There are so many link building services out there. We are deep into the SEO world, so we like to research the offers you find near the top of the Google results. Our research includes trying many of them. We are in a unique position to determine if these link building services help given our monitoring tools.
In my opinion, 95% of the low cost link building services online are powered by the same set of open source self-building directory sites. The way you can spot this is by the the reports you get back from the service. Additionally, many of these services are located off-shore - usually in India. Finally, if you visit the directories they are putting your information into, you will see striking similarity. If you can see it, Google can too. I am certainly NOT saying these links will hurt you, but do they really help your search engine rankings?
Well, yes and no. If you are looking for link diversity then one of these link building services will probably do an okay job to increase your link count a bit. But don't expect any major quality or page rank. Sure, the website that sells you the link building will say that all of their links are page rank 3-6, maybe. Many I see say PR 0-6. But they don't really tell you how many are at each level. Additionally, we all know you can buy a reborn site that holds the PR6 number until the next quarter (when it drops to 0). Buy one of these per quarter and you can claim you have a PR6 link in your offering. I nice little marketing trick, but deceptive and inappropriate in the end for ethical business people.
These are the types of scams you need to watch out for. Unfortunately, they are all over the place. When you have tried a few different services and nothing has happened, that when you will turn to higher-end link building services. Many businesses are already in that position. They know the value of high rankings and don't have time to mess around with solutions that probably won't help them. Link creation services like those we offer at Semify strike to do more than just build links. We try to bring significant business results. While this will cost more, it will earn more. It's a more difficult business for us because we put our reputation on the line with each and every customer that hires us. Some days I think it would just be easier to buy a reborn site and start charging $50 / month for 100 directory submissions...
So the next time you think about buying link building services from an anonymous SEO services website, ask them for their results on their own SEO. Better yet, check their rankings yourself. Make sure you see the results and value proposition clearly. Also only work with firms that measure their business results. This will be the real difference between a link builder and a professional SEO company.