With the Internet Marketing Business growing up rapidly the ways of getting on top of search engines are diverse and more and more difficult to understand. The former concept of buying high PageRank links to let even the worst spam sites rank are over. Regarding that, I saw the first changes in Google`s algorithm even before the last update, which was,  today, 167 days ago. Today one thing is clear, selling links can hurt your PageRank, buying links may get you nowhere anymore.
 
What Google did or is doing right now is, all in all, nothing big. It is also nothing that nobody saw coming. It was a matter of time. Luckily, the internet is based on links and links in general can not be something evil so there are still ways to trick Google.
 
The only problem today is to find real quality links that have power, links that count. As many business rely on buying and selling links I thought it is maybe time to let the world know what has changed and what can be done to keep the business going. Therefore I decided to write about how one can buy links the right way. If anybody has more ideas than me or something to add, you are welcome to write me or post comments.
 
How To Buy Links The Right Way - Rules
 
The job is quite easy if you are very thorough in gathering as many information about your desired linkspot as possible.
 
Take a look at the Domain age - Go to a trusted whois-website to find out how old the property is you think about renting a link on. I prefer the whois search of domaintools as they offer plenty of useful information. The domain should not be too new. A creation date of one or two years is always good. Of course older websites can be good as well but you will maybe not able to recreated what had happened during this time.
 
Take a look at the Domain owner - The domainowner (who can also be found in the whois) maybe seems not that much interesting but actually looking the name up on search engines can reveal many interesting information that might be useful. Keep in mind that anonymous whois may get a (minimal) penalty from Google (as stated by Matt Cutts) Also an obviously inaccurate whois does not look good at all. When you plan to buy permanent links they might stay not permanent.
 
Take a look at the IP History - The IP history gives you an idea about what happened with the site over time. Too many IP changes do not look good.
 
Take a look at the last Whois update - With all the expired domain grabbers out there you do not know what you buy until you verified that the domain is in the hand of the seller for quite longer time. Remember that expired domains lose their PageRank and trust with Google as stated by Google Guy in 2004. I am  sure that meanwhile this also counts for recently sold domains.
 
Take a look at the domain in archive.org - It is always interesting to see how a website developed. How did it look 5 years ago, how two years and how 2 months ago. Maybe the sellers "strong Page Rank 6 quality site" was parked since the last update or was a "Free For All Links" (FFA) website for the last two months. That is not where you want to be linked.
 
Take a look at the traffic - Believe it or not but after checking the archived files of a website it is much easier to understand the traffic of a website. Go to alexa.com or compete.com to see the traffic curves. Do not put too much into this as the general SEO is looking for bot-traffic and not users. Maybe that will change in the future but real quality sites do not sell links.
 
Take a look on incoming links - Google was clever when they started not to show all incoming links. That was one of their first steps to prevent people from buying and exchanging links. It did not work as older search engines like alltheweb or altavista (among others) still offer this feature. Of course, the more quality, natural, incoming links, the better.
 
Take a look at the domain name in Search Engines - Next step should be looking up the domain  name in search engines. I bet you will be surprised how many linksellers tried to sell their "trusted quality domain" on ebay or forums. Sometimes you even find out that the domain was used for spam or malware distribution two years ago. I`ve seen it all. Be thorough!
 
 
Take a look at the website Quality - Look at your desired linkspot. Do you think that this is a website with traffic? Is it a website that users like to visit and read? Does it seem trusted or is it just another standard wordpress installation filled up with Private Label Rights (PLR) articles which you can find all over the net?
 
Take a look at the link spot - Do I have to say that footer links or links marked as sponsored links are worth nothing anymore? I do not know. There are still people buying these links for a lot of money. As crazy as it sounds, try to avoid all prominent spots that make your link look like an advertisement.
 
Take a look at the outgoing links - Of course too many outgoing links are not the best grade but also closer look at the other links. If the childcare website links to adult websites (just to make it clear) this is not where you want to be linked.
 
Take a look at the marketplace - Of course a link you can buy on text-link-ads.com or related services is not much worth. If you can find the link offer easily, Google can too. Don`t ask me where to go, I will not tell you but I can tell you, you better stay away from link exchanges or public link marketplaces.
 
Take a look at the rest - If your validation of the linkpage looks good until this point, you are maybe sitting on a goldmine which is hard to find these days. if you have time and you are in the mood, you can check the toolbar PageRank of the site. Of course, this sounds crazy and many linkbrokers will hate me for that, but the PageRank is  worth nothing anymore. Although Google tries to  bring back this PageRank as something that tells people something, it is only one little figure in the linkspot validation process - and as the toolbar (the visible) PageRank gets updates only a few times a year, it practically has no meaning.
 
 
Why Wite About How To Buy Links The Right Way?
 
While I`m writing this I already know that the better SEOs are asking themselves, why is he writing about all that. The answer ist easy. Although I am living in Dubai I deeply believe in decocracy. I believe in the democracy of the internet and technical development. I believe that Google should not be allowed to get away with writing the rules of the internet without consulting anyone else.
 
Furthermore it is my opinion that without the exchange of information there is no development. I want to give Google a relapse. On the one hand to force them into developing better technologies so that they stop making people to squeal about paid-links an don the other hand I wanto more competition in the search market. I studied economics, this is just in my blood
 
I am sure I forgot some things but I will add them when they come into my mind or when you remember me. This post is going to get updated on a regular basis. If you like this post, link it! If you do not like it, let me know why.