dataset from your own orders, a buying guide that answers the question better than the publishers do. Fieldsheer’s buying guide sat at #1 for “best heated jackets for women” all winter, and in March 2026 Travel + Leisure named its jacket Best Overall for Women. I did not send a single email to get that mention; the writer searched, found the page that ranked, and cited it. Fieldsheer’s sales are up 104% in the Fieldsheer case study.
Step 4: Spend the Link Budget on the Store
The link budget goes into the store instead: collection pages that cover the category, product pages that answer the questions a shopper asks, and a blog that owns the subject. That is the work my Shopify SEO services are built around, and it compounds in a way a bought link never will. A link can be canceled by the next update. A page that ranks keeps earning.
Backlink Questions Store Owners Ask Me
Are Fiverr Backlinks Worth It?
Fiverr backlinks are not worth it at any price, since a $5 package of 200 links is a list of private blog network pages Google has already mapped. The December 2022 update was aimed at exactly that inventory. The best case is nothing happens; the worst case is your store is now tied to every other buyer of that gig.
Do Paid Directory Listings Count as Buying Links?
Paid directory listings count as buying links when the only product is the link, and they do not count when the listing exists for shoppers. A chamber of commerce page, a verified manufacturer’s dealer locator, or a review platform profile is a listing people use. A “premium SEO directory” that nobody visits is a link store with a different sign on the door.
Can You Buy Backlinks Safely?
You can buy backlinks safely only by tagging them sponsored, which means buying them for traffic and not for rankings. Any seller who says the link is “safe” and also says it will move your rankings is describing a link that is one of those two things, not both. If you need the rankings, the money goes into the pages, not the links.
Check Your Competitors’ Links Before You Envy Them
Checking your competitors’ links before you envy them takes about an hour and usually shrinks the gap. Many of the links that look like an advantage turn out to be the same bought placements SpamBrain is already ignoring.
To run the check, pull the backlinks for your top three competitors in any tool and sort by the sites that link to them. If the same guest post sites show up for all three, you are looking at a seller’s client list, not an authority gap.
What is left after that filter is the short list that matters. Usually it is a few press mentions, a supplier page, and a resource some writer cited mid-article. Those are the links you can earn with a better asset, and they are the only ones worth copying.
One more thing worth checking is how many of those competitor links point at the homepage versus the page that outranks you. Most of the time the page beating you has fewer links than you think and better coverage than you have, which turns a link problem back into a content problem you can fix this month.
Want a Link Plan That Survives the Next Update?
Buying backlinks is renting a signal Google is working to cancel. The written policy bans it, SpamBrain zeroes it out, the prices are set against rankings you will not keep, and the manual action is the tail risk that turns a shortcut into a cleanup project.
Book a call and I will look at what your competitors’ links actually are, then map the two or three assets your store could publish to earn the same authority without buying a thing.
Sources:
- Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search
- Google Search Central Blog: December 2022 link spam update
- Google Search Central Blog: Another step to reward high-quality sites (Penguin, 2012)
- Google Search Console Help: Manual Actions report
- Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links to Google
- FTC: The FTC’s Endorsement Guides, What People Are Asking
- Search Endurance: Link Building Statistics (2026)
