# Buying links

Category: [Link Building & Off-Page](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/link-building-off-page/) › [Link spam & risks](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/link-building-off-page/link-spam-risks/) · Also known as: paid links, purchased backlinks, link buying

**Buying links** means giving money, goods or services in return for a link to your site. Google treats this as link spam when the goal is to influence rankings. This entry explains the rule. It does not recommend buying links.

## What does Google say?

In its spam policies, Google defines link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate search rankings. Among the examples are:

- buying or selling links for ranking purposes, including exchanging money, goods, services or products for links
- advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass ranking credit
- links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases distributed on other sites
- text advertisements or text links that don't block ranking credit

Google says it detects violations with automated systems and human review. Affected sites may rank lower or not appear in results at all.

## When are paid links allowed?

Paid links are not forbidden as such. Google writes that having them is not a violation as long as they are qualified with `rel="nofollow"` or `rel="sponsored"`. Google generally does not follow links with these attributes. For paid placements Google recommends `sponsored`. A link marked this way is advertising and not a ranking tactic.

## Example

```html
<a href="https://www.example.com/" rel="sponsored">Example Inc.</a>
```

This link sits in a paid article and carries `sponsored`. Without the attribute the same link would fall under the link spam policy.

## Common mistakes

- Reading a vendor's "high authority" or "dofollow" label as a safe signal. Google's policy depends on purpose and qualification and not on a vendor's label.
- Leaving paid placements unmarked because the publisher says the link is editorial.

## FAQ

**Is buying backlinks against Google's guidelines?** Buying links for ranking purposes is listed as link spam. Qualified paid links are allowed.

**Do paid links need a rel attribute?** Google says paid links should be qualified with `rel="sponsored"` or `rel="nofollow"`.

## Related terms

- [Disavow links](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/disavow-links/index.md)
- [Outbound links](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/outbound-links/index.md)
- [Link spam](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/link-spam/index.md)
- [rel="sponsored"](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/rel-sponsored/index.md)
- [Link exchange](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/link-exchange/index.md)
- [Manual action](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/manual-action/index.md)
- [Link scheme](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/link-scheme/index.md)

## Sources

- [Spam policies for Google web search (link spam) – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#link-spam)
- [Qualify your outbound links to Google – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/qualify-outbound-links)

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Last updated: October 7, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/buying-links/