Jarrod u seem pretty convincing here. I sent a mail to Brigette (ur account manager) last month and asked some few simple questions regarding the services. Not a single answer was convincing enough to buy your services and that's when i decided not to purchase links through u. Here are the excerpts:
Quote:
1. What if we decide to discontinue your service in the future? Do we lose all the purchased back links in that case?
TLB: If you rent links, they would come down. However, if you purchase products that are permanently placed, we do not take them down.
But you don't place text links permanently. Even your permanent package gives only 6 months guarantee.
Quote: 2. How we can secure the ownership of our purchased links? What if the webmaster removed the link we have purchased after some time or what if he moved the link to some other location or some other web page or changed the anchor text of the link or added large number of other external links (may be from our competitors) and thus reducing our link weight or what if he made our link no follow or what if he deleted the web page or shut down the website? Can we claim any compensation or refund in that case?
TLB: Each of our products has different minimums and guarantees. Our permanent links that are included in the “Booster Package” have a 3 month guarantee. During this time we have a script that ensures your link stays live. If, for some reason, it were to come down we would replace it free of charge. Beyond that, you would have no recourse. However, if you purchase a permanent link package, they have a 6 month guarantee that works the same way.
Do you call this a convincing reply?
Quote: 3. How you can ensure us that you will not get our website penalized or banned by Google through your back links? What if our website gets penalized or banned by Google because of the link you have purchased for us? What is your policy in that case?
TLB: We take every step possible to ensure that does not happen. We do things very differently than most link building companies. We do not use software, feeds or auto generated code of any kind. Each of our links are manually placed on 100% SEO friendly sites. Everyone who is accepted into our inventory goes through an extensive approval process. We deny applications daily for not meeting the large number of criteria our Quality Assurance team looks at. Once they are accepted into inventory, their information is not posted on the web site. They are not allowed to post anything on their site that says they are affiliated with us in any way. They are not asked to and not allowed to backlink to us under any circumstances. We take the protection of our Inventory Partners and our clients very seriously. If a potential client goes to our website to view inventory, they will only see general information such as a description, page rank, site age, number of outbound links, etc. The only way to view the actual url is to sign a non-disclosure agreement. That is only done after speaking with a Customer Service Representative or Account Manager who would create the list for you.
So, as you can see, for years we have done everything we can do to protect our inventory partners as well as our clients. Our goals is to make you successful so that we can continue with a long term business relationship. If we do not protect our partners and they get penalized, your links will not pass SEO value. Therefore, we take that very seriously.
Your so called forbidden inventory is just one report away from Google web spam team. Once identified, everyone associated with it will bust like a bubble. IMO that's the risk rand was talking about.