50,000+ vetted donor domains
How to link build without paying a guru
Most link building advice is a sales pitch wearing a lab coat. This is the plain version: what a link costs, what to check before paying, and which claims to ignore. Prices start at $1.
- Every row shows DR, traffic, niche and price
- Pay per link from $1, no subscription
- No guru course, no retainer, no call
Rough price per link this estimate uses
- DR 0–9~$2
- DR 10–29~$6
- DR 30–49~$18
- DR 50+~$45
Checklist
Eight lines that end most guru pitches
- Promises a ranking or a date. Nobody controls Google's output.
- Will not show the domain list before you pay.
- Sells a secret method that happens to need a course.
- Quotes one metric, usually a made-up one, and nothing else.
- Bundles links into a package with a round number of 500 or 10,000.
- Calls the thing a "private network" and cannot say why that is good.
- Shows screenshots of traffic charts with no axis or no date.
- Pushes a deadline: the price goes up tonight.
What it is for
How to link build: four jobs, and none of them is secret
Strip the jargon and the work is small. Four jobs, in this order, with a human checking each one.
Look at your own links first
Open Search Console and read the links report. It is free, it is Google's own data, and it shows what you already have before you buy more.
Pick rows, not packages
Choose individual placements by Domain Rating, organic traffic, niche and language. One clean row beats a bundle you cannot inspect.
Pay for what you chose
Add rows to the basket, review it, then pay. Single links run from $1 to about $500, scaled by authority, traffic and niche.
Watch and wait
Placements usually go live within about 24 hours of payment. Rankings move on Google's schedule, not ours, and sometimes not at all.
Compare
Four ways to get links, side by side
| Route | What you really pay for | What you can check first | The usual catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guru course | Videos and a community | Nothing until after payment | You still have to find and buy the links |
| Agency retainer | Monthly hours and a report | A sample report, if asked | Hard to see what each link cost |
| DIY outreach | Your own evenings | Everything | Slow, and most emails go unanswered |
| Marketplace row (this site) | One placement at a posted price | DR, traffic, niche, language, price | The article is AI-written, and no result is promised |
Our own limits
What a bought link will and will not do
A link is one input among many, and Google's spam policies treat paid links meant to move rankings as a violation. Buy with that in mind, in small steps, on pages that deserve readers.
- No ranking is promised, ever
- Articles are written automatically with one link to your page
- Use rel sponsored if you want to be on the cautious side of Google's guidance
Timeline
Dated events worth knowing before you believe a pitch
Penguin launches
Google's first big strike against manipulative link patterns. Gurus still sell the fear.
Penguin runs in real time
Penguin 4.0 stopped being a periodic event, so old "recovery" stories describe a different system.
Sponsored and UGC link attributes
Google added rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" next to nofollow, which changed how paid links are meant to be marked.
Link spam update
Google announced SpamBrain-based work against link spam, including links bought or sold for ranking.
Core update and new spam policies
Google named site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse. Many pitches skipped over both.
How it works
A first Saturday afternoon, no course required
- 1
Export what you have
Pull the links report from Search Console and note the top ten linking sites. Run the link audit routine on them.
- 2
Set a ceiling
Decide the total you can lose without a bad week. The budget plan shows two sizes.
- 3
Filter the list
Narrow by niche and language, then sort by price. Ignore anything you would not want to be seen on.
- 4
Score the seller or the row
Use the scorecard before you pay anyone, including us.
FAQ
What people type after they were burned once
- How to link build when you have no budget and no course?
- Start with free work: fix broken pages, claim unlinked brand mentions, and send a few honest outreach emails. It is slow but costs nothing. When you do spend, spend on single rows you can inspect, from $1, rather than a bundle.
- Do guru courses on link building work?
- Some teach real skills, and some resell a free PDF. Judge the course by whether it shows its working with dated, checkable examples. If the proof is a screenshot with no axis, treat it as advertising and keep your money.
- Is it safe to buy links?
- Not in the sense of a guarantee. Google's spam policies cover links bought or sold to influence ranking, so any purchase carries some risk. Buy slowly, favour relevant sites with real traffic, and never put more on the table than you could lose.
- What is a link pyramid and should I buy one?
- It is a layered scheme where weak links point at stronger pages that point at yours. We would not buy one. The pyramid teardown goes through a typical sales message and the questions it avoids.
- How do I check a link seller is real?
- Ask for the actual domain list before payment, then check each domain's traffic and referring domains in a tool you trust. A seller who refuses has answered the question for you. The scorecard page turns this into twelve points.
- What does a single dofollow link cost here?
- From $1 up to about $500 for top domains. Price follows Domain Rating, organic traffic and niche. There is no subscription, and nothing is charged until you pay the basket you reviewed.
- Which tool should I trust for checking links?
- Use two. Search Console shows what Google reports for your own site, and a link index such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic or Moz shows the wider picture. They disagree often, which is normal, because each crawls the web differently.