Link building is difficult, time-consuming, and frequently soul-crushing. This is why so many people resort to purchasing backlinks. 

Even multi-million dollar businesses need backlinks, and as long as you are not using a private blog network, it can potentially be appealing for link buyers to try to buy quality backlinks from edu, gov, or other reputable, high-quality domains.

But, if you are offered the chance to obtain links in return for money, should you take them? Is it worth the risk? Will it be a waste of money, or not?

If you purchase backlinks correctly, you could benefit from the advantages of organic visitors, enhanced search results, and improved search engine rankings. 

If you do it incorrectly, though, you could just be padding the pockets of an unscrupulous site owner with no tangible effects.

Many search engine optimization (SEO) specialists feel that purchasing backlinks is not the best solution to the problem. Others feel that it is a good backlink strategy. 

So which is it? In this article, we are going to talk about whether or not you should buy edu backlinks and give you all of the information you need in order to judge whether or not this is a path you might want to go down as part of your SEO efforts.

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks are essentially just hyperlinks that connect one website to another. Specifically, links pointing from an external site to your own website. 

Backlinks can be high-quality backlinks from important and authoritative sites or low-quality backlinks from spammy or poor-quality websites.

Backlinks, often known as “incoming links” or “inbound links,” are one of the most significant aspects of search engine optimization. 

Backlinks are considered “votes” for a given website by Google and other major search engines, indicating that others consider the web page to have relevance, quality, and authority on the topic. 

Pages that have a high number of relevant backlinks typically score well in organic search engine results.

Backlinks are useful tools for website developers because they make it simple to cite facts, source assertions, offer context, or make suggestions, among other things.

Using links in search engine algorithms is not a new concept. Backlinks were, in fact, the core of Google’s initial algorithm (known as “PageRank”). 

They are not as important to Google’s search algorithm as they once were, but they are still a central part of SEO for site owners.

What Is Buying Backlinks?

The concept of purchasing links is straightforward. A website owner will agree to put your backlink on their website in exchange for a fee.

Including this link in your backlink profile is generally understood to increase organic traffic and help you rank higher in Google search results.

While this is the ideal, it is not always possible, especially if you employ black-hat SEO strategies such as link schemes.

You have a higher chance of making bought links work for you if you pursue the white hat approach and acquire your paid links from high-authority sites purely by providing valuable content that they want to link to.

While it is perfectly possible to buy quality backlinks from relevant websites, most of the easiest link-buying methods are much less valuable and much more dubious, giving only low-quality links from shifty services like private blog networks (PBNs). 

It is possible to use link building services to buy high-quality backlinks, but you have to investigate anyone who offers to sell links to ensure that they are legit and safe for your link building scheme.

Why Buy Backlinks?

Even if you have excellent content and personalize every single one of your outreach emails, many website owners will still request payment in exchange for placing a link on their site. 

This makes earning links through traditional, more organic methods extremely tough, so it is unsurprising that many SEOs would rather purchase them.

Google will also not impose a link-based penalty or demotion unless it believes you have purchased links. 

That means that if you can convince Google that you got those links organically, you should be fine. It is a risk, but it is not a sure thing that you will get penalized.

Given that sponsored links sometimes resemble earned connections, many SEOs feel they can get away with purchasing links—and many do.

Overall, it is worth noting/reiterating that a lot has changed when it comes to purchasing backlinks, with the most significant difference being that Google algorithms are getting quite sophisticated at determining which backlinks are useful and which are irrelevant.

Saving Time

There is no getting around the massive workload building links requires. Buying backlinks is significantly faster and easier than the time-consuming job of developing content that naturally attracts backlinks. 

If you have ever done organic outreach, you know how time-consuming it is.

First, you must build compelling content assets that people will want to connect to. Second, you must investigate potential target sites. 

Third, you must write and send bespoke outreach emails (if you want any chance of a response) and then handle responses and follow-ups. This entire procedure might take many weeks.

Buying backlinks, on the other hand, is a reasonably quick and painless process. Locate a website willing to sell a link, negotiate a fee, and get your link placed on their site. Done!

Saving Money

Surprisingly, bought links might be less expensive than organic free backlinks.

A lot of resources are required to be effective at free link building.

Let’s consider the steps you will need to take in order to complete some free guest post link building. 

This plan will necessitate the creation of high-value content, which will necessitate the use of competent content writers to write the material, trained graphic artists to make it look good, and subject matter experts to ensure that it is valuable.

If you want to obtain links at scale, you will also need a dedicated team to execute outreach and subscriptions to link building tools. The cost of free link building may be more than the expense of hiring someone to do it for you.

Why Buy Edu Backlinks?

Edu backlinks are backlinks from a website with a .edu domain. .edu domains have very high domain authority, so .edu backlinks are generally very high-quality backlinks. 

In fact, .edu, .gov links, and other similar dofollow links from authoritative institutions are the highest quality backlinks it is possible to get.

It is not impossible to get a backlink from a domain ending in .edu. .Gov backlink buying is much harder, however than .edu. .Gov websites are, unsurprisingly, run by government agencies, who tend not to be well disposed to paid guest posts.

The umbrella term used for these high-quality backlinks is usually “edu gov backlinks” or sometimes “gov edu backlinks.” Edu gov backlinks can be more expensive than other ways of buying high-quality backlinks, but they tend to offer greater value in Google’s search results than others.

How Google Sees Backlink Buying

Many SEO professionals will tell you that Google is categorically opposed to bought links. However, this is not entirely correct. In actuality, Google states that purchased links are a “normal part of the web economy.”

What Google is against is purchasing links for the sole purpose of passing PageRank. To put it another way, purchasing (or selling) links in order to affect search engine rankings.

This is what Google refers to as a Link Scheme. Paid backlinks are not one of the many categories of links that violate Google’s Guidelines for Webmasters. That is if they have the “rel=nofollow” or “rel=sponsored” properties.

What Are Sponsored and Nofollow Link Properties?

The “rel=” attributes “nofollow” and “sponsored” for external links give search engines contextual hints.

rel=”nofollow”: Informs search engines that the link was generated solely for reference purposes and that the originator of the link does not support the website to which it is connected.

The rel=”sponsored” attribute informs search engines that the link was produced as part of an advertising or sponsorship deal and that no endorsement is implied.

A “rel=nofollow” or “rel=sponsored” link does not pass authority on to the website to which it is linked. This indicates that purchasing links with these properties fully comply with Google’s Webmaster guidelines.

However, rel=nofollow and rel=sponsored links do not normally have much of a worthwhile SEO benefit. Because they pass no link juice to the target site, many site owners assume they are worthless for link building. 

They certainly are not the most useful links out there, but they can still drive massive organic traffic, particularly if they come from reputable websites… like edu gov backlinks!

The Risks of Buying Links

Link buying is not perfect. There are a number of important downsides and risks that you should be aware of before you dive into buying backlinks to boost your search engine ranking.

Google considers purchased links to be a link scheme that violates its Webmaster Guidelines. 

If you are not aware of PageRank, it is a complex concept that we do not have the space to cover here – but what you need to know is that most purchased links will transmit PageRank.

If Google detects what seems to be paid links to your website, one of two things will occur:

Google will disregard the links: The links will be discounted from all metrics. As a result, they will have no effect on your search engine rankings. Google’s algorithms will ignore them, making it appear as though they do not exist.

Google will punish you: Google has an army of human reviewers who have the authority to take manual actions on websites. If you receive one of these, any or all of your website will be removed from Google’s search results.

Both of these are very dangerous for any website owner. The best-case scenario is that those links you have put so much time and money into are struck from the page rank records, making your backlink strategy a waste of time. 

The worst case scenario is that you get slapped with a manual penalty, removing your site from search rankings completely and leaving all that quality content you spent so much time on completely buried.

How Much Do Backlinks Cost?

The raw cost of bought backlinks can vary greatly! There is no single easy answer to how much links cost.

The type of link, the industry, and the site’s Domain Rating or Domain Authority are all factors. Edu links will, of course, be more expensive. 

As well as this, the specific site selling links might charge under or over the average cost of buying backlinks in the niche, for example.

In an analysis of 450 websites done by Ahrefs, they discovered that the price of link insertions ranged from $50 to $2,500 for all websites offering to insert backlinks. The cost of paid guest posts ranged from $15 to $300 per guest post.

The simple monetary cost that you will be paying to other websites is not the only expense you need to consider when you are trying to buy cheap backlinks, however. 

Let’s take a look at some of the other factors and methods you should consider when trying to budget for link building services in order to rise up the search engine rankings.

In-House Link Building

Unless you are a seasoned pro who is dead serious about link building, starting by setting up an in-house link building team is not a recommended way to approach this. It is, however, a baseline against which we can compare how much it costs to buy backlinks.

In-house link building necessitates a significant investment of time, energy, money, and knowledge.

First and foremost, you must recruit the appropriate staff. Even if you start with a tiny remote team of simply a couple of employees, you are looking at at least $60,000 in staffing costs each year.

Add to that any additional general expenditures associated with personnel, such as benefits and medical coverage, and you might easily add $5,000 to your yearly spending. There is also the expense of software and training to consider!

Buying Links With an SEO Agency

If you hire a link building firm, you are, by definition, paying for backlinks.

The amount you pay to buy backlinks, however, is determined by the quantity and quality of links they develop for you, as well as the SEO business you deal with.

Credible link building services can price anything from $2,000 to $10,000 per month, with business solutions charging up to $20,000 per month. 

This is obviously a higher annual cost at the higher end, but it can be focused on a short period of time, giving a relatively low total cost for buying links and leaving the rest of your staff free to focus on creating quality content.

The big advantage of buying backlinks with a professional agency is that you can leave it all to them. 

They have the expertise to get you relevant traffic – and high-quality traffic, too – and to avoid the low-quality sites that spam up the place with advertising blog comments. 

An agency can tackle all the tricky stuff, like guest posts and anchor text, and you will not have to worry about any of the technical side at all.

Buying Links from a Private Seller

If you get in touch with a website that offers you access to guest posts or link placement, that is a private backlink seller. This type of paid link is the least reliable and the most likely to involve scams or low-quality links. 

Check their site on Google and other search engines, and only proceed if you are happy that they are legitimate and will offer you good value for money.

Because private sellers set their own prices, there is absolutely no standard cost for placing relevant links here. They can range from $50 or so for a link to an absurd $8,000. The only thing that controls these prices is how much the seller wants to charge.

Buying Outreach

Many website owners just do not have the time to work on trying to build links organically. The outreach involved in sending your quality content to other websites and hoping they want to place a link can take a huge amount of time. 

Rather than trying to buy links outright, you can hire an outreach specialist, sort of like an agent for web site owners. 

They can send your content to relevant prospects, getting you legitimate and organic edu backlinks with none of the risk of buying backlinks outright. 

This option might be a good call for anyone who does not want to buy backlinks but does not have the time to tackle the whole process on their own!

Conclusion

It is easy enough to buy backlinks, but you need to do your research and ensure that you only buy backlinks from reputable sellers in order to avoid Google penalties. 

Try not to only buy backlinks, however: some organic backlinks to diversify your backlink profile can be a very important part of any link building strategy.

When you buy backlinks, there are no guarantees of success. You have to be prepared to take some risks and be willing to put in the work to minimize those risks as much as possible.