a single source, nothing corroborates it

Ask a thousand sites outright whether they sell links

Mail a large list of the best-known blogs in your industry and ask plainly. Most say no and reply rates are low because owners are nervous, but some hold real inventory at fair prices and plenty of low-traffic hobby sites will take fifty to a hundred dollars a month. Do it from a throwaway domain and mailbox you would not mind burning.

The method

1. 01

   Mail a large list of the best-known blogs in your industry and ask plainly whether they sell links, accepting that most will say no.

2. 02

   Do this outreach from a throwaway domain and mailbox that you would not mind burning.

3. 03

   Stop demanding an exact phrase when prospecting for guest post pages, and allow a gap of a few words between the ask and the noun so you catch how people really write the invitation.

What it returned

• 1,000

  Glen Allsopp had an assistant work through roughly 1,000 domains; the reply rate was low because owners are nervous, but some held big inventories at fair prices and many low-traffic hobby sites accept $50 to $100 a month.

• $3

  Glen Allsopp uses a Namecheap private email at under $3 a month so there is no hosting to set up and no exposure for the site he cares about.

• 2017

  Glen Allsopp used the AROUND operator for over seven years for queries like submit within four words of article, then reported in December 2017 that Google had quietly removed it.

Sources

• 13 Advanced Link Building Strategies You (Probably) Haven't Used - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · Literally Just Ask Websites If They Sell Links · 2019-08-05