The short answer. No. Google's spam policies list "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as link spam. Bought links are often ignored, sometimes penalised, and rarely come from sites that AI tools trust. Paying for coverage is fine if the links are marked as sponsored, but those links won't help rankings directly.
What Google says
Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links mainly to manipulate rankings, and name buying or selling links for ranking purposes as an example. That includes paying for a "guest post" whose main purpose is the link, and link packages sold by the hundred.
What can go wrong
- You pay for nothing. Google's systems are good at spotting paid links and simply ignoring them.
- You get a penalty. In worse cases, Google issues a manual action and your rankings drop until the links are removed or disavowed.
- The sites are poor. Sites that sell links tend to be built for selling links. Real readers don't visit them, and AI tools don't treat them as trusted sources.
- It's hard to undo. Cleaning up a bad link profile takes time, and some sellers won't remove links once paid.
Paid isn't always wrong
Paying for advertising, sponsorship or a news release is fine, as long as the links are marked rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". That tells Google not to count them for rankings. The value is in the exposure, the brand mention and the people who click, which also helps AI tools learn who you are. That's how we treat the news releases in our plans.
What to do instead
- Publish things worth citing: original data, useful tools, clear guides
- Offer expert comment to journalists
- Ask for links where you're already mentioned without one
- Get listed by suppliers, partners, trade bodies and local organisations you work with
- Earn coverage with real stories through digital PR
Earned links take longer, but they last, and they come from sites that people and AI tools actually read. See how we approach link earning.