To buy SEO backlinks with fewer surprises, pick each publisher site yourself and check five things before you pay: topic relevance, real organic traffic and its country, editorial placement, link type, and what happens if the link drops. On LinkBasket, all of that is on the site page next to one fixed price. Then you order a guest post or a link insertion on that exact site. The checklist below is the one we'd run on any marketplace, ours included.

Sometimes. Buying makes sense when you have a page that deserves to rank and you need a few relevant links faster than outreach can earn them. It's the wrong move when the page is thin, your site has a manual action, or you can't yet tell a real site from a link farm.

Be clear about the rules. Google's spam policies list "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as link spam (checked November 2026). That covers paid guest posts and paid insertions, ours too.

If you've already received a manual action for unnatural links, stop buying and clean up first. Our guide on how to disavow backlinks covers that step.

Run these five checks before money changes hands. Drop any site that fails two of them, and don't trust a single metric on its own.

  • Relevance. Does the site cover your topic, for readers who could become your customers?
  • Real organic traffic, and its country. A UK store gains little from a site whose readers live elsewhere.
  • Editorial placement. The link sits inside a real article, on a site that lists topics it won't accept.
  • Link type and sponsored tag. Know whether the link is dofollow or nofollow, and whether a sponsored tag is added.
  • Live-link checks. Ask who checks the link after it goes live, how often, and what happens if it's removed.

Frankly, DR is the easiest number to fake. A site with a high DR but almost no organic traffic is a red flag: it may exist mostly to sell links. Our guide to what makes a good backlink goes deeper on each signal.

What does LinkBasket show before you pay?

Every site page lists the metrics and link rules, so you can run the checklist without emailing anyone.

Checklist item Where you see it on LinkBasket
Relevance Niche filter, plus topics the publisher doesn't accept
Real traffic and country Organic traffic, top traffic country and language
Authority DR (Ahrefs), DA (Moz), referring domains, spam score (Moz)
Link type Dofollow or nofollow, sponsored tag, link duration
Content rules Minimum article length, images allowed
Cost and timing Published price, add-on prices, typical delivery time

Domain names appear after sign-up.

Ordering takes four steps, and you choose the site in the first one.

  1. Pick sites. Filter by niche, DR, traffic, price or country, and add the exact sites you want to your cart.
  2. Add the brief. Give the target URL and anchor text. Bring your own article, which our editors check, or add writing.
  3. Pay from your wallet. Top it up by card or crypto. You pay the published price plus any add-ons you picked.
  4. The link goes live. We track the order until it's published. Then you get 3 days to check the article.

Publishers may decline anchors that look spammy or break their guidelines. That's what editors are for, so don't fight them with an exact-match anchor. And we never swap your site for another one without asking first.

We check each live link weekly for 12 months. If it's removed, switched to nofollow on a site sold as dofollow, or the page goes offline, we restore it, move it to a comparable site, or refund it to your wallet. This doesn't apply if you caused the change, for example by deleting or redirecting the target page.

Before it goes live, the order is covered too:

  • Cancel for free before work starts.
  • If the publisher rejects the order or can't publish it, the full price, add-ons included, goes back to your wallet. Or you take a comparable site.
  • Wrong anchor, wrong URL or a missing link within 3 days of publishing? We fix it.

It comes down to how much control you want when you buy, and how much time you have to judge sites.

Marketplace: you pick

You see the exact site, its metrics and its price before paying. You do the judging, so keep the checklist above handy.

Agency: they pick

It takes less of your time, but you often buy a bundle without knowing the sites. A good fit if you can't judge sites yourself.

See link building services for a fuller comparison, and link building packages for why we skip bundles.

Publishers set prices from authority, traffic and niche, so no single rate exists. Every number here is hypothetical. Say a DR 40 site in your niche lists a guest post at $120 and a DR 60 site lists one at $350. With $1,000, two of each come to $940. In practice, 4 relevant sites with real readers usually do more than 1 big site that's off-topic.

Cheap is fine when the site is relevant and has traffic. Don't bother with a cheap link on a site nobody reads; it's still money gone. Our link building cost guide explains what moves prices.

Online stores should read our ecommerce link building strategies page to decide which pages get links first. Law firms face YMYL scrutiny and stricter editors, covered in link building for lawyers.

FAQ

No one can honestly promise a link stays up forever. Each LinkBasket listing shows the link duration the publisher offers. We also check live links weekly for 12 months and restore, move or refund a link that drops.

Only when the site is relevant and has real organic traffic. Honestly, price alone tells you nothing. A $50 link on a blog your customers read can beat a $500 link on one they never visit (both prices hypothetical).

Google's guide to qualifying outbound links asks sites to mark paid placements with rel="sponsored". Each LinkBasket listing says whether the publisher adds one, so you know before you pay.

Yes, but not as a package. For bulk or agency orders, contact us and we'll build the site list with you.

Next step

Make a free account, filter by your niche and target country, and run the five checks on three sites. When you find one that passes all five, order it and skip the rest for now. Want an existing article instead of a new one? See how niche edits work, or look at our sample links first.