The number of times this article was shared on Twitter and Facebook.

Shows estimated monthly search traffic to this article according to Ahrefs data. The actual search traffic (as reported in Google Analytics) is usually 3-5 times bigger.

Shows how many different websites are linking to this piece of content. As a general rule, the more websites link to you, the higher you rank in Google.

In 2016, we found that the average cost of buying a link was $352.92.

How did we learn this number?

David McSweeney, one of our regular contributors, contacted 250 websites in 5 popular niches. He asked 2 questions:

Do you sell links? If so, how much do you sell them for?

These were the results back in 2016:

But, we wanted to update these numbers for 2018.

So, last month, I re-conducted this study with more websites in more niches.

I also ran a second experiment where I sent 180 guest post pitches to see how many people asked me to pay a fee.

Sidenote. I didn’t make any mention of money whatsoever in this email. I didn’t make any mention of money whatsoever in this email.

In a moment, I’ll share my findings from both studies.

But first, let’s take a quick look at the link buying and selling industry.

The Link Buying and Selling Industry: A Brief History

For as long as Google has used link popularity to rank websites, backlinks have been a commodity.

And like all commodities, there are those looking to buy and those looking to sell.

But, link buying has many shapes and forms.

Some are 100% black-hat, others grey-hat, and others white-hat.

Here’s how link buying has evolved over the years:

Early Link Buying: Authority Directories (the Mid-1990s—2000s)

Paid directory submissions were one of the earliest forms of link buying.

These directories generally charged a “review” fee.

The now defunct Yahoo directory is one of the highest profile examples.

They charged a fee of around £300 ($402) for inclusion, although they did reject some sites.

Make no mistake, that link was not bought for traffic.

It was always bought for the purposes of increasing Google rankings.

The Link Buying Boom (the Mid-2000s, Onwards)

By the mid 2000s, a whole industry had grown around selling links.

Sites such as Text Link Ads sold links on a “rental” basis.

These were generally site-wide sidebar links, for which you paid a monthly fee. The cost was dependent on the site’s metrics.

And in those days, the metric that mattered was PageRank.

Pricing started at around $30/month for a link from a PR1/2 site. High PR sites commanded fees of $100+.

Remember, that’s a monthly fee. So $100/month would end up costing you $1,200 per year.

There were also many websites sold in-content links. You could even choose the anchor text you wanted.

But, unfortunately, Google soon took action to identify and devalue these links.

Google Forces Link Sellers Underground (Late-2000s, Onwards)

Google started funnelling more resources into their webspam team.

And they began handing out penalties to those caught selling links through broker sites, or on forums.

This penalty was generally a reduction in PageRank, but in extreme cases, it could be a de-indexing.

They also encouraged users to report paid links directly to Google.

Did this stop link buying?

Nope. But it did force those buying and selling links to exercise discretion.

In turn, this made it harder for Google to catch sites that were breaking their rules.

And to clarify, buying links to manipulate rankings definitely breaks Google’s rules.

Buying links is the first example they give of a “link scheme” in their quality guidelines article:

The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results: Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link

So what’s the current state of play with link buying?

Editor’s Note If you get caught buying links to improve rankings, Google may penalise your site. We do not recommend buying links, but if you do, then understand the risks

Link Buying/Selling in 2018 (and Beyond)

Here are some of the ways you can buy links for SEO purposes in 2018:

Paid Guest Posts (i.e. “Sponsored” Posts)

A quick Google search for “buy guest posts” surfaces a ton of sites offering to get you links from guest posts for a fee.

All of these services fall into one of three categories:

Genuine guest posting services: They conduct real outreach to real blogs and secure guest post placements on your behalf. Disguised PBNs: They sell their service as real outreach, but they actually use PBNs. You can usually tell these services a mile off, as they’re very cheap (<$100 per post). We don’t recommend using them unless you’re aware of, and accept, the risks associated with PBNs. Intermediary link buyers/sellers: They pay sites for inclusion on behalf of their clients, markup the price, then pocket the difference. Essentially, they’re middlemen (or women) in the link buying/selling process.

I’d say #3 is the most common.

We get requests from intermediary link buyers/sellers (#3) at Ahrefs all the time.

Here’s an example:

We once even had one guy who was contacting all our previous contributors to try and sneakily buy a backlink on the blog.

Here’s Tim, quite rightly, trolling that guy:

I don’t think we heard back from him after that!

But the thing is…

If he’d just taken the time to write a top quality guest post instead, we would have probably accepted it. He would then have picked up a link for free!

Buying Links from Bloggers

This is where I believe the bulk of link buying and selling takes place in 2018.

That’s private link purchases from bloggers.

I have a couple of blogs and I get these kinds of requests all the time.

(I don’t sell links btw!)

But, it isn’t always a monetary exchange.

Sometimes it’s more of a bribe, where a product is offered in exchange for a “genuine” review on the blogger’s site.

It goes without saying that the review will contain a natural-looking in-content backlink.

This is generally the mutual unspoken agreement between blogger and link builder.

And the thing is, for Google, these links (bought or bribed) are pretty undetectable.

How can they tell if a link from within a piece of editorial content has been paid for?

The answer is, they can’t.

Flipping this round, have you ever sent an outreach email and received a response like this?

I’m seeing it more and more (note: keep reading for the study on this!)

Many bloggers are well aware of the value of a backlink and are now openly asking for payment.

Which kind of sucks.

But, that’s business I guess.

So just how much private link buying and selling goes on? And what’s the average cost of a link?

Let’s find out.

What Percentage Of Blogs Are Selling Links in 2018? (and How Does This Compare to 2016?)

For this study, I reached out to 450 sites across 9 competitive niches (i.e. 50 sites in each).

Here are the niches:

Travel

Fashion

Fitness

Finance

Weddings

Photography

Food

Parenting

Marketing

And here is the email I sent:

As you can see, there was no messing about. I got straight to the point.

I wanted to buy a link on their site and I wanted to know how much it would be.

Sidenote. We conducted the same study in 2016, only with fewer sites in fewer niches (250 sites across 5 niches: travel, fashion, fitness, finance, weddings). I used the exact same email outreach template this year as we did in 2016. I’ve included a comparison of the results from both studies below. We conducted the same study in 2016, only with fewer sites in fewer niches (250 sites across 5 niches: travel, fashion, fitness, finance, weddings). I used the exact same email outreach template this year as we did in 2016. I’ve included a comparison of the results from both studies below.

Here are the results:

Total Number of Blogs Selling Links

Firstly, let’s take a look at the overall totals:

Sell links: 54

Don’t sell links: 38

No response: 338

Bounces: 20

Here’s how these numbers compare to 2016:

As you can see in the chart above, only 12.6% of the sites I reached out to agreed to sell me a link, compared to 18.4% in 2016.

Still, it’s quite a high hit rate.

Sidenote. I won’t be “outing” any of the sites who were selling links. That’s not what this study was about. I won’t be “outing” any of the sites who were selling links. That’s not what this study was about.

But as you will see in a moment, the data is skewed somewhat by one of the niches.

Total Number of Blogs Selling Links by Niche

Now let’s break it down by niche.

Travel: 22

Fitness: 7

Fashion: 0

Finance: 3

Wedding: 2

Photography: 7

Food: 3

Parenting: 7

Marketing: 3

Again, here’s how this compares to 2016:

As you can see, travel was by far the biggest niche selling links. A whopping 44% of the 50 sites I contacted agreed to sell me a link.

We noticed a similar trend in 2016, too.

Sidenote. 6 of the sites stipulated that the link would be “nofollow”. 6 of the sites stipulated that the link would be “nofollow”.

This makes sense considering the value of the travel industry.

It would also suggest that a considerable part of commercial travel sites are buying links (supply and demand).

Now let’s take a look at the actual cost of buying the links.

What is the Cost of Buying a Link Outright in 2018?

There was a big variation in the price of buying the links.

The cheapest quote was $50. That link was from a parenting blog with a Domain Rating (DR) of 32.

The most expensive quote was £2,500 ($3,312) per year. That came from a DR56 travel blog.

Across all 54 sites, the average cost of buying a link was $361.44.

For those of you paying attention, that’s a 2.4% ($8.51) increase on the average from 2016.

Sidenote. That’s pretty much in line with That’s pretty much in line with US inflation , which has averaged around 2% since publishing our original study.

So, if I wanted to buy a link on every site, it would cost me a total of $19,518!

Here’s a breakdown of what that would get me in terms of metrics:

That’s a pretty powerful selection of links right there.

I’m guessing this would definitely move the needle.

Sidenote. I did not reach out to an even split of sites by Domain Rating, so this should not be taken as an indication that sites with DR 50–59 are more likely to sell links. I used lists of “top blogs” in the niches to select sites. I did not reach out to an even split of sites by Domain Rating, so this should not be taken as an indication that sites with50–59 are more likely to sell links. I used lists of “top blogs” in the niches to select sites.

But, here’s another question: does the average cost of a link increase in line with DR?

Yes, it does.

So, that’s how much a link costs when you actually ask to buy one.

But what about when you don’t?

How Many Bloggers Charge for Guest Posts in 2018? (And How Much Do They Charge?)

Have you ever pitched a guest post idea and received a response like this?…

I know I have. It happens all the time.

So, I thought it would be interesting to run another small study to find out:

How often this actually happens;

How much these paid guest posts typically cost.

Here’s what I did:

I reached out to 180 blogs across the same 9 niches (i.e. 20 per niche) with this email:

As you can see, I didn’t mention payment of any kind in the email itself.

Sidenote. I only pitched blogs that were openly accepting (and looking for) guest posts. This means they each had a “write for us” page, or something similar. I only pitched blogs that were openly accepting (and looking for) guest posts. This means they each had a “write for us” page, or something similar.

Here are the results:

Total Number of Blogs Charging for Guest Posts

First, let’s take a look at the overall stats:

Didn’t ask for money: 22

Did ask for money: 24

No response: 134

Over half (52%) of responses asked for money!

I don’t know about you, but I found that number to be surprisingly high.

But what about when broken down by niche?

Total Number of Blogs Charging for Guest Posts by Niche

Here are the results:

Finance blogs took the lead here, with 31% of bloggers (i.e. almost 1 in 3) asking for money in exchange for a guest post.

Travel, Fashion, and Photography blogs weren’t far behind at 20% (i.e. 1 in 5).

But, there was one outlier: Marketing blogs.

None of these asked for any kind of fee in exchange for a guest post.

I think this speaks volumes.

Marketers are generally ahead of the curve here.

They know that selling guest post links is against Google’s quality guidelines, as highlighted by this now infamous post from Matt Cutts back in 2014.

And they aren’t prepared to risk their sites.

What Is The Cost Of Buying a Guest Post in 2018?

Again, there was a significant variation in the fees quoted by bloggers.

The cheapest quote was $15, which was described as an “upload fee” by the blogger.

That response came from a photography blog with a Domain Rating (DR) of 12.

The most expensive quote was $300. That came from a DR67 wedding blog.

Across all 24 sites, the average cost of publishing a paid guest post was $77.80.

So, if I wanted to publish a guest post on every site, it would cost me a total of $1,867.20!

Here’s a breakdown of what that would get me in terms of metrics:

That’s not a bad selection of links, especially for the cost! ($77.80 each, on average)

If we compare the cost of buying links via guest posting to buying links via a direct ask, it’s roughly 1/5th (21.5%) of the cost.

But, remember, you will need content in order to build links with guest posts, which will increase costs… a lot.

The Truth About Paid Links: Why You Should Probably Spend Your Money Elsewhere

Buying links is definitely an attractive proposition.

You hand over $XXX and you get what you want—a link.

There’s no need to spend hours researching prospects.

Or crafting “personalized” outreach emails.

Or dealing with the inevitable feeling of rejection when most prospects never reply.

No. It’s a simple value exchange—a rarity in the murky world of link-building.

But, unfortunately, there are two big reasons why buying links isn’t the best idea:

1. You Can Effectively Buy Links for Much, Much Less

$361.44 isn’t cheap.

And remember, most websites won’t rank with a single link.

That burns through money pretty fast.

But here’s the thing: in a sense, every link is a paid link, even those built from “natural” outreach.

Why? Because outreach takes time. And time = money.

In other words, you could send a blogger $360+ and have done with it (i.e. buying a link outright). Or you could spend time and effort building relationships with bloggers to try to earn a link “naturally”.

Either way, it still costs money because your time (or the time of the person you’ve hired to build links) isn’t free.

Let’s look at the figures…

It costs $360+, on average, to buy a link outright.

That’s definitely one option.

But, let’s say that you paid someone $50/hour to build links for you via outreach.

If they only built 1 link every 7 hours (on average), it would still be cheaper than buying links outright.

Even the worst link builder could surely manage this.

2. Paid Links Can Be Very Low-quality

Let’s say a blogger agrees to sell you a link.

Do you think you’re the only one?

Or do you think they’re selling links to other link-builders, too?

Most of the time, it’s going to be the latter.

Here’s why this isn’t good:

If a site accepts links based not on merit, but cold hard cash, they’ll likely end up linking to a lot of unrelated junk.

This puts your link in a questionable “link neighbourhood”.

In layman’s terms, this is akin to hanging around with bad influences (i.e. the people your mum told you not to talk to). You’re lumped into the same questionable crowd by the power of association.

But here’s the question: can Google spot this algorithmically?

Nobody knows for sure. But given the fact that Google now has world-champion-beating A.I technology and robots that can do backflips, I’d say it’s pretty likely.

And if they can, I’d bet money that they’re using their powers to identify and penalise anyone buying links. Or at least devaluing them (thus making them worthless).

Final Thoughts

It would appear that the link buying and selling industry in 2018 is alive and well.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether $361.44 (or $77.80…plus content) is:

a) worth the money

b) worth the risk of getting caught

If you want our advice, buying links is rarely worth the money.

Why? Because it’s riskier and more expensive than building “natural” links (in most cases).

But, if you are going to pay for links, it looks like buying guest posts will probably give the best bang for your buck.