8 Tips From Semalt On How To Choose The Donor Sites When Buying Links



Previously, the search engines highly valued the sites that were driven by a huge number of external links. In those days, SEO specialists and the site owners promoted the resource by buying the links on the exchanges and running through directories and did not care much about which donors they would be placed on. Quite a lot of time has passed, the search engines have become smarter and more discerning, and SEO-promotion has turned from a banal buying into a real skill that requires knowledge, experience, patience, and professional intuition.

Smart new algorithms have learned to perform complex analysis of donors, and not just count their numbers. Therefore, for an SEO specialist or a website owner who is working to build up the link mass of a resource, the most urgent question is how to choose a donor to buy the links that will be appreciated by the search engines, and will not become a reason for falling under the sanctions.

Higher is the value of an external link leading to a site, better are the results it allows to obtain, which means:
When the link allows you to get all of the above, the situation is perfect. Otherwise, you will have a mediocre result and at worst, your site will fall under the penalties. 

To avoid this burden, we advise you to entrust this choice to a professional agency such as Semalt because of the importance of buying or selling the links nowadays. Throughout this article, we will try to show you the parameters to take into account during a link exchange process.

What are the donor sites in SEO and why are they needed?

The donor sites are the web resources that transmit to the sites-acceptors (which are, those receiving) the link mass: links to pages of other web resources are placed on it.

The donor sites allow you to post the links to acceptor sites on your site, so that the latter increase the link mass, which is very important for SEO. The larger and better the link mass, the higher its trust (the level of trust of the search engines) and the likelihood of being at the top of the results for the relevant queries.

Link building and principles of its construction

The working capacity of the natural external reference mass is called linkbuildingom. This is one of the components of the external SEO promotion.

For link building to help increase the trust of the site, and to not get banned from the search engine, you should use the following principles:

Selection criteria: How to choose a good link donor?

Before starting the donor check, it is worth compiling a checklist of the characteristics of the resource, which will contain the signs of a good platform for placing a link to your own site. 

Finding a suitable donor site for placing a link will take a lot of time because many sites that seem suitable at first glance are eliminated at the next stages of verification.

Let's analyze the parameters that the donor site must meet.

The same or related subject

The subject of the referring web resource must correspond to the subject of the recipient. And better the more "points of contact".

Of course, a 100% hit is not guaranteed here. Therefore, if there is no direct connection, you need to work where there is at least an indirect one.

Direct communication is when the donor and acceptor sites belong to the companies of the same field of activity: for example, they grow and sell fruits.

An indirect connection is when a few more points need to be drawn between the subject of the transmitting web resource and the subject of the recipient. For example, if we grow and sell fruits, it means that the sites whose organizations work where the fruits are needed will indirectly suit us as donors. For example, confectionery, catering, production of jams, and comfitures.

Why should you not neglect this indicator? Each site has its own target audience, which brings the traffic and conversion. A user who reads an article about bicycle parts will find it strange to see a link to a fruit supplier's website, he will not follow it nor buy anything. Besides, the search bots can also analyze the relevance to the topics and are unlikely to be praised for doing so.

You promote in the same region

The priority is to choose donors with the region of promotion as close as possible to you.

Advertising

It's good when the site does not have the aggressive banner ads that interfere with viewing the content. But in general, advertising is not something that should not be at all: it can be useful if the site owner accepts only those offers that are suitable for the target audience of his site.

Therefore, if there is an advertisement on a web resource, evaluate its content: it does not apply to prohibited content. These are offers of the related products or services that may be of interest to the users of this web resource. Otherwise, it is better to refuse to post your links on this site.

Choose functional sites

It is worth paying attention only to those donor sites that post high-quality unique content and regularly update information that is actively discussed and commented on by the visitors. An additional advantage is the presence of groups in the social networks, the use of the commenting systems.

Skip the sites that do not care about the users, do not try to be useful and interesting, do not make efforts to promote and optimize. Also of little interest are microsites, which have only a couple of articles and then with links to other resources. The price of a link posted on it is usually much higher than its value.

You can check the attendance of someone else's site using the special services, such as Similarweb, Semrush, and others. The higher the traffic is, the better it is for the donor. 

The donor should not be under the sanctions or the search engine filters. To check the site, you can use the online services like Semalt.

Check whether the site is well indexed by the search engines

Check the number of the pages in the index of Google and Yandex. If you see that there are clearly fewer than are present on the site, or it is not at all in the index, then you should refuse to post a link on it. Another signal for rejection is the very large difference between the indexed pages in Google and Yandex.

Sites with an interface that is not spammed with banner ads

Advertising allows the site owners to make money and, with the right approach, add value to a resource. So, advertising the related products can be greatly useful to the visitors, and if the owner also checks what is advertised on his site, then the readers get a double benefit. If the resource is replete with ads for various goods, which overlaps all the content and also leads to questionable or the prohibited sites, we recommend that you refuse the offer to place an external link.

Age of the site

Again, the indicators need to be checked in a complex: if the donor is young but already has good attendance, then why not buy a link on him. But if the resource is several months old but has low traffic and a small number of the incoming links, then it is better to refuse the placement.

Useful for the users, and not existing solely for making money

The best sites, including donors, are created primarily for the users, and do not make money by placing third-party links.

This indicator is well characterized by a comparison of the number of incoming and outgoing links. For analysis, you can use various online services such as Ahrefs, Serpstat, or use a professional service such as Semalt. A suitable site should have its number of the incoming links approximately equal to or more than outgoing ones. It is also necessary to pay attention to the dynamics of the growth of the link mass so that there are no sharp jumps.

Additional important parameters influencing the purchasing decision

In addition to the named parameters, it is important to take into account the rating indicators of the checked page of the donor site. The most important indicators give us an idea of the donor quality assessment. 

A general SEO analysis of the link donors will not be superfluous, which can be performed by the online using analyzer services such as Semalt. High loading speed, the presence of Title, Description Meta tags, titles and subheadings, and other signs of high-quality optimization will help you make the best choice.

Choose the pages with a response code of 200 instead of 301 to place the link. The latter can be considered a donor, but only as a fallback.

Equally important is the level of nesting provided for the link placement. The article with a link is closer to the main one and the higher your material is located, the better it will be.

How to choose donors to buy links: reliability versus simplicity

In fact, this is a "manual" check of each donor site. This is the method we recommend for the site owners and their in-house SEO specialists who manage one or more projects.

To manually check the donor of the link, we draw up a Google or Excel spreadsheet of the applicants and mark their quality according to the checklist mentioned above. To start the selection, we search for the thematically related sites through the search and begin a detailed analysis.

The process of searching for a site manually, of placing the links is lengthy, but with its help, you can achieve the impressive results: get a natural increase in the target audience, increase the number of the subscribers and customers, and even improve your position in the search results.

Automation of the process of selecting a link donor

Perhaps this type of process is, the easiest and the most common way to quickly select a donor. But it cannot be called the most reliable. For the quality of the links, the person who is interested in the result is not responsible, but the program that sorts the entire mass of the sites that provide the paid links to those who wish. 

The most popular exchanges independently analyze the donor sites and discard the dubious resources. At the same time, you can never be 100% sure that the program check filter works conscientiously, so the risk of wasting money or even falling under the search engine sanctions remains.

To at least theoretically reduce the possible risks, we advise you to use only the proven and long-standing link exchanges that provide the ample opportunities for choosing a site. For example, Semalt offers a fairly detailed list of the parameters for filtering the donor sites, it is advisable not to neglect the given opportunity and set the strict restrictions on the choice of a resource.

Summing up

We stand for honesty and a conscientious approach to work, therefore, whenever there is even a minimal opportunity, we recommend carefully checking. Choose an automated method for selecting a link donor and do not be lazy to carry out additional self-checking of the proposed sites.

Have you already decided on the best way to choose a donor to buy the links, and what method do you prefer to optimize your own website?

If you still have doubts, I invite you to discover the Semalt service: a professional service that offers everything in one.

In conclusion, we note that all of these parameters work in combination. That is, if the site is only suitable for one of the seven points, then it is still not your donor. Moreover, if a web resource is suitable in all the parameters, except for the topic and attendance, it is also better to leave it: the topic and traffic are the most important selection criteria, and when you are choosing a site, the priority should be put on these aspects.