If you run an agency or market a local business, you will eventually ask the same four questions: how do you buy backlinks, what do they cost, where should you buy them, and what does the process actually look like? Here are direct answers, grounded in data from 650+ completed placements.
How do you buy backlinks?
You buy backlinks by ordering placements from a link building provider: you supply the target page and the keyword it should rank for, and the provider prospects relevant websites, writes an editorial article that naturally references your page, and gets it published. A reputable provider gives you the target keyword, anchor text, and the live URL of every placement. At Links That Move, agencies place and track orders in a client portal, per link.
How much do backlinks cost?
Backlink pricing is per placement, and the price is driven by four things: the publishing site's authority and traffic, the niche (legal and finance cost more than home services), whether the content is written for you, and volume. Beware of both extremes: links priced like a commodity (a few dollars each) come from link farms that can hurt you, while "premium" pricing means little without transparent metrics. Ask any provider to quote per link against named quality criteria; that's how our per-link model works.
Where should you buy backlinks?
Buy from a provider that can show you three things before you pay: real examples of past placements, the exact criteria a publishing site must meet (traffic, topical relevance, editorial standards), and who writes the content. Marketplaces sell inventory; managed services build campaigns. Agencies typically prefer managed providers because anchor-text strategy across many orders is where campaigns are won or lost. In our own placement data, 76% of anchors are deliberately not exact-match. A provider should also already hold publisher relationships in your niche: we contract publications continuously, ahead of orders, so a new campaign never starts prospecting from zero.
What does the link building process look like?
A professional placement follows five steps:
- Order: you submit the target URL, target keyword, and any anchor preferences (in our case, through the portal).
- Prospecting: the provider identifies topically relevant sites that meet quality thresholds.
- Content: an editorial article is written that answers a real question (in our data, cost guides and question-format articles are 51% of everything published) and references your page naturally.
- Publication: the host site reviews and publishes; you receive the live URL.
- Verification: the placement is checked for indexation and that the link stays live.
Across 650+ completed orders, this takes 28 days on average from order to published link.
How many backlinks do you need?
Enough to close the gap with the sites outranking you, and no more. Audit the top competitors for your target keyword: their referring domains, minus yours, is the realistic gap. For most local service keywords the gap is a handful of quality links to the right page, not hundreds. Buying in bursts against a specific page and keyword outperforms buying bulk links to a homepage.
What anchor text should you use when buying links?
Follow the distribution professionals actually use: mostly partial-match and natural-language anchors, some branded, and exact-match kept to roughly one in ten placements. Our 668-placement analysis found 38% partial-match, 23% natural sentences or questions, 15% branded, and only 12% exact-match. If a provider defaults every anchor to your money keyword, that is a red flag, not a bonus.
What are the red flags when buying backlinks?
- No named quality criteria for publishing sites
- Prices that only make sense for automated link farms
- Every anchor is exact-match
- No live URLs provided, or links that quietly disappear after a few weeks
- "Guaranteed rankings": placements can be guaranteed, rankings cannot
- The same article template recycled across every placement
Frequently asked questions
Is buying backlinks safe?
Editorially placed links on relevant, real websites with natural anchor text carry low risk and are how competitive niches are actually won. Bulk, automated, exact-match links from irrelevant sites are what triggers penalties. The difference is the process, not the payment.
How long until purchased backlinks affect rankings?
The placement itself averages 28 days in our data; ranking movement typically follows over the subsequent weeks as the linking page is crawled and indexed. Treat 2-3 months as the honest evaluation window for a batch of links.
Do agencies resell link building?
Yes, that is our core model. 19 agencies currently order through Links That Move and deliver the placements to their own clients, using the portal to manage orders across many client campaigns at once.
Can I order links for multiple niches?
Yes. Our completed placements span 15+ verticals across home services, legal, healthcare, and more, and we contract publishers ahead of demand so new niches are ready before the first order.
Ready to order, or want to see example placements first? Start here.