Common Link Posting Scams and How to Avoid them

The world, and in turn, the internet is filled to the brim with scams and cons. From financial frauds to network hacks, there are plenty of things to watch out for. The aisle of the link building is no different.

After coming across multiple scams and phishes, I too have learned my share of caution. So, if you are looking to buy backlinks, I have listed out the top three of the most common link-posting scams that you definitely need to watch out for to avoid a distasteful experience.

Types of Link Posting Scams to avoid

1. Link farming:

This is perhaps one of the most prevalent link-posting scams on the internet. A link farm is a website whose sole purpose is to monetize itself by linking to other websites. While these link farms can offer you a crap ton of backlinks at a fraction of a cost, most of them are from quite low authority or spammy websites. Backlinks from such link farms will not only cause your site to lose credibility but also opens up the potential for Google to downright penalize you for building unnatural links.

How to avoid

There are plenty of tell-tale signs of a link farm that can help you detect this link-posting scam from a mile away. These include:

• The website is built on a very basic design template
• A dearth of contact information about the website owner or webmaster
• The website features a lot of unrelated content
• Very unoriginal and bland content
• Spun content (more on that later)
• Very less engagement from genuine users
• Contains a lot of suspicious hyperlinks

2. Content spinning:

With the advent of AI across the internet, bots have become completely capable of doing some amazing work. However, not all is rosy. Take content spinning for example. Authors spend days researching, taking notes, sifting through piles of data, and collaborating with industry leaders to churn out some wonderful content that really does add value to the lives of their readers.

And what do these link-posting scams do? Spin already existing content on the web and fill them up to the brim with hyperlinks to your website and post them. So, what’s the harm? Most of the time, content spinners pay no attention to the content and these are completely rife with mistakes and plagiarism issues. While this can “sometimes” help you fractionally, most of the time they end up squandering the trust of your genuine customers.

How to avoid

It can be a bit tricky to detect spun content if you do not have the right eye for it. To steer away from such link-posting scams, spend your time shortlisting quality agencies and copywriters that really go through the effort of coming up with something meaningful for your audience that other websites would be encouraged to link back to.

3. Instant backlinks:

There is no such thing as instant success. There are plenty of link-posting scam artists lurking in the shadow of the web that promises you guaranteed backlinks at a fraction of the cost. When something sounds too good to be true, it generally is. Remember that the process of link building is a continuous yet gradual process.

It is not like something you order off a shelf. It takes effort, patience, and dedication for effective link-building. Most of the time when you are promised instant backlinks, you are opening up the door for your website to be linked to spammy and low-authority domains. Even worse, some of these links might originate from shady link farms (as mentioned above). 

Not only will you be wasting your hard-earned dollars on a worthless service, but you will also have no idea why your online business is continuously sliding down the ranks of search engines.

So how do you get backlinks fast the right way? Here’s how:

How to avoid

There are several signs that point to this link-posting scam. Some of them can help you to sniff out the scam from miles away. These include

• Unrealistic timeframes to get backlinks
• Super low costs
• Getting unrelated backlinks
• Most of the backlinks originate from link farms

More scams over the horizon? Know more about SEO scams:

Over my decades of venturing into the world of SEO link building, these are some of the most audacious link-posting scams I have come across (all thanks to my wonderful supporters and clients who have helped to bring these to my attention). Save yourself the hassle and look for legitimate agencies that do their due diligence and offer you the right worth for your time and money.

Check reviews, testimonials, agency stature, and other metrics before you decide to invest so that you can stay clear of such common link-posting scams.