You can rank number one (Or at least in the top ten) for just about any search phrase by just buying text link ads, even if the web site isn't related to the search phrase in anyway, it can still rank in the top ten of the search results. Some web site owners see this as the only true way to the top ten. So, should you buy your way to the top? Or should you play it safe?

Some say it's better to be safe than sorry. While others say if you play it safe and never make it to the top ten of the search results, your losing anyway. So, it must be much better not to play by the rules and get a top ten ranking and make a little money before you get banned from the search engines. Well, it's not that easy and you can see the cons and pros in both ways.

First let's look at the pros of playing it safe. The first one is obvious and it's that you have a lot less chance of getting banned and much safer. At the same time you can peacefully sleep at night without worrying whether you'll be banned the next day you wake up. It also allows you to save money and spend it else where, such as PPC (Pay Per Click) search engines, banner advertisement, mailing list and offline advertising.

You can also rank number one without buying text link ads if you provide good content because many other webmasters will link to you just because you have good content and it provides their users with valuable information. You could also exchange links with other web sites. If you correctly SEO (Search Engine Optimization) your web site you can get a fairly good search engine ranking.

There are also several cons of playing it safe. Besides the fact that text link ads help improve your search engine ranking, they also bring in a good amount of traffic. In order to get a good amount traffic from links you would need more than just a few backlinks, but since you won't be buying them, you will not being getting that many web sites linking to you and most of them are from web sites that are not popular among internet users.

All the major search engines see backlinks from quality sites as a vote for the web site being linked to, by playing it safe it will take much longer to get a top ten ranking because of the lack of backlinks. It can take years before you will rank for any popular search term because you will only be getting links the natural way. Without many backlinks you'll also have a hard time getting in the search engines.

Now the pros of buying text link ads. Buying text links ads will help improve your search engine ranking, which can bring more traffic than from a link from any web site because. Each link acts as a vote your web site in the search engine's eye, so the more you buy, the higher you'll rank. If you buy an enough text link ads your web site can rank number one for just about any search term.

Text link ads can also send a fair amount of visitors that's targeted. Resulting in more and new customers. Getting a link from a web site that's trusted and well known can help build your web site's brand and increase your credibility because visitors will see the link as a recommendation to your web site. Which will also help bring in new customers because they trust you more than they did before.

The cons of buying text link ads make many people think twice about buying text link ads. It will cost a lot of money to buy text link ads. You need to pay for your link to stay on a web site for at least two months before you will see any major boost in your search engine ranking. You may never get your money back because there's so many things that can go wrong.

It can also hurt your search engine rankings if you don't do it correctly and safely. You should never buy a lot of text links ads all at once, some search engines can detect this and may ban your web site from the search results due to this. There are other ways the search engines can find out that the links are being sold, meaning some links on certain web sites may never count in the search engines.

The Conclusion - Now that you have seen the pros and cons you can decide for your self whether you should buy them or not.

Matt Colyer began as a SEO Specialist in 1997. He founded Superior Webmaster in 2004 as a source of articles and tutorials for Web site owners looking to improve their Web site.