Meanwhile, search engines are becoming smarter right before our eyes. It's enough to search and read threads on well-known forums from the summer of 2013 regarding Google algorithm changes aimed at combating unnatural links to websites.
What's their essence? For example, your website may be at the 7th position for a certain query (without buying links), but if Google detects a large number of unnatural links, you can literally find yourself at the 20th or 50th position within a day or two. In this case, you'll receive a message in your account offering to remove unnatural links (which ones specifically won't be indicated!). Webmasters jokingly call this the "letter of happiness."
So, you can spend time and money, and end up with worse results! And if you remove all purchased links (if it's not possible to remove them, Google will suggest sending them a list of links to ignore for ranking), it doesn't mean you'll immediately return to the 7th position as it was before their purchase.
Search engines don't forgive attempts at ranking manipulation quickly. And Yandex, by the way, already has a similar trend - I watched last year's video with their representatives. I felt the drop in positions on many of my sites - precisely because of purchased links in that same past year of 2013, spring-summer.
Alright, let's say you've mastered the art of effective promotion or paid a professional and highly experienced optimizer, and your site has jumped into the top 10 for the desired query. And now, as they say, keep a close eye!
The site has jumped up, and visitors are coming in. All good, you're in luck, right? Oh no! Here's where the real show begins! Now, as they say on forums, examine your statistics: how many views per visitor, what's the average time spent on the site? Catching the hint? If you've put in such efforts and tricks to acquire the interested visitor you needed, and yet you have an average of 1.1 views per unique visitor with an average time on site of 15 seconds, then:
And now, it's the perfect time to delve into another topic - BEHAVIORAL FACTOR (just do a search). It directly stems from such a mundane concept as a "good site useful to people." And once again, carefully read point "b" above - this subject will also further derive from this same behavioral factor. And how else do you suggest search engines determine the criterion for a "good useful site"?
Want another straightforward thing? Stand there and listen up: a good site promotes itself!
Another argument: in half a year (or earlier), there will be another leap in the "smartening" of search engines, and then another... Things progress much faster on the internet than in real life, including search engines, are you aware? So is it worth putting in so much effort into something that won't yield results soon? Perhaps it's wiser to seek out forms, methods of presentation, and most importantly, the material itself - interesting, useful, needed?
Take the same video, for example: how much is it used on websites? Meanwhile, you don't even need space on hosting, plugins, or players for this - YouTube and a bunch of other free services are at your disposal! Of course, creating your own good and interesting video isn't so simple; it's easier to buy a rewritten article for $1 on an exchange for 1500-2000 characters, slap it on the page, and then try to promote a site stuffed with such "goodies."
I highly recommend everyone to follow this algorithm (numbers in order of importance):
More precisely: with high points 1 and 2, you can talk about ADDITIONAL promotion. I'll repeat - a good site "grows" natural links on its own.