Search for the best guest post agencies and you will find lists. Read a few and a pattern appears. The company publishing the list is usually in it, often at number one. No provider has a single disadvantage. No methodology is given. Prices, where they appear at all, are quoted from other lists rather than from the vendors, and the inventory figures are frequently numbers the vendor no longer claims. One list we read while preparing this piece promised a strategic comparison table and did not contain a table.
So here is a different kind of list, and the first thing to say is what we are not.
Disclosure. Brilad has no affiliate relationship, reseller agreement, referral arrangement or commercial relationship of any kind with any platform named in this article. We do not sell links, guest posts, placements or outreach. Nothing here is a referral link. We have an interest of a different kind, which is that we sell strategy and implementation work, and the advice below favours earned coverage over bought placements. Judge the reasoning rather than the recommendation.
Everything factual below was taken from each platform’s own website on 2 November 2026. Where a vendor publishes no price, we say so instead of borrowing a figure from a competitor’s blog post. Where a vendor’s own page states two different numbers for the same thing, we report both. Vendor claims about quality, vetting and guarantees are their claims and we have not independently verified them.
Start with what Google’s policy actually says
This is the part the category leaves out, and it decides everything that follows. Google’s spam policies page lists, under link spam, “Buying or selling links for ranking purposes”. The same section includes exchanging money or goods for links, and sending a product in exchange for a write-up containing a link. It also names “links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites”.
Note the precision there. The policy does not say guest posting is spam. It does not use the phrase large-scale guest posting. What it names is the combination of payment and ranking intent, and optimised anchor text in placed articles.
The same page then gives the resolution, in one clause that almost nobody in this category quotes. Buying and selling links is not a violation, in Google’s words, “as long as they are qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute value to the <a> tag”.
That single sentence is the whole decision. A paid placement carrying a sponsored or nofollow attribute is advertising, and advertising is legitimate. A paid placement carrying a plain followed link, bought in order to move rankings, is the thing the policy names. Everything else in this article is detail around that line.
There is a second policy that applies and is newer in most people’s awareness. The site reputation policy covers cases where, again in Google’s words, “third-party content is published on a host site mainly because of that host’s already-established ranking signals”. The examples the page gives of content inconsistent with the policy are instructive: an educational site hosting a sponsored payday loan review page written by a third party and also distributed to other sites, and a medical site hosting a low quality page about casinos that is not integrated with the rest of the site and sits there to benefit from the host’s ranking signals. The examples the page says are not inconsistent with the policy are equally instructive: wire and press release services, news syndication, user generated content such as forums and comment sections, and editorial work such as columns and opinion pieces.
Read those two lists together and the shape of the risk becomes clear. A paid article that sits on a host site purely because that host ranks, disconnected from what the site is otherwise about, is the pattern both policies describe. A great deal of marketplace inventory is exactly that pattern, which is why the vetting section further down matters more than the platform you choose.
The contradiction at the centre of this category
Having read the clause about nofollow and sponsored, read how the platforms describe their product.
Stellar SEO’s link building page, as published on 2 November 2026, lists among its criteria “Do-follow links with no sponsored tags”. Getfluence states that its sponsored articles come with “do-follow backlinks”, and its page does not say whether those placements are labelled as sponsored. Adsy’s footer carries a link titled “Get Dofollow Backlinks”. Loganix sells placements as followed links. Several others advertise do-follow permanence as a headline feature, and the listicles in this category repeat it approvingly.
Put plainly: a followed link, paid for, placed in order to improve rankings, with no sponsored or nofollow attribute, is the precise thing Google’s policy names as link spam. Vendors are advertising, as a selling point, the attribute that puts the buyer on the wrong side of the policy. That is not a secret or a loophole. It is printed on their pricing pages, and buyers read past it because the entire category reads past it.
Two of the fifteen take the opposite position explicitly. Page One Power’s page states “We Don’t Do Paid Links. Ever.” and describes guest posting through custom outreach with no link farms or paid placements. uSERP describes its placements as “Editorial links from publications your buyers actually read. Earned by outreach, never bought”, although the same site also offers a backlink marketplace where clients can, in its own words, “buy links a la carte”, which is a tension on one website rather than a position.
None of this means the platforms are illegitimate businesses or that using one is a disaster. It means the risk is real, the risk is yours and not the vendor’s, and a guarantee that a link will stay live for twelve months is not a guarantee that it will keep counting.
Four models, not one category
The lists in this category treat agencies and marketplaces as one thing. They are four things, with different prices, different work on your side and different risk.
Self-serve marketplaces. A catalogue of sites with metrics and a price per placement. You filter, choose, pay, supply or buy content. The platform is a broker and takes a margin or a fee. Cheapest per placement, fastest, and the vetting is entirely yours. Collaborator, Adsy, PRPosting, WhitePress, Linkhouse and Accessily sit here.
Managed outreach agencies. You brief, they select targets, pitch, write and place. More expensive per link, slower, and the selection judgement is theirs. Stellar SEO, uSERP and Page One Power sit here, and Loganix and OutreachZ offer both models side by side.
PR and native placement platforms. Paid editorial or advertorial space on media properties, priced like media buying. Useful for reach and for being quotable. PRNEWS.io and Getfluence sit here. Note that Google’s site reputation examples treat wire and press release services as not inconsistent with the policy, which makes this the model with the clearest standing, provided the links are attributed properly.
White-label reseller platforms. Built for agencies to buy under their own brand and resell. FatJoe describes itself as “Built for resellers” and “100% white label”, and The HOTH runs a resell programme. If your agency buys here, your client is buying marketplace inventory with your logo on the report, and the risk transfers to your client while the margin stays with you. Worth thinking about before you sign a client up to it.
A problem with the numbers everyone quotes
Before the platform notes, one methodological finding, because it tells you how much to trust any list in this category including the sources it cites.
On 2 November 2026, six of the fifteen platforms stated two different inventory figures on the same page. Collaborator’s homepage said “40K+” websites while its filtered search returned “Found 45,487 websites”. PRNEWS.io’s marketplace listed “103,572 publications” while its body copy said “22’000 well-regarded news websites”. Getfluence said “70,000+ vetted media” in one place and “50,000+ vetted media” in its own FAQ. Accessily said “10,000+” publisher sites in one section and “3,000+ publishers” in another. Collaborator described its filter as having “70+ parameters” and, elsewhere, “40+ parameters”. WhitePress cited “149 000+” websites and “392000+ offers”, which may be two different measures but are not distinguished.
More useful for the reader: PRPosting’s own site states 23,250 websites across 177 countries. The widely shared lists in this category say the platform has over 44,000 or over 45,000 sites. Whatever the explanation, those lists are quoting a figure the vendor is not currently claiming, which is what happens when lists are written from other lists.
Treat every inventory number in this category, including the ones below, as marketing rather than measurement.
The fifteen platforms
Each entry states the model, what the site published on 2 November 2026, and an honest advantage and disadvantage. Where no price appears, the vendor publishes none, which is itself worth knowing when you are trying to compare.
1. Collaborator
Self-serve marketplace with direct messaging between advertiser and publisher, payment held by the platform, and a stated commission taken once. Claims 40,000 plus websites and 3,000 plus Telegram channels, with filtered search returning 45,487 websites and 3,289 channels, across 158 countries and 53 languages. Sample site listings on the homepage ran from 40 to 91 US dollars, and Telegram placements from 1.90 to 15.90 US dollars. States “We provide guarantees from deletion and non-indexing”, with a free three month guarantee and a paid one year option. Filters by DR, monthly traffic, Google Analytics data, Ahrefs Rank and UR among others.
Good for: buyers who want to see the price and the metrics before committing, and the clearest published guarantee language of the fifteen. The Telegram inventory is unusual and genuinely useful for reach in some markets.
Against: a catalogue this size cannot have been editorially assessed by you, and the guarantee covers deletion and indexing rather than whether the placement was worth having. European and regional inventory dominates.
2. Adsy
Platform connecting buyers with site owners, with publishers monetising their own sites. Claims 150,000 unique websites and over 20 filters including Moz DA, DR and Ahrefs or Google Analytics traffic, with listings showing Ahrefs organic traffic, Similarweb traffic, Moz Domain Authority, Semrush Authority Score and Ahrefs Domain Rank. States that it monitors the presence of links. No prices published on the homepage. A footer link is titled “Get Dofollow Backlinks”.
Good for: breadth, metric coverage on listings, and self-serve speed.
Against: the largest claimed catalogue here and no published pricing, so comparison requires an account. The explicit do-follow framing is the pattern discussed above.
3. PRPosting
Sponsored guest posting and content distribution with manual placement, a one-time payment, and content stated to remain for the platform’s operating period. Own site states 23,250 websites and 177 countries. Metrics drawn from Ahrefs, Majestic, Moz and SimilarWeb. States “A complete guarantee of placement or get your money back within 7 days”, with a full refund within seven days if material is not published or the order has a problem. No prices published.
Good for: the clearest refund commitment of the set, and a sensible answer if your worry is paying for something that never goes live.
Against: no published pricing, and the inventory figure is roughly half what the popular lists claim, which should make you check the catalogue yourself rather than the write-ups.
4. WhitePress
Marketplace and content platform describing itself as a global SEO and link building platform, with paid article placement, link insertion, digital PR, brand mentions and influencer marketing, on a pay as you go basis. States 149,000 plus websites, over 392,000 offers in the platform, and content and marketplace coverage in 36 languages. Also offers copywriting, a free SEO audit, a backlink manager and a course. No prices published.
Good for: multilingual campaigns, where the writing and the placement sit in one workflow and the language coverage is real rather than nominal.
Against: no published pricing, two unreconciled scale figures, and a product range broad enough that quality will vary a great deal between the digital PR end and the paid article end.
5. Linkhouse
Marketplace with no subscription and no contracts, selling guest posts with your content or theirs, link insertions in existing articles, and banners. States 100,000 plus websites in 39 countries, and publishes the country breakdown: Poland 28,824, the United States 8,153, France 7,646, Germany 5,256, India 3,531, down to South Africa at 104. Filters by DR, traffic and price, with metrics from Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic and Senuto. Each site sets its own price and none are published outside the platform.
Good for: transparency about where the inventory actually is. Publishing the per country counts is more honest than a single global number, and it tells you immediately whether the catalogue serves your market. For Indian buyers, 3,531 sites is a real figure to assess rather than a claim to accept.
Against: heavily weighted to Poland, so the global figure overstates relevance for most buyers, and pricing requires an account.
6. Accessily
Publisher hosting business with a guest post marketplace attached, where buyers search by topic and publishers approve or reject submissions. States “10,000+” publisher sites in its marketplace section and “3,000+ publishers” elsewhere. Listings show traffic and authority metrics, though the page does not state what buyers can filter by. Listing a site is free. The only published price is hosting from 6.94 US dollars a month.
Good for: in-house teams that already produce content and want a submission route with publisher approval in the loop.
Against: the weakest disclosure of the fifteen, with inconsistent inventory figures, no stated filters and no placement pricing. A marketplace attached to a hosting business raises a question about the inventory’s independence that the site does not address.
7. OutreachZ
Both models: a self-serve marketplace and a managed service stated to carry no additional cost. Claims 50,000 premium publishers, with filters for DA, traffic, niche and country. Publishes worked examples: a DA30 plus publisher at a 70 dollar fee for an 80 dollar total, DA40 plus at 100 dollars for a 115 dollar total, and DA50 plus at 150 dollars for a 173 dollar total, with a 15 per cent platform fee and content creation extra. Its FAQ states that per publisher pricing reflects the cost of acquisition rather than metrics alone.
Good for: the most honest pricing presentation here. It shows the fee, the total and the platform margin, and the acquisition cost explanation is a franker account of how these prices are set than anything else we read.
Against: DA is a third party metric, not a Google one, and tiering by it encourages buying a number rather than an audience.
8. FatJoe
White-label reseller platform stating “Built for resellers” and “100% white label”, with a team ordering workspace and one click repeat ordering. Sells blogger outreach, niche edits, multilingual outreach, packages, iGaming backlinks, digital PR, press release distribution, media placements, content syndication, AI brand mentions in listicles, community mentions, local citations and writing. States a “100% money back guarantee on all of our services”. No prices published on the homepage, which refers to “reliable low prices”, and no DA, DR or traffic tiers stated there.
Good for: agencies that need volume fulfilment under their own brand, with an ordering workflow built for that.
Against: breadth is the concern rather than the appeal. A single supplier selling iGaming links, AI listicle mentions, citations and digital PR is operating in several risk categories at once, and the white-label structure means your client carries the consequence of inventory you did not choose.
9. Loganix
Both models. A self-serve marketplace of about 25,000 sites with links from 99 US dollars, filtered by DR or DA, traffic, niche, price and language. Niche edits from 100 US dollars on pages with 100 plus organic traffic, with the page approved before work and a seven month guarantee. Premium Editorial at DR70 plus, live in four to six weeks with a six month replacement guarantee, price not stated. Brand Mentions at DR50 plus and AI Brand Links at DR 30 to 60 plus, both with six month guarantees. States that it requires editorial control and does not work with free for all sites, excludes pharma, adult and casino or gambling, writes to each site’s guidelines rather than accepting client content, and charges only for approved placements.
Good for: the clearest published entry pricing of the managed providers, with stated category exclusions and client approval before placement. The refusal to accept client-supplied content is a quality signal rather than an inconvenience.
Against: most of the premium tiers carry no published price, and the headline tiering is by DR, with the same consequence as DA tiering above.
10. Stellar SEO
Managed, with custom hourly outreach, white label for agencies, pay per link guest posting and niche edits, consulting, and two published packages: Foundation Builder at 2,500 dollars a month for eight links, being six at DR30 plus and two at DR40 plus, and Growth Accelerator at 5,000 dollars a month for sixteen links, being ten at DR30 plus, five at DR40 plus and one at DR50 plus. States sites with 1,000 plus Ahrefs organic traffic a month, a 27 point quality check, 750 plus words per placement, natural anchor text selection, and “Do-follow links with no sponsored tags”. Specialises in legal and finance, B2B software and technology, automotive, travel, real estate, ecommerce and marine. States that it refuses adult content, predatory lending, private blog networks and grey hat industries.
Good for: published monthly pricing with the link mix spelled out, which almost no managed provider does, and a credible focus on regulated verticals where the quality bar is high.
Against: “Do-follow links with no sponsored tags” is advertised as a feature and is the exact attribute combination Google’s policy addresses. Buying this knowingly is a decision, not an accident, and it should be made with the policy text in front of you.
11. The HOTH
Managed services with a reseller programme, selling Link Outreach, Link Insertions, Platinum Links, Press Releases and Content Syndication, with white label SEO and AI visibility campaigns for agencies. No prices published on the homepage, which says “Give us a budget and we’ll help you make the most out of it”, no stated DA, DR or traffic tiering, and no mention of link attributes.
Good for: scale and a long operating history, with an established reseller channel for agencies that want one supplier.
Against: the least specific of the fifteen on the things that matter. Budget-led pricing with no published tiers, criteria or attributes leaves you unable to assess what you are buying until after you have bought it.
12. uSERP
Managed agency with a backlink marketplace alongside. States that link building typically costs 5,000 to 25,000 dollars a month for high quality white hat services, that competitors start at around 10,000 dollars a month, and, notably, that paying “notably less than $900 per link placement” means you are “most likely receiving a worthless or even harmful link”. Engagements run six months with a sixty day opt out, and above 20,000 dollars a month is treated as enterprise. Vetting criteria stated include DR and DA, UR, AI and LLM citation count, organic and branded search traffic, social presence, inbound and outbound link ratios, followed status and topical relevance, with a rule of high authority sites only and no private blog networks. Cites 575 plus clients, 42 case studies and a 4.9 rating on Clutch. Describes its placements as “Editorial links from publications your buyers actually read. Earned by outreach, never bought”.
Good for: the most developed vetting criteria published by anyone here, and the only provider that names AI and LLM citation count as a selection input, which is the right direction of travel. Publishing a price floor and arguing for it is more useful than silence.
Against: “Earned by outreach, never bought” sits on the same website as a marketplace to buy links a la carte, and both cannot describe the same product. The 900 dollar floor is a vendor’s claim about the market and conveniently supports the vendor’s own pricing. The dashboard and placement figures shown read as illustrative rather than as verified client results.
13. Page One Power
Managed custom campaigns, stating “No packages. No tiers.”, with a dedicated project manager per client and a white label option at agency pricing. Guest posting through custom outreach with, in its words, no link farms or paid placements. Digital PR through media relationships rather than press release syndication. States that “Every placement is reviewed for relevance, authority, and contextual fit before we pursue it”, that community mentions are screened for relevance, brand safety and compliance with advertising disclosure rules, and that reporting shows publisher DR, organic traffic, anchor text and the live URL per link. No prices published, and the page says it is not the cheapest option.
Good for: the only provider of the fifteen whose stated position matches Google’s policy without qualification, in the sentence “We Don’t Do Paid Links. Ever.” If the policy risk is what concerns you, this is the model to compare others against.
Against: no published pricing at all, no volume commitment, and the slowest route to a placement. Earned outreach has a lower hit rate by nature, which is the cost of the position being credible.
14. PRNEWS.io
Sponsored content marketplace describing itself as the world’s first sponsored content online store with fixed prices for publications, plus press release distribution. Its marketplace lists 103,572 publications while its body copy says 22,000 news websites. The only published price is a 6.00 dollar starting price. The page does not state whether links are followed, nofollow or sponsored, and publishes no refund policy in its own words, though a customer testimonial on the page claims a full money back guarantee.
Good for: buying media reach at a published price, with the standing that Google’s own examples give to wire and press release services. Useful when the goal is being quotable and visible rather than moving a ranking.
Against: the widest gap between two self reported figures of any platform here, no stated link attributes, and no published refund terms. A testimonial is not a policy.
15. Getfluence
Describes itself as a B2B off-site content activation platform, with a subpage titled “The backlink marketplace built to move your rankings”. Sells sponsored articles, AI-first articles and AI-Mention placements inside existing articles, pay per placement, with no retainer, minimum spend or subscription for marketplace access. States 70,000 plus vetted media on the page and 50,000 plus in its FAQ, an average of eight days from order to publication, and a twelve month guarantee. States that sponsored articles come with do-follow backlinks, and does not state whether placements are labelled as sponsored, including for the AI-Mention product.
Good for: premium native placement on real media, a fast and stated turnaround, and the only provider here selling insertion of brand mentions into existing articles as a named product, which is where a good deal of AI visibility work is heading.
Against: the AI-Mention product inserts paid mentions into existing editorial without the page stating any disclosure, which is the least transparent arrangement of the fifteen and the one most likely to be reconsidered by publishers and platforms. The do-follow framing applies here too.
Comparison
All figures as published by each vendor on 2 November 2026. Where a cell says not published, the vendor states no figure on its own site.
| Platform | Model | Published price | Claimed inventory | Stated guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collaborator | Marketplace | Samples 40 to 91 USD | 40,000+ / 45,487 | 3 months free, 1 year paid |
| Adsy | Marketplace | Not published | 150,000 | Link monitoring |
| PRPosting | Marketplace | Not published | 23,250, 177 countries | 7 day money back |
| WhitePress | Marketplace plus content | Not published | 149,000+, 36 languages | Not published |
| Linkhouse | Marketplace | Not published | 100,000+, 39 countries | Not published |
| Accessily | Marketplace plus hosting | Hosting from 6.94 USD | 10,000+ / 3,000+ | Not published |
| OutreachZ | Marketplace and managed | 80 to 173 USD total | 50,000 | Not published |
| FatJoe | White-label reseller | Not published | Not published | 100% money back |
| Loganix | Marketplace and managed | From 99 USD | About 25,000 | 6 to 7 months |
| Stellar SEO | Managed | 2,500 and 5,000 USD monthly | Not published | Not published |
| The HOTH | Managed and reseller | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| uSERP | Managed plus marketplace | 5,000 to 25,000 USD monthly | Not published | Not published |
| Page One Power | Managed, custom | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| PRNEWS.io | PR and native | From 6.00 USD | 103,572 / 22,000 | Not published |
| Getfluence | PR and native | Not published | 70,000+ / 50,000+ | 12 months |
Nine of the fifteen publish no price. That is the single most useful line in the table, because a category that cannot be compared on price without fifteen account signups is a category that does not want to be compared.
The vetting checklist, which matters more than the platform
Whichever platform you use, the placement is only as good as the site it lands on, and no marketplace filter tells you what you need to know. Run these ten checks on any site before you pay. They take about four minutes each once you have the habit, and they will reject most of what you are offered.
- Traffic trend, not traffic. A site with 40,000 monthly visits that had 400,000 two years ago is a site that has lost its rankings. Look at the shape of the curve in any backlink or traffic tool, not the current number.
- Does it have a “write for us” or “advertise” page? If placement is openly for sale, every placement on the site is openly for sale, and the pattern is visible to anyone looking.
- Sponsored to editorial ratio. Read the last twenty posts. If fifteen are thinly written pieces on unrelated commercial topics, the site is a placement vehicle rather than a publication, which is the pattern Google’s site reputation examples describe.
- Outbound anchor profile. Check where the site’s outbound links point and what they say. If most are commercial anchors to unrelated verticals, your link joins a footprint.
- Topic coherence. A site covering finance, casinos, CBD, software and weddings is not a site with a subject. One of those categories is why it exists and the rest are inventory.
- Is it actually indexed? Search the site operator for the domain and for a distinctive sentence from a recent article. Sites in marketplace catalogues are sometimes partly or wholly deindexed.
- Does a real person run it? Named authors with histories, a real about page, a traceable organisation. The trust signals we describe in E-E-A-T for new companies without case studies apply to the host as much as to you.
- How many marketplaces list it? Search the domain alongside the name of two or three other platforms. A site listed everywhere is a site whose placements are being sold at volume.
- Would you accept the link if it were free? If the honest answer is no, the price is irrelevant.
- Would you be comfortable showing the client, or a Google engineer, the list of twenty? This is the only check that catches what the other nine miss.
If a platform’s inventory cannot pass checks one to five at a reasonable rate, the platform is not worth the account, whatever its catalogue size.
Where we would and would not spend this money
Since the advisory position is the point of this article, here it is without hedging.
Legitimate and useful. Paid media placement for reach, brand and quotability, with the link attributed as sponsored or nofollow. This is advertising, it is what the PR and native platforms above are actually for, and Google’s own site reputation examples treat wire and press release services as consistent with policy. You buy an audience and a citable mention, not a ranking signal, and you should measure it as a media buy. Sponsored attribution does not stop a placement being read, quoted, remembered, or picked up by an assistant summarising a topic, which is the part most buyers have not updated their thinking on.
Defensible with care. Managed outreach that genuinely pitches real publications, where you see the target list before anyone writes, you approve each site, the content is good enough that the publication would have wanted it, and no money changes hands for the link itself. Page One Power’s stated position and the better end of what Loganix and Stellar SEO describe fall here. Expect a low hit rate and a high price, because that is what the work costs.
Not where we would put a client’s budget. Followed links bought at volume from a catalogue, tiered by DA or DR, on sites whose business is selling placements. The arithmetic is seductive and the exposure is entirely yours: the vendor’s twelve month guarantee covers the link staying live, not the link continuing to count, and no refund restores a ranking. If your business depends on organic search, this is an unhedged bet against the published policy of the company that sends you the traffic.
The honest summary of the category is that it sells a shortcut to something that does not have one, and that the thing actually worth buying from several of these platforms is reach rather than links.
What we would do instead with the same budget
Take the 2,500 dollars a month that buys eight DR30 links and look at what else it buys.
Original research with data nobody else has, which earns citations for years and is the single most reliable link earner we have worked with. The method is in link building in 2026, earning links that also build AI visibility.
Digital PR aimed at being named rather than linked, which is what AI assistants read, set out in digital PR for AI visibility.
Partnerships and co-marketing, where the link is a by-product of something both parties wanted anyway, in partnerships and co-marketing for mentions and links.
Regional and local media, which is cheaper to reach than most people assume and carries real trust, in local media and regional PR for local visibility.
Case studies written so that assistants can quote them, in how to write client case studies that AI assistants cite, and listings on the review platforms assistants actually read, in how to get listed on the review sites AI assistants cite.
None of this is faster. All of it compounds, and none of it can be removed by a policy update.
Frequently asked questions
Does buying guest posts still work in 2026?
Some of it moves rankings for some sites for some period, which is why the market exists. That is a different question from whether it is a sound place to put a budget, given that it is named in the policy of the search engine you are buying rankings from, and that the downside lands on your domain rather than the vendor’s.
If the link is nofollow or sponsored, is there any point?
Yes, and this is the most under-appreciated point in the category. A sponsored placement on a publication your buyers read delivers referral traffic, brand familiarity, and a mention that can be quoted by a person or summarised by an assistant. What it does not deliver is a ranking signal. If the placement is only worth buying when the link is followed, you were buying the signal, which tells you what you were actually doing.
How many links do we need?
This is the wrong question and the whole category is built on it. Counting links is why DA tiering exists and why catalogues are priced by metric. The useful question is whether the publications that matter in your market have ever mentioned you, which is a list of about ten to thirty names in most industries, and it is answerable by hand.
Can we get penalised for buying links?
Google’s documentation treats link spam through both manual action and algorithmic devaluation. In practice the common outcome we see is not a dramatic penalty but quiet devaluation, where the links simply stop counting and the spend produced nothing. That is worse in one respect, because there is no notification to tell you to stop.
Our competitor buys links and ranks above us.
Often true, and the reasonable response is to find out what else they are doing, because it is rarely only the links. The monthly process in competitor analysis in AI answers gets you a real answer rather than an assumption.
Which platform on this list is best?
None of them is best, because they are four different products. If you want media reach with proper attribution, look at the PR and native platforms. If you want managed outreach, compare the stated vetting criteria and ask for a target list before signing. If you want catalogue placements at volume, the honest answer is that we would not advise it, and if you proceed anyway, the vetting checklist above matters far more than which catalogue you buy from.
How should we judge an agency pitching this to us?
Ask three questions. Will the links be followed, and if so, how do they reconcile that with the link spam policy. Can you see and approve the target list before anyone writes. What happens, commercially, if the links are devalued. The questions to put to any agency are in how to brief an agency for GEO work, and whether to hire one at all is in in-house team or agency.
A sensible order of work
- Read the two policy sections yourself, in full, before any budget is approved. They are short and they are the terms you are operating under.
- Decide what you are buying: reach, or a ranking signal. Write it down, because the answer changes which of the four models you should even look at.
- If reach, treat it as a media buy with sponsored attribution, and measure referral traffic and mentions rather than rankings, using the model in how to calculate SEO and GEO ROI.
- If outreach, shortlist on published vetting criteria, demand the target list in advance, and approve site by site.
- Run the ten point checklist on every proposed site, whoever proposed it.
- Put at least half the budget into something that compounds and cannot be devalued: research, PR, partnerships, case studies.
- Review after two quarters on mentions in the publications that matter, not on link count.
We will revisit the figures in this article as vendors change their pricing and their claims. If you want your current link profile and your existing supplier arrangements looked at honestly, including being told that what you are doing is fine, get in touch.
Sources. Google Search Central spam policies, link spam and site reputation sections, read on 2 November 2026. Each platform’s own website, read on 2 November 2026: collaborator.pro, adsy.com, prposting.com, whitepress.com, linkhouse.net, accessily.com, outreachz.com, fatjoe.com, loganix.com, stellarseo.com, thehoth.com, userp.io, pageonepower.com, prnews.io, getfluence.com. All vendor claims are the vendors’ own and are not independently verified.