Practice
We're continuing our series of articles on link exchanges. In the previous article we already covered what link exchanges are and why they're needed. This time we'll talk about one of the very first, and arguably the most popular link exchange in the Russian-speaking web, Sape. And, of course, we'll cover one of the most important questions – how to buy links on Sape.
Sape, the very first automated link buying and selling exchange in the Russian-speaking web, appeared back in 2008. It works as an intermediary between optimisers (those who promote their sites) and webmasters (those who earn money on their sites by hosting optimisers' links). On Sape you can buy both permanent and rented links. If you ask what the difference is between rented and permanent links, any specialist who's been doing SEO for a while will tell you roughly the following.
Rented links are links you have to pay for daily. And as soon as your budget runs out, the rented links simply disappear, and your site loses link weight very sharply. Working with permanent links always involves growing expenses. That happens because the number of queries generally keeps growing, which means you need to, firstly, spend money holding on to the links you've already acquired, and, secondly, factor in the extra cost of promoting new queries.
Even though rented links are relatively cheap, you need to be very careful when working with them, and before placing a link on any given site, you should study it thoroughly.
Permanent links are links you pay for once, and they stay on the site for as long as the site itself exists. The only downside of such links is that they're considerably more expensive than rented ones.
So, what do we need to start buying links for our queries?
To buy links on Sape, we need to:
Just search for the word "sape", follow the link, and you'll land on the project's home page. Click the "Регистрация" ("Sign up") link.
Next, the system will ask how you want to work with it – as an optimiser or as a webmaster. We choose "Оптимизатор" ("Optimiser").
Then you'll need to tell the system you're an individual, fill in your contact details, and come up with a login and password for the system. After that, you'll receive a confirmation email at your email address. Once you've confirmed it, you can start working in the system in full.
So, if anyone's wondering what anchor text is and what it's for, here's a short definition of the term.
Anchor (English: Anchor – mooring or tether) is the text of a link.
For example, say you own an online phone shop. And you've set yourself the goal of promoting a page for the query "smartphones". If you only buy links with the anchor text "smartphones" for this page (which, at first glance, seems logical – after all, you're not selling bricks), the search engine will suspect you of spamming. From a search engine's point of view, it shouldn't be the case that every single link has the same anchor text. On the other hand, all kinds of off-topic anchor text will also be viewed poorly by search engines.
So, in order not to spam, but to actually promote your queries, it's better to use a service like wordstat.yandex.ru and pick out the anchors you need.
To do this, in wordstat.yandex.ru we enter our query into the input field and click the pick button.
From the suggested list, you can safely pick the following: buy a smartphone, smartphone prices, smartphones 2015, best smartphones, smartphone of the year, best smartphone, smartphone shop.
Now it's time to create a project on Sape. But first, let's go over how to create projects and buy rented links.
To create a project for buying rented links, you need to log into your account and click the "Оптимизатору" ("For optimisers") link.
Next, click the "Создать новый проект" ("Create new project") link and enter the name of your project. You can simply enter your site's name. Then click the "Далее" ("Next") button. After the next step, you can safely click "Сохранить" ("Save").
As a result, you should see your first project.
Now we need to add the URL of the page being promoted. Click the cross icon and choose Url from the pop-up list.
And fill in all the fields.
The next step is to add to the project all the anchors you've identified for the query you're promoting. But before that, each anchor needs to be wrapped in surrounding text. For example, the anchor "buy a smartphone" with surrounding text would look like this: "In our online shop you can buy a smartphone at an affordable price." Once all the anchors have their surrounding text, they need to be added to the system. To do this, under the word "Текст" ("Text"), click on the zero.
And paste our list of anchors with surrounding text into "Добавить тексты" ("Add texts"). And so that on the site where these texts will be placed your anchors appear as a link, select the anchor and click "Оформить ссылкой" ("Format as link"). Once all the anchors are formatted as links, click the "Добавить" ("Add") button.
Now let's move on to the main thing – buying links on other sites.
To buy rented links on Sape, you need to click the "Поиск" ("Search") button, shown as a magnifying glass, in the project you created.
Let's move on to setting up the filter for selecting placements. In this article we'll go over all the minimally necessary settings.
In the "Выберите область поиска" ("Choose search scope") item, go ahead and click "Основная база сайтов" ("Main site database"). In the "PR от" ("PR from") field (meaning the PR of the internal page) we set 1. In the "ТИЦ" ("TIC") field we set the minimum value for this metric, 10. You can, of course, enter any figure you like for the monthly spending amount in the "До" ("Up to") field, but if your budget is limited, enter "20 rubles". Don't forget to tick "Отображать сайты только с открытыми URL" ("Show sites with open URLs only"). Choose the topic of the placements where the links will appear to match your site's topic, or a similar one, click the "Сохранить" ("Save") button, and then the "Найти" ("Find") button. And the system shows a list of sites matching your settings.
Click on the domain of the first site in the list, and you'll see the list of pages this site offers for placing your links. To view the page where the link will subsequently be placed, click the page's URL, and it will open in a new window.
And to place your link on this page, you need to click "Выбрать текст" ("Choose text") and from the pop-up list select the anchor with surrounding text that you added earlier, by clicking on it. And at the very bottom, click the "Купить" ("Buy") button.
That's it! After some time, your link will be placed by the system on the page you chose.
Now that we've covered buying rented links on Sape, let's move on to the question of buying permanent links.
Up to a certain point, everyone got by just fine with rented links. But search engines keep getting more sophisticated, and most rented links are starting to look to them like ordinary spam. As a result, we're seeing a gradual decline in optimisers' interest in rented links, as a consequence of which link exchanges started offering a product like permanent links for purchase.
Permanent links are placed within the body of an article's text, whereas rented links usually run in blocks and are typically placed in one of the site's columns or right at the bottom. And to search engines, placement within the body of an article looks completely natural.
To buy permanent links, you need to go to the "Вечные ссылки" ("Permanent links") tab and click "Создать проект" ("Create project").
Enter the project name and you can go ahead and click the "Пропустить" ("Skip") button.
To search for placements, you need to click the magnifying-glass icon next to your project, choose "Вечные ссылки" ("Permanent links") from the pop-up list, and the system will automatically redirect you to the "Список площадок" ("List of placements").
On the "Список площадок" ("List of placements") page, the left-hand column holds the placement search, and the centre holds the list of all placements. Besides the domain, this list shows the domain's regions, topic, text uniqueness, indexing speed and, of course, the placement cost.
As with buying rented links, when buying permanent links the search for on-topic placements is done using the search settings. Of course, the search has many different settings, but in this article we'll only cover the main ones.
There are plenty of sites on the internet that are willing to host any off-topic links on their pages. For example, a site aimed at a female audience with content on a matching topic might place a link to a football team's fan site in an article. That's why the system, by default, ticks "Неважно" ("Doesn't matter") for the search item "Площадка принимает нетематические ссылки" ("Placement accepts off-topic links") and lets users decide for themselves whether they want to place their links on placements that accept any links or not.
The system also offers several formats for placing permanent links: link in a news item, article, link in the archive, review.
The "Ссылка в новости" ("Link in a news item") format
If you choose this format, the webmaster places your link in whichever published news item they see fit. Webmasters don't always do quality work, and sometimes your link may end up placed in an article with very little text, or its placement may look somewhat unnatural (the link simply won't fit the context of the article). If you choose this format, it's better to place links on sites that have already been vetted.
The "Статья" ("Article") format
If you choose the "Статья" ("Article") format, the webmaster places your article, which you wrote and added to the system in advance, on their site. This is arguably one of the best placement options, since you add the links that need to be in the article yourself.
The "Ссылка в архиве" ("Link in the archive") format
Choosing this format will result in your link being placed in an article that already exists in the search engines' index.
The "Обзор" ("Review") format
Choosing the "Обзор" ("Review") format means the webmaster will write and publish a review article on the site for your link themselves. Such a review is usually at least 2000 characters long.
By default, the system displays the list of placements that offer to place your link in their news section or simply in a new article.
Set the price range you need in "Стоимость размещения" ("Placement cost"). As a rule, the higher the placement price, the higher-quality the sites you can find. Don't forget to choose a topic and region, then click the "Найти" ("Find") button.
Also, just as with buying rented links, here you can click on the domain and check out how the site where you want to place your link looks. If the site suits you, click the basket icon to order the placement.
After clicking this icon, the system will take you to the request creation page, where in the "Заявка" ("Request") field you'll need to specify your link in HTML format.
In HTML format the link looks like this <a href=”http://site.com”>смартфон</a>, where the word "смартфон" is your anchor, and http://site.com is, naturally, the address of your page for that anchor.
If you want to leave a note for the webmaster with your preferences for the link placement, click "Добавить описание" ("Add description") and enter the text of your request in the field that opens. Then click "Разместить" ("Place").
The process of buying permanent links in other formats is much the same as what we've just gone over. The one small difference is when placing links in the article format. There, you first need to write the article, put all the links you need in it, add the article to the system, and then simply select your article on the request creation page. And if the webmaster accepts your request, your article will be published on their site after a while.
Of course, it's up to you which links you use to promote your site. But experts recommend using permanent links placed on quality sites.
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