How to Spot If Your Digital Marketing Agency in Sri Lanka is Cheating with Bought Backlinks

Digital marketing is a vital component of modern business strategies.

In Sri Lanka, companies turn to digital marketing agencies to boost their online presence and reach a broader audience.

However, not all SEO agencies and Digital Marketing agencies in Sri Lanka follow ethical practices.

Some may resort to shady tactics like buying backlinks to artificially inflate their clients’ search engine rankings or even their own.

Others may go the extra mile to utilize black hat strategies such as creating spammy backlinks for their competitor websites to bring their ranking down.

In this article, we’ll delve into how to identify whether your digital marketing agency is using purchased backlinks to game the system while providing valuable tools like Ahrefs Backlink Checker to spot these dubious practices.

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?

Backlinks, also known as inbound links or incoming links, are links from one website to another.

They are like votes of confidence from other websites that vouch for the credibility and relevance of your content.

Many website development companies in Sri Lanka use the footer of a clients’ website to endorse their brand with the brand name and logo in the footer section often linking it back to their agenct website in Sri Lanka.

Search engines, like Google, consider backlinks as a key ranking factor. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website is likely to rank in search results.

The Problem with Bought Backlinks

Some digital marketing agencies resort to buying backlinks because they believe it’s a shortcut to better search engine rankings.

While this may lead to a temporary boost, it’s a risky and unethical strategy.

Search engines continuously refine their algorithms to detect and penalize websites with artificial or low-quality backlinks. Once penalized, it’s challenging to regain your website’s credibility and ranking.

How to Detect Bought Backlinks

Ahrefs Backlink Checker

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool that can help you uncover whether your digital marketing agency is cheating with bought backlinks. Here’s how to use it:

Visit Ahrefs Backlink Checker.
Enter your website’s URL and click “Check Backlinks.”
Ahrefs will provide a list of your backlinks along with critical metrics like domain rating and anchor text.
Look for unusual patterns, such as a sudden influx of low-quality backlinks from irrelevant websites. These may indicate bought links.

Check the Source Websites

Manually check some of the websites linking to the website.

Bought backlink websites are often general websites that have a list of other links and no relevance to the industry.

These are not to be confused with paid partnerships like guest blogging. Which is often an article related to the industry that will showcase a business as a sponsorship.

Are they reputable, relevant, and trustworthy?

In short, if the source websites seem unrelated to your industry or don’t have valuable content, they may be part of a paid backlink network.

Analyze Anchor Text

Paid backlinks often use specific anchor text that includes commercial keywords.

If you notice a large number of backlinks with identical or overly optimized anchor text, it’s a red flag. Natural backlinks typically have a diverse mix of anchor text.

Monitor Link Velocity

Link velocity refers to the rate at which new backlinks are acquired.

A sudden spike in the number of backlinks may indicate a paid link-building campaign. Organic backlinks tend to accumulate more gradually over time.

Content Relevance

As mentioned before, backlinks should be built on the foundation of relevant and quality content.

If you find that the content surrounding the backlink doesn’t make sense or isn’t related to your niche, it might be a sign of bought backlinks.

Use Google Search Console

Google Search Console can help you monitor your website’s backlinks.

It provides data on which websites are linking to your site. Review this list periodically to detect unusual or suspicious patterns.

FAQ

Q: What are backlinks?

A: Backlinks are links from one website to another.

They are like votes of confidence from other websites that vouch for the credibility and relevance of your content. Search engines, like Google, consider backlinks as a key ranking factor.

The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website is likely to rank in search results.

Q: Why are bought backlinks bad?

A: Bought backlinks are links that you have paid for or exchanged for something else.

They are considered a black hat SEO tactic and can lead to your website being penalized by search engines.

Search engines want to provide their users with the most relevant and informative results possible, and they don’t want to be gamed by people who are buying links to boost their rankings.

Q: How can I spot if my digital marketing agency is buying backlinks?

A: There are a few things you can look for:

A sudden influx of low-quality backlinks from irrelevant websites.
A large number of backlinks with identical or overly optimized anchor text.
Backlinks from websites that are unrelated to your industry or don’t have valuable content.
A sudden spike in the number of backlinks.
Backlinks from websites with content that doesn’t make sense or isn’t related to your niche.

You can also use tools like Ahrefs Backlink Checker to help you identify bought backlinks.

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool that provides a variety of data about your website’s backlinks, including the domain rating of the source websites and the anchor text used in the links.

Q: What should I do if I think my digital marketing agency is buying backlinks?

A: If you think your digital marketing agency may be buying backlinks, you should confront them about it. If they admit to it, you should find a new agency.

Buying backlinks is a risky and unethical practice that could put your website at risk.

Q: How can I build backlinks ethically?

A: The best way to build backlinks is to create high-quality content that other websites will want to link to.

You can also reach out to other websites in your industry and ask them for links.

This is known as guest blogging.

Q: What are the recent Google algorithm updates against backlink buying?

A: The most recent Google algorithm update against backlink buying is the October 2023 Core Update.

This update was rolled out on September 14, 2023, and is expected to take approximately two weeks to fully implement.

The October 2023 Core Update is focused on improving Google’s ability to identify and rank high-quality websites.

One of the ways that Google does this is by evaluating the quality of a website’s backlinks.

Backlinks are links from other websites to your own. Google uses backlinks to assess the authority and popularity of a website.

As you now know, Backlink buying is a practice where website owners pay other websites to link to their own.

This is a black hat SEO tactic that is against Google’s guidelines.

Google has a number of algorithms in place to identify and penalize websites that engage in backlink buying. but the plethora of websites in their index makes it impossible to track every bad player but they put significant effort into it year on year.

The October 2023 Core Update is expected to make it more difficult for websites that buy backlinks to rank well in Google search results.

This is because the update includes a number of improvements to Google’s AI-based spam detection system, called SpamBrain.

SpamBrain is designed to better identify and nullify unnatural links, including those on sites that engage in link-buying or link-building activities.

In addition to the October 2023 Core Update, Google has released a number of other algorithm updates in recent years that have targeted backlink buying.

These include:

December 2022 Link
Spam Update
Penguin Update
Jagger Update

These updates have all made it more difficult for websites that buy backlinks to rank well in Google search results.

If you are caught buying backlinks, Google may penalize your website by lowering your ranking in search results or even removing your website from the index altogether.

Therefore, it is important to avoid buying backlinks and to focus on building high-quality backlinks organically through methods such as guest blogging, creating high-quality content, and promoting your content on social media.

Here are some tips for building backlinks ethically:

Create high-quality content that is informative, engaging, and relevant to your target audience.
Promote your content on social media and other websites.
Reach out to other websites in your industry and ask them for links.
Be patient. It takes time to build a strong backlink profile.

Q: How to report websites that are buying backlinks?

A: Use the link here to report link-buying websites.

In the form, you will need to provide the following information:

The URL of the website that you are reporting.
The type of violation that you are reporting. In this case, you would select “Paid links spam”.
Any additional information that you have about the violation, such as how you know that the website is buying backlinks.

Google will review your report and take appropriate action. It is important to note that Google does not guarantee that it will take action against every website that is reported.

However, Google takes the issue of backlink buying very seriously, and it is likely that your report will be investigated.

Here are some additional tips for reporting websites that are buying backlinks to Google:

Be as specific as possible in your report. Provide the URLs of the specific backlinks that you believe are paid.
Provide any evidence that you have to support your claim. This could include screenshots, emails, or other documentation.
Be respectful in your report. Avoid using abusive language or making personal attacks.

These tips, you can help Google identify and take action against websites that are buying backlinks.

This will help to improve the quality of Google’s search results and make it easier for users to find the information that they are looking for while getting bad players to work decently and in the right way.

Conclusion

Buying backlinks is a risky and unethical practice that could put your website at risk.

By following the tips in this HypeX SEO agency Article, you can learn how to spot if your digital marketing agency is buying backlinks and build backlinks ethically on your own.

Your digital marketing agency in Sri Lanka should prioritize ethical and sustainable SEO practices.

Buying backlinks might offer short-term gains, but it can have long-term negative consequences for your website’s search engine ranking.

By using tools like Ahrefs Backlink Checker and paying attention to the quality and relevance of your backlinks, you can ensure your agency is following the right path to success.

Remember, genuine backlinks earned through quality content and ethical outreach are the keys to long-term SEO success for a business in Sri Lanka.