The purpose of this blog post is to demonstrate how I use Fiverr for link building.

In no way I am claiming that this is a legit, white hat, gray hat, or black hat tactic for building links.

You can call it whatever.

But it is one of the tactics I use to this day to build links to some of my websites (but not limited to).

Dear readers, you must accept one thing in the world of SEO – not everything on the internet, written by famous professionals, is the real deal.

Do not blindly trust SEO and Marketing gurus when they claim that buying links is a bad thing, and they never do it.

There are cases when “content isn’t the sole king.”

Do not follow the herd, and always try things for yourself before you “unsubscribe” from a given SEO technique.

The world of SEO is fascinated, and I highly encourage you to explore it on your own terms.

Be rational, and be patient.

Take risks, but fear the results (you need to calculate the risk versus the reward for yourself).

I’ve cooked a meal. It might bee too salted for those, not afraid to accept that SEO carries 50 shades of gray, but way sexier than the movie.

Take a spoon and a glass of water, and let’s begin.

Tools used in this tutorial:

Why Fiverr Has a Bad Rep?

I think that Fiverr has a bad rep because most people are too lazy to take the time and search for legit gigs.

Right now, the marketplace is flooded by incompetent sellers, selling garbage services to customers, way too lazy to ask one question “Does the price for this gig corresponds to the quality offered by the seller?”

Please, tell me that you don’t believe that anyone can deliver 50 manual links for five dollars?

If you have ever bought such a gig, then you are the loco, not the seller.

He is just doing business. 

And there is good business and bad business.

It is your responsibility to do due diligence on the deal.

The next reason is because of articles like this one.

This is Brian Deans’ blog post, where he says that you should never buy anything related to building links on Fiverr.

Most probably, because he ordered one of the gigs below (giggling):

But being serious, most probably Brian doesn’t have the time to spend on Fiverr looking for the best deal.

But he has the money, so he buys one of the strongest SEO domains – pointblankseo.com – and redirects the entire domain to backlinko.com.

I told you, SEO is a shady game. 

Some see the shade of white, some the shade of black, but it’s the rare breed that sees the shade of gray.

Brian represents the rare breed.

Probably, if you have the means to buy a whole giga-powerful domain, you can skip buying links on Fiverr and invest your time in tasks with a higher input/output ratio.

But if you don’t have that much cash, but you have the time to invest in finding some good links on Fiverr, take a sip from your glass of water and continue reading.

Note to my audience: In no way, I am trying to discredit Brian Deans’ authority by pointing out that he bought a domain and redirected it to his own. I just want you to think twice before believing everything you read, including the information in this post. I have great respect for Brian Dean, as I learned a lot from his work.

Okay, we can move on after this tearful note from me to my audience.

Which Links You Should Never Buy on Fiverr?

I will be relatively brief with this part.

Stay away from gigs offering mass link building for whatever the amount of money is.

You will only consider (stressing out the word consider) buying links from sellers who reveal their domain names.

For example, If someone is selling a list of  DA 50 domains, but she doesn’t want to reveal their domain names, it is most probably a PBN.

PBN owners don’t reveal their network of websites in order to protect their privacy.

Buying mass links = no go.

How to Tell Which Domain on Fiverr Is a Good One?

Fiverr offers two ways of finding gigs.

Option one: use the search field to find related categories and gigs

Option two: post a request

From my experience, posting a request is a waste of time.

You will get flooded with tens of irrelevant gigs, and you will waste much more time this way.

Some sellers are very persistent, and they won’t leave your inbox unless you threaten them that you will report their account to Fiverr (or something similar).

Which leaves us with option one.

We will be looking for domains using the search function on Fiverr.

The first and (very) obvious step is to do a search.

The most relevant query I have found to use is “guest post + keyword/+ niche.”

For example, if I want guest posts on German websites only, I will type “guest post german.”

If I want guest posts on a fitness-related website, I will type “guest post health/fitness/sports.”

You get the idea.

Here are some of the results for “german guest post.”

The result shows 370 gigs.

There are also a bunch of filters you can apply. I don’t use them.

Now, I cannot contact 370 sellers, but I start by skimming the gigs and opening them in new tabs.

When scanning the gig list, my main criteria is to find gigs with a good ratio between DR (domain rating) and its price.

As I said, I won’t even consider opening a gig that offers ten links for $5.

Let’s take a look at this gig I opened before contacting the seller.

The gig offers a link back from a domain with a DR 85 for $60 (without writing).

The delivery time is 14 days.

The gig also says that they don’t accept illegal content such as gambling, adult content, CBD.

In my eyes, the offer is reasonable. I will contact this seller.

What Questions Should You Ask the Seller?

When you open the gig, on the right, below the price, you will see a field called “Contact Seller.”

I will contact the seller from that button, so she knows which gig I am requesting information.

Here is the message I usually send.

“Hello, can you please, show me your domain name and a sample blog post example from that domain? Is the link do-follow? Also, do you own more websites? If yes, can you send me the complete list?

I am looking forward to working with you.

Cheers!”

Now, from here, we have two scenarios.

The seller will tell you that she has one (or two) domain or a list of domains.

I will show you the quickest ways to determine which domains are spammy.

Scenario 1: Analyzing One Domain

I went ahead and sent a message to the seller of the gig example above.

See it for yourself.

So he owns only one site, which I like because it’s more likely that the website isn’t part of a PBN.

Anyway, it is mandatory to check the website for spammy links, traffic, domain rating, topics, incoming links, etc.

I will use Ahrefs to analyze this website.

If you look at this screenshot, there are clear signs that this website was spammed.

Here is why I WON’T touch this website even for free.

• Thousands of referring domains.
• The difference in the ratio between UR and DR is high. Usually, the DR is always higher than the UR rank. However, when you see such a big difference, it means that most of the links were built to the root domain and very little to internal pages. And when links are acquired organically, most websites link to internal pages (posts) rather than the home page. For me, this is a clear sign of a mass link building to the root domain.
• What’s the traffic gap between 2018 and 2019? This domain has likely expired in 2018, it wasn’t live for a year, and then someone bought it in 2019 and gave it a new look. I can very quickly validate this theory by running this domain through the Wayback Machine.

And bingo. During that no traffic time, this website hasn’t been configured.

Usually, this happens when a domain expires.

I don’t need to dig deeper to tell you that you should stay away from this website.

Yes, there is some traffic recovery, but no thanks. This website stinks.

Now, this is a real-time example.

Apparently, I haven’t cherry-picked an awe domain only to show you how great Fiverr is for link building.

Expect 50-60% of the domains you receive to be spammy.

But once you get into the habit of analyzing domains, it will take you a minute to decide whether a domain is good or not.

Now, let’s take a look at the next example.

Scenario 2: Analyzing a List of Domains

Often, when you ask for info about a link building gig on Fiverr, you receive a whole list of domains.

In the beginning, I was like, “Okay, no.

This is definitely a list of PBN (private blog network) websites.”

But I started asking questions and demanding transparency.

Eventually, at the end of each conversation, sellers were very likely to confirm whether a given list of domains is PBN or not.

Of course, I’ve learned how to confront them, with time and experience, when I notice that the list is full of stinky websites.

Let’s take a look at this list I received last week.

The quickest way to check a list of domains is to use Ahref’s batch analysis feature.

Here is how to do so.

Click on the More tab in Ahrefs’ menu, and from the drop-down, choose Batch Analysis.

Copy and paste the list of domains in the white box and click on Analyze.

To determine which domains are eligible for further analysis, we will be looking at DR, Keywords, Traffic, and most importantly - the IP.

First, sort out the list by DR. We would like to see if there is meat on the bone, right.

If all domains are with a low DR, there is no need for us to check if these domains are spammy or not.

Luckily, in this case, there are domains with some healthy DR.

Next, I want domains that are ranking for keywords, and these keywords are bringing real traffic.

Again, bingo. There are domains with keywords and traffic.

Next, let’s take a look at the domains’ IPs.

Many PBN domains share the same IP where only the class C number changes (the third number after the dot is the class C octet).

Or even worse, the class C octet doesn’t change, even that the first, second, and the fourth octets change.

Here are some of the most common cases:

• IP: 123.123.122.02
• IP: 123.123.121.02
• IP: 123.123.120.02

Or:

• IP: 123.120.121.08
• IP: 113.161.121.10
• IP: 115.183.121.12

You get the idea.

Such a sequence of IPs gives you a solid reason to consider that the list you have received is a PBN.

Burn it to the ground.

Of course, in 2020, PBN owners are way too smarter not to leave footprints for Google.

They will use dedicated IPs, different hosting companies, different themes, names, and plug-ins, making it harder for Google to connect the dots between these websites.

Believe it or not, these PBNs still exist, and many big websites in competitive niches are using them.

One of the good news is that they are usually not on Fiverr because the service is costly.

It takes a lot of effort and money to run successful PBNs.

If you are interested in learning more about PBN services (to educate yourself further), check this websites.

• https://authoritywebsiteincome.com
• https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/

Both bloggers write about PBNs. And I’ve learned a ton from them. 

However, I’ve concluded that I don’t have the time, nerves, experience, and cash to operate such a network.

So my knowledge about PBNs is only used to recognize whether a website from a list is part of a such network.

Now let’s go back to the list of websites we just run through the batch analysis.

At a glance, nothing worries me in this list, but some websites share the same octets (the first two clusters of numbers in this case).

There are also strong domains with no traffic.

In this case, I will choose only five websites from the list.

I am looking for these domains with the highest DR, different IP (not just a different class C – when possible), ranking for keywords, which bring traffic.

I will analyze each of the selected domains as I did in the beginning with Scenario 1 example. Let’s examine one domain from this list.

The picture I see isn’t bad at all.

You can see that it is an old domain with a very steady link profile and domain rating.

This website is ranking for new keywords that are bringing new traffic. The ratio between DR and UR is acceptable.

The price for this domain is $80. With a DR of 71, I think that this is a good deal.

Usually, a linkback from a DR 71 will cost you between $300 and $500 depending on the traffic it has.

Further, I will look at the anchor text profile and run it through the Wayback Machine.

I will check the type of content they publish and to what kind of articles they link back.

I will also check if this website is on social media and whether their profiles are active.

I won’t worry about wasting time on domain check because a link back from a DR 71 domain really moves the needle for a small niche website.

Depending on its competitors, this link may weigh more than five links from DR 30 domains.

My Advice when Choosing Domains on Fiverr

Apart from what I’ve shared so far, I have some additional advice to give.

• Buy links from niche websites similar to yours. In other words, don’t buy links from an automobile website if you are in the health niche. Clearly, this doesn’t make sense.
• Avoid buying links from broad websites. If a seller is offering a link from a website that blogs about cats, snakes, SEO, stock market, CBD, and the Universe, it is very likely that this seller can’t say no to non-relevant topics. With niche websites, topical relevancy is everything. That’s why it is called a niche website.
• If you run a non-English website, for example, in German, then buy links from websites, blogging in German.

My Top Advice Is to “Niche the Niche”

In other words, what can I do to niche down further the links I am buying so they can be as relevant as possible?

I’ve already mentioned that the one thing is to buy links from domains blogging about the same niche as your website.

My favorite advice is to use the power of Country TLDs (top-level domains) to rank for keywords in a specific country.

I cannot believe that no one talks about it. In my opinion, this is to “niche the niche” further.

And one of Fiverr’s significant advantages is that there are sellers from all over the world who offer links with country-specific extensions.

Country TLDs are domains ending with .co.uk, .au, .bg, .hk instead of the generic .com, .net, .org, and so one.

What’s specific is that usually, you cannot register a domain with a country-specific extension if you are not a citizen of that country.

Here is an example.

Imagine that you have a niche website selling only pink Lamborghinis.

You own a .com website.

However, you noticed that in Australia, the search for pink Lamborghinis is 10 000 per month, while in the USA, the search is 100 per month.

You are ranking only for this keyword in the USA.

When you look at the top 10 results for Australia, most of the domains have a .au country extension.

And you are not allowed to buy a .au domain as you are not an Australian citizen.

What can you do to compete with the local Aussies?

You can buy links from automobile relevant niche websites, but you can further “niche the niche” by buying links from automobile website with a .au extension.

And this tactic works. I’ve done it with two of my websites that serve multi-language content.

But please, go ahead and try it for yourself. Thank me later.

Closing Thoughts

Whether you are buying links from Fiver or Link building agency, you should always do your due diligence in checking the metrics even for the agency’s links.

Not all links are created equal, and how you buy links matters.

In my eyes, paid links aren’t unethical, they’re a reality of the SEO market, and most probably, some of your competitors are using them.

But be smart when paying for links.

Always check the metrics and be sure that you’re not sleeping in the same bed with the devil.

I believe that Google seems to have stopped bothering sites with manual action’ penalties.

Instead, they ignore what they think is a paid link.

Google hopes the cost of buying links won’t be worth the reward for you.

At the end of the day, you decide whether paying for links has an actual return for you.

I pay for links in some niches because the reward is greater for me.

Measure twice, cut once.