Are rented homepage links still helping to index backlinks?

[LinkFox]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone noticed changes with indexing external backlinks lately?

A few months ago, one method seemed to work pretty well: buying rented links from homepages pointing to the backlink pages. In December and January, this helped get external links indexed in many cases, maybe around 70-80%.

But now it looks much weaker. Since the beginning of April, the same type of homepage rented links don’t seem to push those backlink pages into the index anymore.

Is anyone else seeing the same thing?

Are you still able to get external backlinks indexed this way? If yes, what method is working for you now?

 

[contesthelperr88]

I’ve noticed something similar. Homepage links don’t seem to help indexing as reliably as they used to. I’ve had better results with relevant, quality links and strong supporting content rather than relying on rented links alone.

 

[Daarbi]

I feel your pain, mate. Rented homepage links are pretty much dead for indexation now. Have you tried using Google Search Console URL Inspection for the tier 1 pages directly, or shifting towards fast URL submitters? Some guys on BHW are using internal link bursts from fast-indexing Web 2.0s instead of homepages, and it pushes the index within 48 hours.

 

[SudoKing]

I wouldn’t rely on rented homepage links as an indexing method anymore. They can still help Google discover or recrawl a page, but discovery and actual indexing seem to be two very different things now.

If the backlink page itself has weak internal linking, thin content, duplicate sections, odd canonicals or anything else making Google less interested in keeping it indexed, throwing more external links at it probably won’t fix the underlying issue.

I’d first check whether the pages are being crawled at all and compare indexed vs non-indexed donors for things like internal depth, content quality and sitewide indexation. If the pages are already being crawled regularly but still not indexed, I’d stop spending money on rented homepage links and work on the donor/page quality instead.