Definition
Link buying is a grey hat practice that involves paying a website owner in exchange for publishing a link pointing to your site. This method is explicitly prohibited by Google's guidelines, which considers any financial exchange for a dofollow link as a manipulative link scheme. However, link buying remains one of the most widespread practices in SEO because it allows quickly obtaining targeted backlinks on sites with strong topical authority. Risks include a Google manual penalty, algorithmic devaluation of detected links, and potential ranking loss. Ethical alternatives include link earning through remarkable content creation, digital PR, and transparent editorial partnerships marked as nofollow or sponsored. Using link building platforms like LemmiLink helps structure this approach with quality editorial content.
Key Points
- Google explicitly prohibits buying dofollow links in its guidelines
- Penalty risk increases with the volume and detectability of purchased links
- Editorial quality of the content surrounding the link reduces detection risk
- rel=sponsored or rel=nofollow attributes allow compliant marking of paid links
Practical Examples
Sponsored article purchase
An e-commerce business pays 200 euros for a sponsored article with a dofollow link on a thematic fashion blog. The content is written to naturally integrate into the blog's editorial line.
Bulk link buying
An agency buys 50 links on various sites through a reseller. Link quality varies and the abnormally fast acquisition pattern increases the risk of Google detection.
Targeted purchase on authority site
A SaaS identifies a reference blog in its niche with a DA of 60+ and negotiates the insertion of a contextual link in an existing high-traffic article.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, link buying is perfectly legal from a legal standpoint. However, it violates Google's guidelines and can result in penalties on your rankings. The distinction is between legality and compliance with a search engine's rules.
Prioritize thematically relevant sites, vary your anchors, maintain a natural acquisition pace, choose sites with real organic traffic, and ensure the content surrounding your link provides genuine editorial value.
Go Further with LemmiLink
Discover how LemmiLink can help you put these SEO concepts into practice.
Last updated: 2026-02-07