Can buying links get my SaaS penalised by Google?

This question gets answered badly in both directions. Agencies selling paid placements downplay it; agencies selling digital PR overstate it. Here is what the position actually is.

What the policy says

Google’s link spam policies treat links bought or sold to pass ranking signals as a violation. That covers money changing hands, and also goods or services exchanged for links. The policy has been consistent for years and is not ambiguous.

That is worth stating plainly, because a large share of what is sold as “editorial placement” in this market involves a payment to the publisher.

What actually happens

Three outcomes, in descending order of likelihood.

Devaluation — most common. The links are identified as low-value and simply do not count. Nothing visibly bad happens. You paid $600 a link for something contributing nothing, and because there is no alert, this can continue for a year. In budget terms this is the main risk, and it is the one least discussed.

Algorithmic suppression — less common. A site with an unusual link profile finds its rankings capped. No notification, and diagnosis is difficult because there is nothing to point at.

Manual action — least common, most severe. A human reviewer flags the site and rankings drop sharply. This most often involves private blog networks, link farms and content mills with no real audience. Recovery typically takes two to six months even when handled correctly, which for a SaaS company usually means a lost quarter of pipeline.

What raises exposure

• Sites with no organic audience. A publisher whose only product is link inventory is the clearest pattern for a reviewer to spot.
• Sites that openly sell placements. If you can find the rate card, so can Google.
• Exact-match commercial anchor text at volume. “Best project management software” fifty times is a pattern nobody produces naturally.
• Link velocity far outside your category norm. Going from 5 to 90 referring domains in a month on a young domain is anomalous.
• Footprint overlap. The same fifteen sites linking to a set of unrelated companies is exactly what network detection looks for — a real concern with white label suppliers serving many agencies.

Reducing risk without avoiding links

You cannot compete without links, so the practical goal is exposure management rather than abstinence.

1. Establish the payment proportion. Ask what share of placements involve a payment to the publisher, and get a number.
2. Require an audience test. Real organic traffic, a publishing history beyond guest posts, a plausible readership.
3. Keep anchors mostly branded. Branded and URL anchors should dominate; commercial anchors should be the minority.
4. Weight towards digital PR and linkable assets. Both earn links rather than buying them, and both are what AI answer engines cite.
5. Audit what you bought. Check placements yourself, using the vetting method.

The honest summary

If you buy carefully from an agency that vets properly, the realistic downside is that some proportion of what you buy gets devalued and wastes money. If you buy on volume and price, you are running a real chance of a manual action and a lost quarter.

The difference is almost entirely in the quality floor, which is why getting the criteria in writing matters more than any other clause in the contract.

Questions