This past week I was interested in how to build up some back-links to my new site thelakeoftheozarks.net, about the Lake of the Ozarks surprisingly. I came across a tweet in my feed that shared a few key services you could use to build back-links to your site to improve your search engine results.
I am sure the links on that page get some affiliate link love to the owner but I decided to give the Auto Text Links option a shot. This link takes you to TextLinks.com which has a free trial sign up and 25 free links. I signed up, never had to put in a credit card and added a few links to blog sites in their network.
Textlinks Setup Process
It was all relatively painless. I watched some how to videos to make sure I understood what was taking place and it was all pretty simply. I chose to try sidebar links and contextual links out. I used about 15 of my 25 free links.
Searching for topics such as fishing, lake of the ozarks and then simply ozarks, I added links back to my new site about the lake area. Great 15 minutes and now I have back links from some new sites that are supposedly relating to my niche.
Link Worthy or Worthless?
Unfortunately, if you are like me you find this somewhat disconcerting. When you are building your contextual, sidebar or footer links using textlinks.com service you cannot tell the domain you are about to link to. Once you setup the link you can then view all setup and click to see the link on the site live. This is when you finally seen the domain name.
With sites that have the CN domain extension from the People Republic of China it makes you question quickly if what you are doing is going to truly help your SEO for your site. Then what you notice is how the exact same article is posted on tens of sites with different domain names. Later I even found the same article from one of the blog posts on ezinearticles.com. All of this just screams shady to me. Duplicate content galore. No real importance in any of these sites.
My Final Decision
So after a few days of leaving the links in place I have decided to remove my links and cancel my account, if I had that option. It just didn’t seem worth the risk of Google deciding I was doing something fishy. I am not an expert in the ever changing rules Google and Bing and others employ but I have heard enough from others that make me question the validity of this service. And for $99/month I am not sure that this service is truly worth it at this time for what I am doing. I can use that money to buy ads on other sites or for my niche get a local billboard.
Textlink Network Examples
Some example blog sites from textlinks.com network of sites that my links once showed up on:
http://gzw5.cn/328341-Lake-of-the-Ozarks-will-Show-You.html
http://funbikecenter.cn/627136-Lake-of-the-Ozarks-will-Show-You.html
http://allwatersfishing.com/581527-Handy-Tips-For-Bass-Fishing.html
http://cbsstlouis.com/320280-Ten-Wonderfully-Superb-Bed-and-Breakfast-Inns.html
http://www-boat.com/819138-General-Fishing-Product-Category-Review.html
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