How Do You Get a Good Backlink? [Cosmopolitan Case Study]

Many sellers on Fiverr will offer you a good backlink.

Typically, it will be from spammy websites built specifically with guest posting in mind. Such websites will often show fake metrics and no traffic at all.

However, sometimes it seems to be very captivating.

Last year I was building backlinks for one of my projects in the fashion industry

As I came across fiverr, I looked for backlinks there. I didn’t expect anything too special.

Imagine my surprise when I came across a lot of gigs offering backlinks from such reputable magazines as Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and Marie Claire.

Most of the offers were in the $100-$200 range.

So I was wondering, can you get a backlink from Cosmopolitan for $200?

 

Why a Backlink from Cosmopolitan would be a big deal?

SEO is important for business because it generates traffic, leads, and revenue.

You can’t be successful in SEO without high-quality backlinks.

A Cosmopolitan backlink is precious.

If you’re consciously building a backlink profile, there are 4 important parameters you should be paying attention to.

1. Organic Traffic size
2. Domain Authority
3. Countries that drive traffic
4. Niche

Let’s take a look at these metrics for Cosmo.

1. Cosmopolitan’s organic monthly traffic is 111.000.000! That’s pretty amazing.
2. The magazine’s Domain Authority is 91 out of 100. That’s huge.
3. The main countries that drive traffic are the US, India (with a big margin), and Great Britain, which was exactly what I needed.
4. It’s niche-related.

Aside from the PR, the ability to use the ‘As seen on Cosmopolitan’ badge, a backlink from Cosmopolitan is something only a few businesses can achieve. Even if you outsource SEO services, building backlinks is very challenging.

 

What I Expected

To set the matter straight, buying backlinks is against Google’s policy.

Yet everyone does that.

However, as I saw it, Cosmopolitan would not sell links for $200.

So I didn’t think I was paying for a link at that time.

10% of my adventure spirit expected these sellers to have a connection with a certain Cosmopolitan editor, probably on a regional website who can incorporate the link into the article. And I needed to provide a fee for their services.

90% of my personality expected this to be a total scam and was intrigued.

As fiverr has a buyer protection policy, I decided what the hell. I need to try at least.

So I ordered that gig.

 

My Cosmopolitan Backlink Order

Here’s the gig I ordered.

It read ‘I will publish your article on Vogue, Cosmopolitan, LA weekly’.

The reason I believed in this seller is that she was a beautiful girl from the UK. Ok, I trust EU and US sellers (not to discriminate against sellers from other countries, but similar gigs were published by Nigerian sellers, for instance, looking less reliable).

So I paid $150.

The conversation looked strange right off the bat.

I supposed something will be wrong.

The seller delivered my order. Of course, no backlink was to be seen.

Here’s what the screenshot read:

Can you see that something is wrong? I’ll get back to that in a minute.

At that moment, I automatically replied because I was intrigued by how this thing worked.

So I asked the seller when I would get a backlink.

The seller basically told me that Cosmopolitan is some guest posting website that accepts articles almost automatically.

Let’s get back to the delivery screenshot.

It looked a little better that the screenshot from another seller. However, having worked in a few industries that expose scammers, I knew something was wrong.

Take a thorough look at the screenshot. It’s right there.

There are a lot of red flags but I’m going to discuss 3 of them.

First, a fashion website would not probably use a non-transparent logo like this in their official email.

Next, even to a non-native speaker like me, the language looked as if the email was composed by a teenager.

And the icing on the cake was the email. Vogueadvance@gmail.com! GMAIL. They didn’t even try to blur it. Or did they think this was going to persuade me?

Nice try, scammer.

I tried to be polite in my communication though.

She’s not on the website anymore.

 

How the Scam Works

If someone is offering you a backlink from Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Forbes, etc, don’t get lost in second thoughts.

It’s a scam.

Here’s how this scam works on fiverr:

1. You place an order for a 3-day gig.
2. You write an article and send it to them.
3. They send you a funny confirmation email suggesting they’ve sent it to the editorial team.
4. They promise that the editor will review the article and the link will be live in 2 weeks.
5. You need to close the gig in 3 days. If you believe the scammers, you close the gig and they get their money.
6. Profit!

If the order is not placed on a platform with a strict buyer protection policy, it’s even easier for them. They just get away with it.

By the way, none of the accounts I’ve dealt with are on fiverr anymore. But there are other

No one aside from real journalists can promise you that. And even journalists are not the most reliable option.

Of course, there are advertising options from these websites but their price and value go far beyond a backlink from a trusted website.

 

How to Get Good Backlinks

After experimenting for a year, I manually collected the best fashion backlinks opportunities on the market. Fashion is something I specialize in and if you’re curating a fashion website, I can offer some amazing backlinks that will skyrocket your website to the first page of Google.

Unlike many shady sellers, I deeply care about the quality I provide. These links will not hurt your website.

It’s a part of our monthly SEO package