The theory goes that if you create a really high quality, interesting, and informative site you will get loads of back links without having to ask for them, much less pay for them, and to some extent this is true. However, can you depend, as Google would have you do, solely on unpaid natural links?
It’s true that there are sites out there that get tons of natural links. Mostly these are more entertainment oriented sites like YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, etc. but even smaller non-commercial sites are more link friendly. The real challenge is getting natural links for a smaller commercial site. While it’s true that a well designed, user friendly site with a solid product line can still get natural, unsolicited links it will be months before you see natural links, and even then you aren’t going to see that many. I can build the world’s best site for garden tools, but I probably won’t see many links since those most likely to link are webmasters, and not you average customer. Customers are likely to send you lots of great testimonials, feedback, or even refer their friends which is all great, but don’t count on too many links. Granted, some may link to you from their personal blogs, but unless their blogs are fairly popular they won’t get you very far.
The problem with relying on natural links it that in most industries there’s already a lot of link exchange and link buying taking place. Granted many of these links may be worthless, or less than relevant, but you’ll find many that are relevant quality links and that don’t appear to be bought. How is this possible? The new trend in link buying is much more subtle than in the past. The preferred method now is to either buy or exchange links directly from the site you want to receive links from. By buying links from sites that don’t openly sell links webmasters can get lots of quality, SEO friendly links much faster than if they waited for them to just come in naturally.
Does Google approve? Of course not but as they say where there’s a will there’s a way, and most sites are willing to do whatever it takes to appear in the top of the rankings.
