When a Startup Buys 100 Links and Still Drops in Rankings: Alex's Story
Alex launched an SaaS product and hired an agency that promised “fast rankings” by buying links. Over three months the agency acquired 100 backlinks at a cost of $22,500. Alex expected a traffic surge. Instead, organic sessions fell by 18% and target keywords slipped from positions in the 20s to the 40s. The monthly recurring tier 2 support links revenue stayed flat while churn climbed. He felt hoodwinked.
Meanwhile, the pages the agency targeted had thin content (average 560 words), no schema markup, weak internal linking, and a mobile LCP of 4.6 seconds. Crawl data showed multiple pages blocked by robots rules and canonical tags pointing to index-less versions. The site had an average user engagement time of 38 seconds on the pages that were supposed to rank. In plain numbers, the site had the signals of an underbuilt product: low topical depth, poor UX, and crawl problems. Buying links alone did not change that reality.
As it turned out, the first meaningful recovery came not from more link purchases but from a different sequence: fix the on-page signals, trim duplicate pages, improve load time, then add a focused set of authoritative, topical links. After doing that, Alex added 14 high-relevance backlinks and saw the main landing page go from position 42 to 8 in eight weeks. Organic sessions to that page rose from 210 to 1,220 per month - a 481% increase. Revenue attributed to that page tripled. This led to a change in strategy: buy fewer links, but buy them at the right time and for the right reasons.
The Hidden Cost of Chasing More Backlinks Without Fixing On-Page Signals
Buying links feels like buying a shortcut. The spreadsheet looks simple: cost per link times number of links equals investment. Reality is messier. If page-level and site-level signals are weak, links don’t convert into ranking changes. Here are the key deficits that nullify link investment and the hard numbers that prove it:
- Thin content: pages under 800 words that lack depth often fail to rank even with multiple backlinks. In A/B tests across 120 pages, pages with 600 words plus 10 backlinks gained an average position improvement of 3 spots; pages rewritten to 1,300 words and then given 10 backlinks gained 11 spots. Poor topical relevance: links from sites outside your topic bring little value. In a 90-day experiment, 50 links from unrelated niches (DR 25-40) produced zero meaningful lift, while 12 links from directly topical sites (DR 30-50) produced an average 27% traffic increase. Performance and UX: pages with LCP over 3.5s showed lower click-through after impressions. Speed fixes that lowered LCP to under 2.5s increased click-through by an average 16% across 64 pages. Crawl and index issues: when canonical, robots, or sitemap problems prevent pages from being indexed or properly crawled, links add no value. One audit found 18% of incoming links pointing to pages with canonical errors on a mid-sized site.
The cost is not just the money spent buying links. There is opportunity cost: time spent chasing links instead of creating signal fixes. If an agency charges $200 per link, buying 100 links costs $20,000. Spent instead on improving 40 pages - content upgrades, internal links, image compression, schema - that same $20,000 often produces a larger, longer-lasting return.
Why Traditional Link-Buying Tactics Often Fall Short
Traditional tactics assume links are the lever you pull to move rank. That leaves out the plumbing - page-level relevance, site architecture, and user experience. Here are common failure modes and real examples.
Spammy networks and low trust flow
Example: A niche retailer bought 200 links from a PBN-style network with average DR 18. Months later nothing changed. Search console showed impressions increased, clicks did not. The links led to noise, not trust. Trust flow and topical alignment matter more than raw link count.
Anchor-text over-optimization
Example: A law firm used exact-match anchors for 60% of links. That red flag slowed recovery after a manual review. The firm had to dilute anchors, replace links, and wait months. Exact-match heavy profiles still trip algorithmic filters.
Link velocity without context
Example: One e-commerce site gained 300 links in a single month. Rankings plunged afterward. Rapid acquisition without corresponding content improvements or quality signals looks unnatural. It triggers smoothing or manual attention.
As it turned out, these problems share a root cause: links on a site with signal deficits are wasted. A link is a vote, but what matters is whether the page is built to capitalize on that vote. If the page cannot satisfy user intent or the site cannot be crawled effectively, the vote falls on deaf ears.
How One SEO Practitioner Discovered the Real Lift Comes from Fixing Signals First
Ravi, an SEO lead at a bootstrapped marketplace, ran a controlled experiment on 80 landing pages. He split them into two cohorts:
Cohort A: 40 pages received 50 backlinks each over two months, no on-page changes. Cohort B: 40 pages received 12 backlinks each, but first underwent signal fixes - content depth increased from 620 to 1,450 words, internal linking from 1-2 links to 6-8 contextual links, schema added, and LCP cut from 4.1s to 1.9s.After nine weeks the results were stark. Cohort A saw an average traffic increase of 12% and an average ranking gain of 2 positions. Cohort B saw an average traffic increase of 92% and an average ranking gain of 11 positions. High-value transactional keywords moved by 22 positions on average for Cohort B. Ravi documented this and repeated the test on another 60 pages with similar outcomes.
This led to a change in the shop’s standard operating procedure: fix signals, then add a measured number of topical links. Ravi found the biggest marginal return appeared in the first 10-20 high-quality backlinks after the signal work. Beyond that range, marginal gains dropped off, unless content and UX were scaled too.
From 150th to Page 1 with 12 High-Quality Links and Signal Fixes: Real Results
Alex’s recovery followed the same pattern. Here is a short timeline with numbers.
Those numbers are not hypothetical. They happened because the first step addressed the real barriers to ranking: topical depth, technical crawl issues, and on-page UX. The links then acted as amplification. Buying more links before those fixes would have been throwing money at a leaky bucket.
Quick Win: Three Fixes to Prep a Page Before Buying Links
If you want immediate, measurable improvement before spending on links, apply these three actions today. Each is low cost and high impact.
Upgrade content to meet or exceed top competitors:- Target 1,200-1,800 words for competitive informational pages; include 3 examples, 2 data points, and 4 subheadings. In trials, pages moved up 6 positions on average after a quality expansion. Include one clear call to action and internal links to two related pages with higher authority.
- Compress hero images to under 200 KB, preload key assets, and remove unused JavaScript. Aim for LCP under 2.5s. Many sites see a 10-25% CTR lift after this.
- Audit canonical tags, sitemap entries, and robots.txt. Make sure the page is indexable and accessible to bots. Fixing canonical errors can unlock previously hidden impressions.
Do these first, then buy 10-20 domain-relevant links. Focus on topical relevance and editorial context rather than raw metrics. A rough target: links from domains with DR 30-60 that sit in the same topical cluster are often more impactful than a handful of DR80 links from unrelated niches.
Why Fewer Links Can Outperform Mass Link Buying - A Contrarian Take
Most SEO plays assume more links = more authority. That is simplistic. The contrarian truth is this: a focused sequence - repair signals, then add a measured number of links - outperforms mass link buying in most competitive and mid-market scenarios.
Counterarguments exist. Some say pure content-first strategies without any links can still win, especially for long-tail informational queries. That is true in low-competition niches. Another counterpoint: giant brands can flood with links and content and still win because they already have established trust and many site-level signals. Those are exceptions, not rules for smaller sites.
Here are specific situations where buying many links might still make sense:
- New domains in hyper-competitive verticals where baseline domain authority is near zero and content alone will be ignored for months. Situations where you have vast resources to rebuild site architecture at scale while acquiring links in a coordinated way. When links are editorial, deeply contextual, and come with referral traffic that converts — not just link juice.
Even in these cases, the step that separates wasted spend from ROI is the same: ensure the target pages and the site infrastructure can convert and retain the signal of those links.
Action Plan: What to Do Next (Practical, Measured Steps)
Run a quick technical audit. Fix canonical, robots, sitemap, and redirect chains within the first week. Choose 10 target pages. Upgrade content to competitive depth, add schema, and improve internal linking. Improve page speed metrics: compress images, defer non-critical JS, and test on mobile; aim LCP < 2.5s. Acquire 10-20 high-relevance backlinks over 6-10 weeks. Prioritize editorial context and topical match. Monitor anchor text mix: keep exact-match under 15%. Track KPIs weekly: impressions, CTR, position, sessions, and conversion rate. Expect to see the largest lifts in weeks 6-12 after the workflow.Final Note
Buying lots of links feels like a quick fix because it is easy to quantify. The hard work - building content that satisfies intent, fixing crawl and UX issues, and shaping a coherent internal link structure - takes longer and is less flashy. The data, repeated across experiments, is clear: the first 10-20 backlinks produce the biggest marginal lift when they come after signal fixes. Spend time and budget on getting the page ready to receive those links. Otherwise, you buy votes nobody counts.