Do I ditch the link building and risk the drop?

[draeseo]

I am currently on top of SERPS but am worried about some of the links being built by my seo company.

We add loads of content to the site which I think is fine.  We have somebody working on the on page and tech side of things which I think is fine.  However I am still paying an seo company which basically builds links for me.

Because I am in top spot for many terms I am nervous to turn it off.  However I am also nervous that one day I will wake up and we will have been penalized!  They do not build many links and they are convinced that google still want to see a varied link profile.  If I stop paying then some of the ‘better’ or higher PR sites will no longer have a link to my site and will therefore drop off.  We do have a great site with great content so I think we do many things well but I am nervous that these paid for links will be the death of me if I am not careful.

The question is do I get rid of the link building and risk the drop?  Or is a small amount of links just to keep the link profile looking Ok and not overdoing it the right move?

Thanks a lot.

Dave

[irvingw]

so you're paying for monthly links and not perm right? That's the problem with month to month deals like that you need to keep going.

You could stop for a few months and see if there is any negative rankings impact, rankings might remain the same.

are u 100% confident that this person knows what they are doing and you won't get penalized?

[draeseo]

Hi Irving,

Thanks for the reply.

I am never 100% sure they know what they are doing to be honest.  We dropped down after Panda but managed to get back up to top spot using:

• content - lots of fresh good content
• some on page changes ( this seo person uses their own software to analyse how our pages as seen. ) This seems good. Very white hat as far as I can see.
• Then I have another seo company that builds links.  Some of which look prety bad to me.  They justify the not so good links by saying that my 'link profile' has to be varied and these links are needed to maintain that profile.

The trouble is I'm not sure who is responsible for us getting back on the top spot.  I am tempted to stop for a few months as you say but we are very seasonal and my season starts in Feb so it could be a big risk.