Today I am doing a review of a new WordPress plugin called Backlink Machine.

So before I start I want to make sure that I’m clear to everybody: Ankur is someone I truly respect in the Internet Marketing business.  Its also important to note that I review products not vendors and my opinion of a product is not necessarily a reflection of my opinion of the vendor. With that being said I can jump right into my review of Backlink Machine.

Backlink Machine itself is built on a solid concept. Building backlinks to your website. Backlinks are important for two main reasons. First for direct traffic. Obviously when someone clicks a link on a site that takes them to your site you get traffic. The second reason is for organic search traffic. Backlinks have always been a major factor on how well your site ranks in the search results. Google assumes (correctly so in my opinion) that if site A links to site B then site A must think site B is a quality one. That is the link counts as a ‘up vote’ for the site linked to. These ‘up votes’ are a factor on how well a website ranks for target keywords.

So we can see how backlinks to your site are important for generating free traffic. The problem is building backlinks takes a ton of time and effort and frankly people dont want to do it. Because of this tools like Backlink Machine come into play. The allure is tantalizing. Select the keywords you want to target, select the number of backlinks you want and press a button and boom instant backlinks, instant free traffic and SEO. Sounds awesome right! Well … hold on a second .. not so fast.

Unlike most people who promote digital products in the MMO space I actually test the things I am considering promoting. I use them myself first and actually review them before deciding to recommend them to others.

In my test of Backlink Machine I noticed the system was super easy. It really was just select the keywords you want (it even has a keyword suggestion tool) select the number of backlinks you want and then press a button. Sure enough in about 24 hours all of my backlinks where generated. It was awesome. I was excited. I could not wait to tell everyone about this.

But then I thought, well I really should go ‘all in’ with my review and check out the report the plugin gave me that showed me my backlinks. Thats where the problem happened. Sure I got the 100 backlinks I wanted. But they where all on low ranked, low quality, obscure websites with little (if any) relevant content or none at all. Below is a screenshot of a typical example:

Just look at that content. “I am Nelson from Madison.  love to play Tube. Other hobbies are Bridge. Also visit my site .. Online Business”. This was one of the backlinks generated to my website when I wanted to rank this blog for the keyword “Online Business”.  There is no relevant content here. The website is some obscure low quality one .. and who the hell is “Nelson from Madison” and why the fug does anyone care that he blows in a tuba while playing bridge? Unfortunately the other links where similar. I was annoyed and felt let down.  My first thought was “this is stupid” my second thought was .. “this is not going to help at all”.

But then I thought to myself, ok, well Im not a SEO expert (even though Im better than most at it), I might be missing something. So in the interest of being fair, I reached out to an actual SEO expert. One I know makes a heck of a lot of money with it and who I not only trust but personally met (at a marketing event) and asked him if these kinds of backlinks have any value. This is what he said:

When a SEO expert calls it a “waste of money’ that is good enough for me, it confirmed my worst fears and made me decide not to endorse this product. Of course though, I had to be fair and I reached out to the vendor to let him know my concerns.

There where a few things he said that I wanted to address:

“just wanted to explain there are lots of new sites we added this year that will gain PR over time so having the links in there will eventually add value” This may be true it may not be. Some of those sites might improve in quality (though the silly content of your backlink wont) some might not. Who knows what the future will hold. Either way though I dont review products based on the future and the promise of ‘down the road the backlinks wont be garbage’ is not to impressive to me.

“these are good to use for Tier2 links” In case you dont know a tier 2 backlink is: it is a backlink that links to a site which links to your site. So its like this Tier 2 —links to–> Tier 1 —links to–>your site. I dont know if these kinds of links are good for tier 2 links, but I do know the SEO expert I spoke to said nothing about using them as tier 2 links and I also know that even if they have some value as tier 2 most people are not going to be building some kind of network of sites. They want backlinks for their website and wont be setting up some multi level website network.

….and then finally the thing that shocked me coming from someone as respected as Ankur: “also we dont promise high PR links or anything of that sort on the sales page” The sales page does not promise that the backlinks will be high quality so its ok that the software does not generate high quality? I think quality is implied without being stated. I mean if I go to a pizza shop and get a pizza I expect it to taste good. If it tastes like shit and I call the owner of the shop,  how dick would it be if he said to me “well I never promised you it would taste good, I just promised you would get a pizza.” Quality, at least to a certain degree is expected when something is purchased it does not have to be specifically stated.

I wanted to love Backlink Machine. I really did, I like the concept, I like that its built on a solid foundation, and I consider the vendor a personal friend.  Unfortunately I just dont see the value in purchasing this. I do not believe it will help people. Because of this, I have to push aside my friendship with this vendor and be honest as always and say:

 A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.

About the Author

Brett Rutecky

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Brett Rutecky is a full time online marketer, web developer, and entrepreneur. He has developed scores of Facebook apps, dozens of custom web sites and hundreds of scripts.

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