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Grumpy SEO Guy
This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 118, the High Doctor Backlink Scam. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because there is a scam that involves selling High Doctor backlinks, and I'm gonna tell you how it works so you don't waste your time. Okay, before we do that, though, let's do some reminders really quick. New episodes come out on Wednesday, 9am Central Standard Time. That's for the podcast. If you're listening on YouTube, it's gonna be a little bit after that. If you leave a comment on YouTube, I try to reply on Wednesday, but sometimes it's not until Thursday. If you like the podcast, please subscribe. If you really like the podcast and wanna help support it, you can do so@patreon.com Grumpy Seoguy by the way, thank you to my Patreon subscribers. And if you have a question that is more complex and more complicated than something that we can discuss on, you know, on Reddit or via email or something, and you want to book a Zoom advisory call, you can email me at hellorumpy SEO guy.com and we can talk about getting that set up. Okay, so let's talk about the High Doctor Backlink Scam. Okay, but before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical. And based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Okay, so listen. A lot of people don't comprehend that they need authority, and in order to get authority, they need back. But once they actually make some progress, with learning SEO and they realize that they do need backlinks. They then begin to think, like most people, that, well, if authority is important and Dr. Is an estimate of authority, because remember, Dr. Is an estimate of authoritySciven, they think, well, higher Dr. Must be better. It's not necessarily better. We've talked about this in other episodes. But anyways, this is what they think. They think, well, higher doctor must be better. I know I need high doctor backlinks. So for anybody who's not really sure what I'm talking about, Dr. Is a guess of a website's authority that comes from a tool called Ahrefs. You can view this tool@ahrefs.com that's ahrefs a hrefs.com it's a great tool. We use it frequently. It's excellent. It does a lot of stuff. But one of the things it does is it estimates a domain's authority with something called Dr. Domain Rating.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
It's a scale. It goes from 0 to 100.
Listener
Okay.
Grumpy SEO Guy
Higher is more. But it doesn't mean what people think it means.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
People think that higher doctor is always better. Your goal is to increase doctor, and as you learned from the last episode, there's really no reason to. To make your goal to increase your doctor. Okay? So people learn that the more authority a website has, the more authority it will share with a backlink. So if I have an authoritative website and I link to you, you get some of that authority.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
It's the way it works. Anyways, look, so people go out and they just immediately want to buy the high doctor backlinks. I need high doctor backlinks. I need the high. I don't want low doctor backlinks. Now, hold on. In real life, low doctor backlinks are also just fine. Okay, but I need the high doctor backlinks. Okay, whatever. Anyways, look, so part of the reason that I'm making this episode is because we were doing an assessment for a client recently, and we were looking at some of the websites that were linking to them, and they were very spammy. But not like link spam. They were like SEO marketing spam. Right. You've probably seen these. We did an episode on these. It was called like. It was called something along the lines of, what are all of these SEO spammy backlinks or something. Anyways, and so there were a bunch. And so if you've seen these backlinks, you'll get backlinks and the anchor text, which is the words that the backlink uses to link to you. The Anchor text will say something like, find high DA domains for you here or something like that. And you're supposed to click on it and be like, oh, I'm going to buy these domains from these people. It's, it's marketing, okay? They're not real backlinks that are helping you. It's literally just marketing. Anyways. Almost every domain that we look at recently has dozens of these spammy websites linking to it trying to sell you domains. Anyway, I found this one and I clicked on it and it redirected to some backlink selling service and it basically had like, you could buy backlinks by how much doctor the domains had, okay? So it was like, Dr. 30 is this much Dr. 40 is this much Dr. And so on. And it went up to. I think it went up. I'm not, I'm not going to name the service, obviously and I'm not going to give you like specific details because I don't want, I don't like name people or provide identifying information in this podcast. But anyways, it was, it was super, guys. It was super spammy. But anyways, like it went up to Dr. 80, okay? Which, from my recollection, it went up to Dr. 80. Now there's, there's, there's a few. Okay, There's a few problems with this. Very few people have Dr. 80 websites, okay? I've been doing this for 15 years. We have a portfolio of authoritative websites that we use to link to our clients. We do not have any Dr. 80 websites, okay? Because first of all, they're very expensive. And second of all, there is no need. And third of all, you don't just find Dr. 80 websites. We don't have any Dr. 80 websites. I can almost guarantee you that whoever was selling these backlinks also does not have any Dr. 80 websites, okay? And there's so many other problems with this, okay? Like, first of all, having a backlink profile from only super authoritative websites looks very unnatural, okay? We've talked about that before. It's like if your only friends are movie stars and celebrities or something like that, that seems weird. Like you don't have any normal friends. That's weird. If your only backlinks are from super authoritative websites, that's weird. That probably looks unnatural to the search engines. But that's not even the point. That's not even the scam, okay? First of all, they're probably lying, okay? Second of all, the prices were way too low. I'm not gonna tell you what the prices were. Cause it doesn't matter. But they were way too low to be a legit backlink from a legit website. Okay, but anyway, now let's describe the high doctor scam, because I'm almost entirely certain this is what it was. If I tell you. Actually, hold on for a second. You know how I said don't buy backlinks based on doctor, right? I've said that many times. Doctor is one thing to look at, but it's not. It's not the determining factor.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
I have said numerous times that that lower Dr. Websites can outrank higher Dr. Websites. And I even have an episode where I give an example of this with the specific keywords and the specific website.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
And lower Dr. Websites can provide better backlinks than higher Dr. Websites. That's also possible. So buying backlinks based Dr. Is pointless. Please don't do it. It's just as pointless as trying to increase your doctor in the first place, which was the topic of the previous episode.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
There's literally no reason ever to try and increase your doctor unless you're a link seller. And if you're a link seller, you're doing it wrong, because Dr. Isn't the determining factor in whether a link is good or not.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
So anyways, here's the scam, though. This is the scam before, actually. First, let's do a little refresher of what makes a good backlink.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
A good backlink is a contextual backlink, okay? On a arguably relevant website. Definitely on a relevant post. Okay? That makes sense syntactically and grammatically.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
And doesn't look like it was written for the purpose of SEO.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
That's a good. And there's other. There's other criteria.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
Listen, episodes 37 and 39, they will explain the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. But generally speaking, that is what you want to look for on page, okay? And there's still. There are lots of other things.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
But those are the main things that you want to look for on page. Okay? This is how. This is how the high doctor scam backlink works. Somebody will say, oh, we are offering high Dr. Backlinks. Let's say Dr. 80. Because I've been saying that, okay, high Dr. 80 backlinks. Dr. 80, 80 backlinks, okay? This is probably what they're doing. They will find a Dr. 80 website with some article somewhere, and they will post a comment under the article and link back to you. Now, technically, that is the backlink on a Dr. 80 website. So technically, they gave you what you bought. Okay, you bought a Dr. 80 backlink. You got a backlink on a Dr. 80 website. Technically, they did not scam you, but let's be honest. Okay, that was misleading because when somebody says Dr. 80, you're thinking one thing. Okay? You're definitely thinking, oh, I'm gonna get a good backlink on a good. No, no, no. You're probably gonna get a comment somewhere. And as you know from previous episodes, blog comment links are basically worthless. Why are they worthless? Because they can be automated. And as you know, anything that can is easy. And anything that is easy is not going to help your SEO because of basic economical reasons. We are probably going to talk about this a lot in the future because a lot of people are still not understanding what makes something a ranking signal. And one of the things that you can learn to determine if something is a ranking signal or probably a ranking signal is from an economic standpoint, how worthwhile is this thing? How much value does this thing have?
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
And if you can push a Button and get 1,000 blog comment backlinks, it's not gonna help you.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
Even if it's on a Dr. 80 website.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
So anyway, the scam is basically, they are technically giving you a backlink on a Dr. 80 website, but it's a worthless backlink. So if you don't understand, if you haven't listened to episodes 37 and 39, if you don't understand what makes good backlink and you're buying Backlinks based on Dr. Okay. Which is not the way to do it. If you don't understand that, you are probably putting yourself in a situation to be scammed by this.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
Do not buy backlinks because of the doctor okay. That is not. No. Just. Just no.
Listener
Okay.
Grumpy SEO Guy
A good backlink on a Dr. 10 website is way better than what I just described.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
A blog comment spam backlink on a Dr. 80 article. Terrible. Absolutely terrible link. Will not help you, but you will waste your money on it.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
Or don't. Believe me, I don't care. Because I feel like half the people that listen to this podcast just think I'm making stuff up anyway. So, like, whatever, thanks for the views, guys. But, like, I don't. It doesn't matter to me. I know content writers don't like this podcast because I tell people that content is not a ranking factor. And then the content people can't rip people off by saying, we write really good content that will make you rank better. No, you can't, because that's not how SEO works. Stop scamming people. The developers don't like this podcast because I tell people that things like user experience and dwell time aren't ranking factors. Because they're not. Okay, so then they can't lie to people and say, we'll make you a website that will make you rank higher. No, because that's not a ranking factor. Okay, Authority is a ranking factor. Just for fun, let's review the four things that actually are necessary to rank a website. One, have zero penalties.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
Penalties keep you from ranking. Number two. Have content. It doesn't need to be helpful. It doesn't need to be correct. It needs to exist.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
Content gives the search engines something to look at, okay? So they know your website is a website and not nothing. And it creates relevancy. Which brings us to our third point. Relevancy. Have relevancy. Relevancy just means what is the topic of your website? Is it about washing machines or is it about blue widgets? All right, whatever your content is about, that is one way to get relevancy. Another way to get relevancy is with links. But we have other episodes that describe that. Number four is authority. You need authority to rank. Okay, those are the four things that. Oh, I forgot to say. Authority comes from backlinks. Ok, Those are the four things that you need to rank. None of the other things matter. Dwell time? No. Quality content? No. User experience? No. Impressions? No, because impressions is just a function of where you rank and how many monthly searches there are. Anyway. Okay, I've done an episode on this, but I feel like telling you again right now. If there are. Okay, like hypothetically speaking, if there are, let's say, 10,000 monthly searches, okay, and you're at the top of the search engine results, you'll probably get 10,000 impressions for that keyword because you're going to show up for all of them, right? That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't have anything to do with traffic or views or anything but impressions. Yeah, sure, whatever. Okay, now let's talk about number of visitors you get. Because why not? People don't comprehend this concept, so I'm going to explain it to you right now. Even though I have entire other episodes that explain it. The amount of clicks you get, the amount of traffic, the amount of viewers that you get is a function of two things. First, your position, your SERPs. SERP is an acronym. S E R P. Search Engine Result page. It means where you rank. Are you in position two? Are you in position five? Where do you rank? That's what it means and monthly searches. Okay, if there are 10,000 monthly searches and you are in the third position, I can't recall offhand. I think the third position gets like 9% of the views, so you will get about 900 clicks. Okay, if you are in the second position, the second position gets about 17% of the views. So if there are 10,000 monthly searches AND you are in the second position, you will get about 1,700 visits. Okay, if you are in THE first position, the first position gets about 30% of the visits.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
So if you are in the first position and there are 10,000 monthly searches, that means you will get about 3,000 views for that keyword that month. Because 10,000 times 30% is 3,000. Okay, so that's how it works, by the way, not ranking factors. That's just how you determine how many visitors you'll get. Because there's always somebody asking, how do I get this many visitors? You figure out the formula, okay? Monthly searches times the coefficient of where you're ranking. And we have another episode on that. And honestly, I don't recall exactly. I know number one is like 30%. I know number two is like 17%. I think number three is 9%, but it might be 12 or 15. I can't remember. It doesn't even matter. It doesn't even matter. You get the point. You want to increase your traffic, Rank higher or rank for keywords, get more monthly searches.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
This is basic SEO stuff, okay? Like, I can't even. Like, some of the questions that people ask aren't even SEO questions. Or they're. I don't know, man. Spend any time on any SEO forum and almost everything you read is wrong or doesn't even make any sense. Content is not a ranking factor. Quality of content is not a ranking factor. Dwell time is not a ranking factor. AI is not stealing your traffic. LLMs TXT does nothing. And EEAT is also not a ranking factor. And even Google admits that EEAT is not a ranking factor because it's not a ranking factor. And we even have an episode that explains why why it's the case. Anybody offering you an EAT audit is scamming you. Anyone offering you an HCU audit is scamming you. Anyone claiming they can get you in the AI tools is almost assuredly scamming you, okay? And anybody saying that UX user experience or any of this other nonsense is a ranking factor doesn't know what they're talking about and is probably trying to sell you some service that is not going to help you at all. Now, that's all I have to say. Now, don't buy Backlinks based on Dr. And by the way, because I forgot to say this before, if there was a leg, okay, if There was a Dr. 80 backlink, and I don't even want to say this because this isn't how you price backlinks, okay? But if there was like a Dr. 80 backlink and it was like a homepage backlink, obviously do follow, but not necessarily, because no, follow is a recommendation, not a rule, okay? If you were buying that on somebody's homepage that was Dr. 80, it would easily be four or five figures per month for that backlink, okay? Not the low, low price that this spammy SEO marketing service was selling, okay? So I don't know. I'm not going to. I don't even like to give prices for backlinks in this podcast because people always are going to take it out of context. Grumpy SEO Guy said, did you caught this much? Blah, blah, blah, blah. No, no, he didn't. Ok, just whatever. No. Anyway, though, if you had a backlink, like if you had a legit Dr. 80 homepage contextual backlink, okay, I think it could easily go for 5,000 to 10,000 or more per month for that backlink.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
But don't worry about it because if you. Okay, first of all, if you have that much money, there are better ways to spend your money than on that. As far as SEO goes.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
Number two, you're not gonna meet anybody in real life with a Dr. Website who's willing to sell you backlinks on it. Because most Dr. 80 websites are owned by companies and corporations that are not in the business of providing backlinks to people for money.
Listener
Okay?
Grumpy SEO Guy
And number three, stop buying backlinks based on Dr. Anyway, so. All right, this is all I have to say in this episode. I hope it was helpful. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will clutch. Classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com grumpy SEO guy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode. Sam.
Podcast Summary: Grumpy SEO Guy – Episode 118: The High DR Backlink SEO Scam EXPOSED
Hosted by Grumpy SEO Guy
Episode Overview
In Episode 118 of the Grumpy SEO Guy podcast, titled “The High DR Backlink SEO Scam EXPOSED,” Grumpy SEO Guy delves deep into the deceptive practices surrounding the sale of high Domain Rating (DR) backlinks. Drawing from his 14 years of experience running an SEO agency, he aims to educate listeners on identifying and avoiding these scams to maintain effective and ethical SEO strategies.
Grumpy SEO Guy opens the episode by expressing his frustration with the rampant scam involving the sale of high DR backlinks. He emphasizes the importance of understanding genuine SEO practices to prevent wasting resources on ineffective tactics.
“I'm grumpy today because there is a scam that involves selling High Doctor backlinks, and I'm gonna tell you how it works so you don't waste your time.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [00:00]
What is DR?
DR, or Domain Rating, is a metric provided by Ahrefs, a popular SEO tool, that estimates the authority of a website on a scale from 0 to 100. Contrary to popular belief, a higher DR does not inherently translate to better SEO performance.
“Dr. is an estimate of a website's authority that comes from a tool called Ahrefs... Higher is more. But it doesn't mean what people think it means.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [03:11]
Misconceptions About DR
Many SEO professionals mistakenly believe that increasing their website's DR should be the primary goal. Grumpy SEO Guy argues against this, highlighting that DR should not be the sole focus for SEO success.
“Your goal is to increase doctor, and as you learned from the last episode, there's really no reason to.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [03:18]
How the Scam Operates
The scam typically involves selling backlinks from supposedly high DR websites. Sellers claim to offer backlinks with DR ratings as high as 80, which are often misleading.
“The scam is basically, they are technically giving you a backlink on a Dr. 80 website, but it's a worthless backlink.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [07:19]
Common Tactics Used
“The prices were way too low to be a legit backlink from a legit website.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [06:58]
Red Flags to Watch For
“Almost every domain that we look at recently has dozens of these spammy websites linking to it trying to sell you domains.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [05:25]
Natural Backlink Profiles
A portfolio composed solely of high DR backlinks appears unnatural to search engines, potentially triggering penalties or diminishing SEO effectiveness.
“Having a backlink profile from only super authoritative websites looks very unnatural, okay?”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [06:07]
Cost vs. Benefit
High DR backlinks are exorbitantly priced, often ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 per backlink. Grumpy SEO Guy argues that investing such sums is inefficient compared to other SEO strategies.
“If you had a backlink, like if you had a legit Dr. 80 homepage contextual backlink... it could easily go for 5,000 to 10,000 or more per month for that backlink.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [17:48]
Authority Misconception
Authority derived from backlinks should be about quality and relevance, not merely the DR score. Lower DR websites can sometimes offer more valuable backlinks based on context and relevance.
“If you have that much money, there are better ways to spend your money than on that as far as SEO goes.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [18:15]
Grumpy SEO Guy outlines essential qualities that distinguish valuable backlinks from worthless ones:
“A good backlink is a contextual backlink, okay? On a arguably relevant website. Definitely on a relevant post. Okay? That makes sense syntactically and grammatically.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [08:14]
He references previous episodes (37 and 39) for a deeper understanding of good versus bad backlinks.
Throughout the episode, Grumpy SEO Guy dismantles several prevalent SEO myths, clarifying what truly impacts search rankings:
Content Quality: Contrary to popular belief, he asserts that the quality of content is not a direct ranking factor.
“Quality content is not a ranking factor.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [15:42]
User Experience and Dwell Time: These factors do not directly influence rankings.
“Developers don't like this podcast because I tell people that things like user experience and dwell time aren't ranking factors.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [11:40]
EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): Grumpy SEO Guy claims that EEAT is not a ranking factor, contradicting common perceptions.
“Any EAT audit is scamming you.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [15:43]
AI Tools Impact: He negates the influence of AI tools on traffic and SEO rankings.
“AI is not stealing your traffic. LLMs TXT does nothing.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [15:42]
Grumpy SEO Guy succinctly outlines the four critical elements necessary for ranking a website:
“Authority comes from backlinks. Ok, Those are the four things that you need to rank.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [12:26]
He emphasizes that factors like dwell time, content quality, and user experience do not directly affect rankings.
Grumpy SEO Guy explains the relationship between search engine ranking positions and the number of clicks a website receives:
SERP Position: Your ranking position on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) significantly influences click-through rates (CTR).
Monthly Search Volume: The number of searches a keyword receives monthly affects potential traffic.
Click Distribution Based on Rank:
“If you are in the first position and there are 10,000 monthly searches, that means you will get about 3,000 views for that keyword that month.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [14:52]
He advises that to increase traffic, focus on improving ranking positions and targeting keywords with higher monthly search volumes.
Grumpy SEO Guy concludes with strong advice against purchasing backlinks based solely on DR metrics. He reiterates that effective SEO relies on natural, contextual backlinks rather than artificially inflated authority scores.
“Stop buying backlinks based on Dr.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [11:25]
He also highlights the futility of certain expensive backlink purchases and encourages listeners to prioritize ethical SEO practices over quick fixes.
Engagement and Support
Grumpy SEO Guy invites listeners to subscribe, leave reviews, and support the podcast via Patreon. He offers avenues for further engagement, including his Reddit community and email for more personalized inquiries.
“If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out.”
— Grumpy SEO Guy [11:35]
Key Takeaways
By adhering to these principles, SEO professionals can build sustainable and effective strategies that genuinely enhance website visibility and authority.
Connect with Grumpy SEO Guy
This summary encapsulates the critical discussions and insights presented in Episode 118, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the podcast. For a deeper dive, tuning into the full episode is recommended.