PlofAtayuga
Regular Member
- Jul 5, 2010
- 404
- 226
Disclaimer
This article will probably make me sound like a mean jerk. Fair enough, that's not too far from the truth. Overall I've been having a pleasant time on the marketplace. I've found a couple of fine services there. Lots of crappy ones too, but that's the price of learning.
More than telling you what to buy, this guide will help you avoid some beginner mistakes. It won't give you a 100% protection against poor services, as there will always be things beyond your control (that's why I won't recommend any specific seller here). But it may help you identify some shady behaviors.
You can just use it as a checklist - most of it is really just common sense, but putting it together may just save you $$$.
1. The Golden Rule: You get what you pay for
Nobody will give you 10k quality links/followers/whatever for $10. They may call it High Quality, High Authority, Unique, Hand-Crafted, Secret Sauce or Godzilla x Power Rangers. Bullshit.
Anything with big numbers, you can probably achieve with free/cheap tools. Don't waste your money.
PBNs at $2/link? Try to even get an actual decent article for that price. It just doesn't check out. Don't get fooled by the price tag and overblown descriptions.
Big ambitions? You won't have it cheap. ESPECIALLY when cheap seems to be the seller's main sales argument. I rarely look at anything under $100.
2. Big discounts, great bait, red flag
Here's a basic rule for you: the true value of a service is, at most, equal to its announced price minus the biggest discount you can find on the topic. 80% on a $200 package? The thing is worth $40 at best.
There also seems to be a correlation between high discounts and poor service. Those big numbers are suspicious as hell. There may be good Samaritans around here offering honest price reductions, but be careful. The few good services I have used here had very small discounts, if any.
3. Don't rely excessively on reviews and screenshots
Here's another rule of the thumb: the quality of a service is at best that described in the most negative review you will find. I've made the mistake to go for services which had dozens of positive reviews and only 1 or 2 bad ones - those negative ones were spot on every time. Read through threads carefully. Some OPs like to drown comments under super-long and repeated posts.
But why do they get good reviews at all? Many sellers give extra discounts/links/etc. to buyers leaving nice reviews. As for unhappy customers, I assume they just count their losses and move on, as they don't want to be seen as picky buyers. So much for me.
Sometimes, moderator reviews can also raise flags if you read between the lines. Their reviews are usually honest, they just find nice ways to mention the negative points. "decent for the price", "readable", "good for churn and burn projects" > Meh, not outright scam but nothing special
"Could use some improvements" > Run like hell
And remember that review copies are generally the very best the provider can offer. Unless you see some very enthusiastic reaction, there's generally not much going on.
Sometimes, sellers will show screenshots of the great results they get for their clients. They may be real, they may be photoshopped, they may be a screen of an edited HTML page. You have no way to know for sure. If you see anything off, like text that doesn't fit in or important metrics hidden even on just a few of the screens, run away.
4. Be wary of the truth stretchers
Just because a seller claims they'll give you something doesn't mean they will.
"Native content" at $0.50/1,000 words? Dream on it.
"Manual content"? Slightly edited spun text. By a non-native.
"Passed copyscape"? Random spun sentences patched up together.
"Relevant image"? Whatever came first on their stock image site.
"High quality PBN" at $2/link? Hope you like the company of porn and gambling sites on a generic Wordpress site.
Really, just use your common sense. If you can't normally get something as good as announced for that price offered, you're being lied to.
5. Quality, not quantity & 6. The more targeted and exclusive the better
Such a platitude, I know. 10k links, 100k followers, etc. That shouts spam all over the place. Quality beats quantity hands down.
"We accept all sites". No thanks. I don't want to share links with porn sites. I don't want 10k fake followers. I don't want links on 300 PBNs with spun content, boring templates, broken contact pages and a horrible neighborhood.
I want to be on a smaller number of great real websites with real visitors, targeted for my specific industry and only accepting high-quality and relevant articles. Always go industry-specific. Check samples and make sure everything is genuine.
7. Trust no one but yourself
In the end, you need to trust your gut. There are traps all over the place - sometimes they are very subtle. If you don't see anything outright wrong but still have the feeling that something's fishy, move on.
People may give you recommendations in good faith, but you never know whether YOU will get the same treatment. Methods stop working, PBNs go down, sites turn their links to nofollow, providers stop giving a damn. Things happen.
So how do you choose a service? Leave the price out of the equation for a moment. Trim down the service list using the advice above until you have a couple of candidates that seem to offer something made for YOU rather than anybody who'll shell out a few bucks. Then take a leap of faith.
This article will probably make me sound like a mean jerk. Fair enough, that's not too far from the truth. Overall I've been having a pleasant time on the marketplace. I've found a couple of fine services there. Lots of crappy ones too, but that's the price of learning.
More than telling you what to buy, this guide will help you avoid some beginner mistakes. It won't give you a 100% protection against poor services, as there will always be things beyond your control (that's why I won't recommend any specific seller here). But it may help you identify some shady behaviors.
You can just use it as a checklist - most of it is really just common sense, but putting it together may just save you $$$.
1. The Golden Rule: You get what you pay for
Nobody will give you 10k quality links/followers/whatever for $10. They may call it High Quality, High Authority, Unique, Hand-Crafted, Secret Sauce or Godzilla x Power Rangers. Bullshit.
Anything with big numbers, you can probably achieve with free/cheap tools. Don't waste your money.
PBNs at $2/link? Try to even get an actual decent article for that price. It just doesn't check out. Don't get fooled by the price tag and overblown descriptions.
Big ambitions? You won't have it cheap. ESPECIALLY when cheap seems to be the seller's main sales argument. I rarely look at anything under $100.
2. Big discounts, great bait, red flag
Here's a basic rule for you: the true value of a service is, at most, equal to its announced price minus the biggest discount you can find on the topic. 80% on a $200 package? The thing is worth $40 at best.
There also seems to be a correlation between high discounts and poor service. Those big numbers are suspicious as hell. There may be good Samaritans around here offering honest price reductions, but be careful. The few good services I have used here had very small discounts, if any.
3. Don't rely excessively on reviews and screenshots
Here's another rule of the thumb: the quality of a service is at best that described in the most negative review you will find. I've made the mistake to go for services which had dozens of positive reviews and only 1 or 2 bad ones - those negative ones were spot on every time. Read through threads carefully. Some OPs like to drown comments under super-long and repeated posts.
But why do they get good reviews at all? Many sellers give extra discounts/links/etc. to buyers leaving nice reviews. As for unhappy customers, I assume they just count their losses and move on, as they don't want to be seen as picky buyers. So much for me.
Sometimes, moderator reviews can also raise flags if you read between the lines. Their reviews are usually honest, they just find nice ways to mention the negative points. "decent for the price", "readable", "good for churn and burn projects" > Meh, not outright scam but nothing special
"Could use some improvements" > Run like hell
And remember that review copies are generally the very best the provider can offer. Unless you see some very enthusiastic reaction, there's generally not much going on.
Sometimes, sellers will show screenshots of the great results they get for their clients. They may be real, they may be photoshopped, they may be a screen of an edited HTML page. You have no way to know for sure. If you see anything off, like text that doesn't fit in or important metrics hidden even on just a few of the screens, run away.
4. Be wary of the truth stretchers
Just because a seller claims they'll give you something doesn't mean they will.
"Native content" at $0.50/1,000 words? Dream on it.
"Manual content"? Slightly edited spun text. By a non-native.
"Passed copyscape"? Random spun sentences patched up together.
"Relevant image"? Whatever came first on their stock image site.
"High quality PBN" at $2/link? Hope you like the company of porn and gambling sites on a generic Wordpress site.
Really, just use your common sense. If you can't normally get something as good as announced for that price offered, you're being lied to.
5. Quality, not quantity & 6. The more targeted and exclusive the better
Such a platitude, I know. 10k links, 100k followers, etc. That shouts spam all over the place. Quality beats quantity hands down.
"We accept all sites". No thanks. I don't want to share links with porn sites. I don't want 10k fake followers. I don't want links on 300 PBNs with spun content, boring templates, broken contact pages and a horrible neighborhood.
I want to be on a smaller number of great real websites with real visitors, targeted for my specific industry and only accepting high-quality and relevant articles. Always go industry-specific. Check samples and make sure everything is genuine.
7. Trust no one but yourself
In the end, you need to trust your gut. There are traps all over the place - sometimes they are very subtle. If you don't see anything outright wrong but still have the feeling that something's fishy, move on.
People may give you recommendations in good faith, but you never know whether YOU will get the same treatment. Methods stop working, PBNs go down, sites turn their links to nofollow, providers stop giving a damn. Things happen.
So how do you choose a service? Leave the price out of the equation for a moment. Trim down the service list using the advice above until you have a couple of candidates that seem to offer something made for YOU rather than anybody who'll shell out a few bucks. Then take a leap of faith.
