20 Ways to Get Legit Paid Links Without Getting Penalized

Bride and friends

Getting links is like getting laid. You can pay for sex or you get it for free. When you are very attractive you have no problems. You have to pay when you are

  • ugly
  • boring
  • shallow

Still there are lots of people who are quite intelligent, interesting but kind of introverted. I know, I was myself. The same applies to websites.

There are very useful websites out there that still won’t get links for reasons I do not want to recount.

Their owners have the money to purchase links, but they don’t want to pay prostitutes especially as Google scares people who enter bad neighborhoods with penalties.


How to Pay for Links Ethically

What can you do when you want to stay ethical and can’t think of any link magnets or other ways to get links?

What to do if you could pay for a link but you do not want to annoy big Google?

Well, consider one of my 20 methods of getting legit paid links without getting penalized by Google. Many of those methods are even cheaper. Moreover nobody can harm you, they are perfectly clean.

Skip direct bribery like paid reviews and other controversial link building tactics.

No dirty tricks involved! The list starts with easy already well known and often practiced techniques. The farther you get, the deeper you enter terra nova of SEO 2.0!


Google-friendly Techniques to Buy Links

Indeed as altruism is the best egoism, the most successful of the methods help you by helping others.

Donate moneySupport webmasters or programmers and many will link to you to show their appreciationJust one link, often with a high authority, but sometimes spammy if people donate only for SEO reasons (you can tell when you read German anchor texts on English sites)
Create a WordPress ThemePay a designer to make a WordPress theme for you and then give it away on your site, people will naturally link itAt least the designer will link to you, potentially hundreds or even thousands of links if the theme really rocks.
Pay a developer to code a WordPress or Firefox extensionPay someone to create a useful WordPress or Firefox extension that hasn’t been created by many others yet.Brings potentially hundreds of links, it depends on how useful the tools are.
Stage a contestGive away plenty of small prizes unlike those who just offer a “free iPhone” for thousands of contestants.Depending on how stingy you are you get some, many or no links. Contests are common, so be creative.
Offer free web hosting for artists or activistsArtists and activists will love it and you can ask them to link to you, but they most often will even without being asked.Everybody loves art and many people support activism, so those sites get strong so you get a good link for each site you support.
Help charitiesThere are many ways to support charities but giving them money is the most direct one. There are thousands of them, so you surely will find dozens of causes you would like to support.The charity will probably link to you and if you do a little more, announce it big time, people will love you for it and link to you.
Create a charityInternet Marketers for Single Mothers? Why not?Why just donating money to someone who probably hasn’t the marketing skills to get real support and do outreach? Will get you lots of links.
Offer discounts for studentsStudents have less money now, but will have more in future. Already they are important influencers online. Offer discounts for them.Students have homepages, indeed I had one my first three years of my Internet endeavor in college. When you offer something useful to students many will link to you. Ever heard somebody talking about .edu links?
Use a product or service of a company that will show you in their portfolioMany companies will proudly show off their clients in their portfolio, sometimes even write a success story. Why buy a product of a company that does not bother? Choose the one that does.One link, often high authority. When you let a well known designer redesign your site you may even get dozens of incoming links from website design galleries or design blogs.
Send bloggers presents (your product)There are millions of bloggers. Most of them are below the radar although they are experts in their trade. Sent them a present, your product for instance. They will be delighted and blog about it.In case it’s a nice present even other bloggers may link to you. When you send presents to a bunch of bloggers, you will get a bunch of links…
Mirror a heavy traffic siteSupport your favorite open source software, videographer or visual artist with a mirror.Potentially dozens or hundreds of links to the mirrored site. A powerful link from that site to you.
Pay a designer to create a free fontEvery webmaster needs fonts, but who wants to pay for them? Or who can afford it?Many links, depending of the quality of the font.
Buy an established blog or websiteMany bloggers blog for some months and then stop and sell their blogs. Often with high authorityKeep the blog going and get many links to that blog.
Pay a programmer to create a useful toolA SEO tool or CSS generator of some kind will always get some attention.Depending on how useful the tool is, you get plenty or at least some links.
Pay a writer to write guest articles on established blogsI write myself and the links are often the best ones. At least before I started SEO 2.0At least one link per article, but authority links.
Pay a translator to translate your articles and give ’em awayYour article republished all over the world for free? It’s possible. SEO 2.0 posts have been translated in at least a dozen languages.Dozens, even hundreds of links possible because not everybody speaks English.
Offend an evil corporation and pay a lawyer to defend youWhat about a lawsuit against Yahoo for handing over Chinese dissidents to the police? Invest in freedom.Basically if you can convincingly fight against anti-democratic corporations people will love you. No wonder.
Pay a cracker to deface your siteWell, you get linked for being defaced. Especially by your readers. This is a win to win situation if there is no real destruction done. The cracker can brag about that and you get linked.Many links if the defacement is spectacular enough and people care for your site.
Pay a star to make a guest appearance on your siteMusicians and writers in most cases lack money, even the famous ones! It can be just a visit with some pictures.Lots of links, especially if you target the MySpace generation. They’ll love it.
Pay an artist to offer a music download for free on your siteWhy not paying the artist to offer his new song as a download on your site? Make sure that the people link the page/site not the music directly though.People love free music downloads, especially by well known rock stars.
The more known or the rarer the more links. Many in any case.


Attract Links Instead of Paying

None of these techniques are about “manipulation”. They’re not even really “paid links”. I just used the term people use.

They are completely legit and you won’t get penalized for them whatsoever. Otherwise Google has to penalize the Web as a whole!

On a side note: I do not use the methods myself as I can garner enough links without paying anything.

I used some of the techniques without payment whatsoever. I usually optimize for organic reach by attracting links.


The Best Things in Life Are Free

The best things in life are free. The same motto applies on the Web. So treat those ways of getting paid links as a first step to organic link heaven.

Also, you pay, but you give away for free, so you’re almost there, at completely organic link earning (not building, as then the links appear by themselves)!

Why would you pay for things every single time when you can get them for free for years?