How to approach link building for gray-hat industries with copyright/C&D risks?

[MonopolyGuy]

Let’s say I have a client in a gray-hat industry where there’s a real chance of receiving copyright strikes or cease-and-desist letters.

The concern is: if we invest heavily in backlinks (e.g., $50K+), those links could essentially be wasted if the target page is taken down. This could happen with individual product listings or even entire category pages.

My questions:

• In this type of scenario, what’s the best strategy for link building?
• Should the backlinks point to the home page, to category pages, or still to individual products?
• How do SEOs usually structure link building for projects with a higher takedown risk?

Would love to hear from people who’ve dealt with this kind of situation before.

 

[shijin]

I monitor links weekly and shift authority if a page gets taken down to avoid losing ranking power

 

[The Creative Agency]

This is a common headache. You need to shield your main investment.

 

[Steptoe]

Let’s say I have a client in a gray-hat industry where there’s a real chance of receiving copyright strikes or cease-and-desist letters.

The concern is: if we invest heavily in backlinks (e.g., $50K+), those links could essentially be wasted if the target page is taken down. This could happen with individual product listings or even entire category pages.

My questions:

• In this type of scenario, what’s the best strategy for link building?
• Should the backlinks point to the home page, to category pages, or still to individual products?
• How do SEOs usually structure link building for projects with a higher takedown risk?

Would love to hear from people who’ve dealt with this kind of situation before.

You can try the old buffer approach - get a clean domain and 301 redirect it to the target page that is in danger of C&Ds, then build your backlinks to the redirected domain. If the page in question does get a strike, change the target of the 301 redirect to a new page. This isn't a sure thing, and if it works it has a limited lifespan, but it can at least help to recoup some of the investment.