April 3rd, 2010 by Susie

Link building strategies are somewhat controversial. Acquiring links is an important part of SEO, but the controversy considered here revolves around how the links are obtained. Should they be acquired gradually, by the deployment of high quality content? Or is this position unrealistic in highly competitive economic sectors? Is link buying really an unethical practice? These questions cannot be resolved definitively, because they relate to a contested area. Vigorous debate regularly occurs within the SEO industry with regard to appropriate link building strategies.

What is thought on this contentious topic depends in part on where you sit, so to speak. Some firms in the world of SEO arguably see Google as something to be outwitted in the interests of their clients, while other firms admire Google and like to stay squarely within the search engine’s rules. A third group of firms have neither an adversarial nor a collaborative attitude with respect to Google, being more pragmatic in outlook. The perspectives people possess often have an influence on the positions they adopt, although this is not automatic.

Google perceives some types of link acquisition as manipulative and will take action accordingly. Therefore purchasing links can be a counterproductive strategy. Buying links does not necessarily seem more unethical than other advertising strategies, but the penalties which can flow from it mean that caution is necessary. A cost benefit analysis could be performed, but attitude to risk will influence thinking on this issue. Link building and acquisition can be undertaken with a view to the long game and taking unnecessary risks might jeopardise the kind of goals which that should include.

If an SEO company refrains from link buying, its competitors may not and their sites might begin to colonise the upper sections of the search engine results pages. However, firms which opt for fairly indiscriminate link buying may be building their seeming success on sandy foundations. Hence the activities of other firms need not tempt a SEO outfit to engage in link buying if it otherwise has no inclination to do so.

Some individuals in the field may suggest that advising against the buying of links is being too compliant. Preaching of any kind can result in a backlash. However, it is not the morality of quickly acquiring links by buying them that is being criticised. It is the potential practical outcome of the strategy which is under scrutiny. In any case, one of the healthy aspects of SEO discussion is the ability to agree to disagree.

It is worth noting that even if sites which are at the summit of the search engine results pages have used paid links for link building, it may not be the paid links which are bringing in most of the value. It is possible that ‘natural’ links are delivering a large proportion of that success.

The debates over link building strategies are likely to be protracted. Some search engine optimisation services will pursue risky strategies because they estimate that some chances are worth taking. Other SEO firms will try to accumulate links for their sites in a different way, confident that the future will justify their patient approach.

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