Why We Don't Sell Backlink Packages

Backlink packages sold by the unit — "100 quality backlinks", "3-tier link pyramids", "web 2.0 + PDF submission + profile submission" — are link spam under Google's policies, and the risk attaches to your domain, not to the seller's. We don't sell them. This page explains what you are actually buying, and what we build instead.

This is not a principled stand for its own sake. It is a question of who carries the consequences when something goes wrong. The contract ends, the vendor moves on to the next client, and what remains is your domain with a link profile somebody has to clean up.

What is actually inside "100 quality backlinks"

Almost every package on the market uses the same combination of line items. Here is what each one means:

Google names all of these explicitly in its spam policy documentation, under link spam. The relevant clauses: buying or selling links for ranking purposes, low-quality directory and bookmark links, and creating content for the sole purpose of holding links.

Why this is a risk, not just an ineffective spend

The risk is not transferable

This is the central point. If Google treats your link profile as manipulative — through an algorithmic adjustment or a manual action — the thing that gets hit is your domain. The agency loses one client. You lose an acquisition channel.

Spam links cannot be taken back

Once hundreds of links exist on properties you do not control, you cannot remove them. All you can do is disavow — tell Google to ignore them — and that is a slow process requiring you to catalogue every domain involved. Clients who come to us with this inheritance typically spend three to six months cleaning up before they can start moving forward.

The pattern is obvious

A purchased link profile has a distinctive shape that anyone with Ahrefs or Semrush can recognise: a sharp spike over a short window, anchor text dominated by commercial keywords, an implausible dofollow ratio, and referring domains that link to each other. If an analyst can see it in five minutes, Google's systems saw it considerably earlier.

For the local pack, it barely applies at all

If your target is the three-result map box, note that what ranks there is your Google Business Profile, not your website. The dominant factors are proximity, categories, and reviews. Spam links touch none of the three. We cover this in detail in local pack SEO: how to rank in the Google Map Pack.

But aren't links a ranking factor?

They are, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Links remain one of the signals Google uses. The distinction that matters is not "links" versus "no links" — it is between links you earn and links you place yourself.

Earned links are slower. That is a genuine drawback and we won't dress it up. But five earned links this month still hold value in three years, while a hundred self-placed ones are a debt that comes due at the next algorithm update.

What we do instead

1. Entity and citation foundations

Making your name, address, and phone number identical everywhere your business is listed, then making sure you exist on the platforms search engines and AI systems actually read: Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Crunchbase, and the industry directories that matter in your field. This is free, legitimate, and often fixes the problem people assumed needed backlinks.

2. Assets people link to voluntarily

Calculators, checklists, templates, and data studies. Nobody wants to link to your pricing page; plenty of people will link to a free tool that genuinely helps. One good asset keeps accumulating links for years with no further outreach.

3. Original data from your own business

Numbers only you have — from operations, from customer surveys, from demand patterns in your industry. This is the single content type that reliably earns links from press and industry blogs, because there is no other source they can cite.

4. Digital PR and journalist platforms

Answering source requests on platforms like Featured, Qwoted, and Help a B2B Writer. This produces mentions in real publications, with links that cannot be bought at any price.

5. Partnerships and communities that already exist

Partner pages, suppliers, trade associations, chambers of commerce, local event sponsorships, and podcasts. These are ordinary business activities that happen to produce links — and because the relationship is real, so is the link.

6. Guest posts, with selection

We are not against guest posting. We are against guest posting on sites that accept any topic, charge per article, and have no readers. One piece in an industry publication people actually read is worth more than twenty on a blog mixing crypto, casinos, and fashion.

How to vet a vendor before you sign

If you are comparing proposals — including ours — ask these six questions:

1. "Can I see ten links you built for another client?" Vendors who build real links are usually glad to show them. Package vendors tend to decline, citing client confidentiality.
2. "Where will the links be placed? Name the sites." An answer in categories ("high-authority web 2.0 properties") rather than site names is an answer that is avoiding the question.
3. "If we get penalised, who cleans it up and who pays for it?" Watch whether this question makes the conversation awkward.
4. "How many of those links sent real visitors last month?" A link no human ever clicks is a link that exists only for machines.
5. "On what basis do you guarantee page one?" There is no correct answer here. A position guarantee is a promise about a third party's system.
6. "What happens if I stop the retainer?" If rankings collapse immediately, what you were renting was not an asset — it was a prop.

If you have already bought one

We see this often, and it is not a dead end. The order of operations:

1. Stop first. Don't add new links while you diagnose.
2. Check for a manual action. Search Console → Security & Manual Actions. If it is empty, you have no manual penalty — possibly just an algorithmic adjustment, possibly no impact at all.
3. Export the full link profile. Search Console → Links, plus Ahrefs or Semrush if you have access. Compare against the date your retainer started.
4. Separate obvious spam from the ordinary. Not every old link needs to go. The ones to question: domains with no traffic, commercial-keyword anchor text, and spikes that line up exactly with the contract.
5. Disavow only what genuinely warrants it. Disavow is a blunt instrument; overusing it discards links that were helping.
6. Rebuild from the foundations. Citations, assets, content. This is the part that takes time, and there is no shortcut through it.

Frequently asked questions