Most bought profile and Web 2.0 links never had a real chance of being indexed. The platform blocks that page type from search engines, the page dies within a year, or the page stays open but Google decides it isn't worth indexing. A re-check of 15,389 backlinks bought on Fiverr and Kwork shows how large each of these losses is.
What the data shows
SpeedyIndex bought 15,389 backlinks on Fiverr and Kwork for its own projects: profiles, Web 2.0 pages, forum and comment links, articles and PBN links. Every URL was crawled as Googlebot Smartphone on August 21, 2026, and Google's index was checked on October 29, 2026. The method and full tables are in the case study 15,389 bought backlinks a year later.
The platform table in the same study is where profile and Web 2.0 links stand out. A selection of hosts with the number of bought URLs and how many were indexed:
| Platform | URLs | Indexed |
|---|---|---|
| Diigo | 124 | 0 |
| Telegraph | 86 | 1 |
| Google Sites | 77 | 7 |
| Pearltrees | 73 | 0 |
| Wakelet | 47 | 0 |
| Medium | 46 | 0 |
| Quora | 44 | 0 |
Reason 1: the platform closes that page type
Many platforms keep their homepage and main content open to search engines but close user profiles and user pages. The case gives Trello as an example: the trello.com homepage is open to indexing, while user profiles at trello.com/u/{id} are blocked by robots.txt and a meta noindex.
Across the whole set, 14.8% of links carried a blocking signal: a noindex in meta robots or the X-Robots-Tag header, a robots.txt Disallow, or a canonical pointing elsewhere. 457 page types were blocked on 443 sites, and on 266 of those sites the homepage was open. That is why checking the donor's homepage, or its domain metrics, tells you nothing about the page that holds your link.
No indexing service can fix this. A noindex or a robots.txt block is a rule the site owner set, and Google follows it. Google's guide to blocking indexing with noindex explains how both work.
Reason 2: the page doesn't survive
A third of all bought links were dead by the time of the crawl: domains that no longer resolve, deleted pages (404/410), parked domains and redirects to the homepage. Age makes it worse. DNS failures were 2.3% for links aged 6–12 months and 18.5% for links older than a year. Profile and Web 2.0 pages are especially easy to lose, because the account or the whole free site can disappear without the link buyer ever being told.
Another 1,832 URLs sat behind a Cloudflare challenge and were counted as not accessible. They may work for a person in a browser, but a crawler checking them got a challenge page instead of content.
Reason 3: open is not the same as indexed
Only 21.0% of links were live and open to indexing, and only 1.8% of all links were live, open and indexed. Even among live pages with no blocking signal, just 8.6% were in Google's index. Being crawlable only makes a page eligible; Google still decides whether it is worth keeping. A profile with a short bio and one outbound link, or a thin Web 2.0 post written only to hold a link, rarely is.
The marketplace doesn't change this much. Kwork links were more often working than Fiverr links (27.5% vs 19.4%), but indexation was about the same: 3.4% vs 3.6%. And 4,738 of the 5,088 donor domains had no indexed links at all.
A note on Google's rules
Google's spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam. The same policies accept paid links for advertising or sponsorship when they are qualified with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow"; Google's guide to qualifying outbound links recommends sponsored for paid placements. A sponsored link on an indexed page can still bring visitors and brand mentions. A link on a page Google never indexed brings neither.
How to check a profile or Web 2.0 link before you pay
- Status code. The page should return 200 without a redirect.
- Directives. Look for noindex in the robots meta tag and in the X-Robots-Tag response header.
- robots.txt. Check the rule for that exact path, such as
/u/,/user/or/profile/, not just the homepage. - Canonical. It should point to the page itself, not to the platform's homepage or another URL.
- Your link in the HTML. It should be in the page source, not loaded later or hidden behind a login.
- Similar pages in the index. If other profiles on the same platform are not indexed, yours won't be either. A bulk Google index checker answers this for a list of sample URLs.
What to do with links that will never be indexed
- Stop paying for page types that the platform blocks; no amount of resubmitting changes a noindex.
- Write off dead and blocked links and note the seller and the platform, so you don't buy the same thing again.
- Re-check working links at 3, 6 and 12 months; links die gradually.
- Spend the budget on fewer placements on pages that are already in Google's index, and mark paid placements as sponsored.
FAQ
Can an indexing service get a blocked profile page into Google?
No. If the platform sets noindex or blocks the path in robots.txt, Google follows that rule. Submitting the URL again does not change it. Only pages that are live and open to indexing can be helped, and even then Google decides.
Are nofollow or sponsored profile links worthless?
Not entirely. They can bring visitors and brand mentions, and Google's policies say paid links should be qualified with sponsored or nofollow. Just don't buy them expecting ranking credit, and check that the page is indexed at all.
How often should I re-check bought backlinks?
Check at delivery, while the seller can still fix problems, then again at about 3, 6 and 12 months. In the audit, DNS failures rose from 2.3% for links aged 6–12 months to 18.5% for links older than a year.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Spam policies (link spam)
- Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links
- Google Search Central: Block Search indexing with noindex
- Google Search Central: Robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag specifications