I’ve been opposed to link buying for a couple of years, ever since I contacted a well known broker and asked a few questions. They had to do with IP ranges and variety in placement sources, as well as result tracking of customer ranking improvements. I was blown off with “I don’t have time for that! Everyone knows this works to increase PageRank!”

The providers simply don’t care how your links look to the Algorithms. They are providing a service which is in demand and consequences be damned. My personal take on it is don’t risk your reputation or your rankings on a short term high sold by PageRank pushers. You’ll become addicted and the rankings crash can be nasty with serious withdrawal symptoms.

The question about buying links has been addressed in dozens of SEO blogs, forums and at Search Engine Strategies (SES) conferences. I have created a Google Custom Search Engine which includes 150 SEO blogs, and 14 SEO related forums, plus my own blog for that one extra opinion. 😉

The results it produces, especially if you are good with your queries and qualifiers, is nothing short of precise. So any comment you have seen somewhere can be rooted out if you recall a specific phrase to search for as that phrase will no doubt be repeated by SEO bloggers or SEO forum members commenting on what you’re looking for. I’ve provided a starting place so you can just click the “Search SEO Experts” button and see quick results. You’ll note the two distinctly different camps of (1) “avoiding detection” or (2) “Don’t do it” comments.

Let me know how the “Search Engine Commentary from SEO Gurus & Search Optimization Experts” custom search engine works for you in answering any “link buying” questions. Here’s a Mike Grehan interview with Google’s Matt Cutts on link buying

Tags: Link Buying, Buying Links, SEO blogs, Search Engine Optimization