Sneaky Way to get Cheap Text Links

23. Mar 2007 | 14 Comments

So I was evaluating the backlinks of a few websites the other day that rank really well, I mean REALLY well for some very very targeted terms & I came across a few things of interest.

Nearly Every Link to the website (over 450) had some really really targeted Anchor Text.

I instantly thought to myself “Wow, these guys are really solid linkbuilders”

I had a look at a half a dozen of the sites they had links on & all the sites contained Web Counters with the targeted keyword phrase underneath the counter. Hmmmmm…..

Then I delved a bit deeper & came across this site: Counter Data

Whilst on the surface it may appear to be another Free Web Counter website they actually are doing some really ingenious stuff with the advertising side of things.

Notice how the demo counter at the top has the word “Sponsor” underneath it? Well the counter script that you put on your site allows anyone to sponsor that particular counter.

Prices run from $10 to $20 per counter & you can choose whatever anchor text you want. So my guess is that if you approach these guys with say $5000 you’ll get a ton of really really cheap links.

How long this tactic will actually remain around for & how long before these types of links are devalued who knows. What I do know is that this tactic currently works, I’ve seen some sites rank purely on these links alone.

The main problem with relying purely on bought links like this is, what happens when Google finally devalues or debunks this method? Or what happens if they decide to penalise the site who’s buying the links as well as devalue the link? This is something that we cannot predict so buyer beware

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14 Comments on "Sneaky Way to get Cheap Text Links"

Zaib Kaleem 23. Mar 2007, 1:02 pm

Heck..forget SEO stuff…I would get into counter provider business.

hadeedg 23. Mar 2007, 1:47 pm

I agree with the first comment. Counter provider=success!

Runa 23. Mar 2007, 9:34 pm

Good article and good new.

There are a lot of web counter online, and the most work in that same way. Anyway I don’t think they could bring such an high profit to the linked site: infact normally sites and blogs that use a web counter service are not very professional and averagelly their PR is under 5.

It means they can also offer low level backlinks to the linked site.

Brandon Hopkins 24. Mar 2007, 4:06 am

You don’t just have to provide counters. Just provide anything that inexperienced webmasters think is “cool” (or cute) and they’ll put it on their site.

anoxia 26. Mar 2007, 5:35 am

here’s my free tip of the day: If you’re a designer then make wordpress templates. Include one or two links in the footer – people won’t remove them if they think they’re mandatory. Then sit back and wait while you get some nice pagerank and backlinks.
Better yet – ask people what the subject of their blog is and adapt the link to fit the subject of the blot – a travel blog gets a footer link to your travel site etc.
Should be worth the effort I reckon…

Andy Beard 26. Mar 2007, 12:59 pm

Any widget type service, script, plugin or theme you can insert links into is a great idea for link building and traffic, especially if it is easy to setup and has a viral element.

Everyday Weekender 27. Mar 2007, 1:17 pm

Very interesting.. I’ve never realized that potential of the counter market. I think it is interesting if you would spend a few thousand on the links but I guess you’re right, you never know what google will ban.

Andy 01. Apr 2007, 7:26 pm

Nice catch! I always think that it is legit to include the credit under a widget. I didn’t know they even have sponsors link to them!

john anthony 03. Apr 2007, 1:45 am

very very sneaky. i love the creativity though.

Aniela 05. Apr 2007, 2:49 pm

Definitely worth the effort. You can also buy these links on forums such as DP. They’re usually up for bid by the theme owners.

The Dino 09. Apr 2007, 5:27 pm

I was myself playing with toplists but didnt have much success with this and link building. Yes it delivers traffic but I had no link to HP but link with the ID to count the hits so for SEO it is not good.
I guess that these days there are toplists counting by referrers so it is working.
So you can try put toplist on your site.

UstillUp 10. Aug 2009, 8:28 pm

It’s called link bait, and if it works it works. I don’t think there is anything unethical about it. Perhaps it’s not what google would call “natural”, but common…how many sites are ranking well purely from “naturally acquired links”. If you sat around and simply waited for other relevant sites to link to yours of their own free will, you could be waiting years and years to show up in the SERPS.

Jack Strawman 02. Oct 2009, 10:16 am

Honestly, the whole idea of “natural links” is difficult to swallow. In fact, I’m choking on it right now. How many visitors a month come to your site and say, “Gee, this is so good I want to give it a free text link from my own higly relevant and high PR site.” It could take years and years to get enough “natural links” to finally show up in the SERPs.