Tier 2 links SEO packages for salons: a $99 offer taken apart
The offer below is a composite we wrote ourselves, modelled on what salon owners tend to receive by email. It is not a real company.
NoraSEO editorial team ·
Read this label first
"GlowUp Local Pack" is an invented example. We built it from common patterns so you can practise reading offers. Any resemblance to a real seller is accidental.
The offer, line by line
Price in the ad: $99 once. Promise in the ad: "page one for your city".
Line in the offer
What it usually is
Our reading
50 forum links
Profile pages and thread signatures on open forums
Mostly nofollow, mostly unread. Barely related to hair or skin.
20 tier 2 links
Links pointing at the links that point at you
Only useful if the first tier is good. Here it is not.
10 directory submissions
Listings on general business directories
Fine as citations, but they are not editorial placements.
5 "high DR" blog comments
Comments with your URL in the name field
Often deleted within weeks.
Monthly report
A spreadsheet of URLs
Shows activity, not results.
Why the maths does not work for a salon
Ninety-nine dollars for roughly eighty touches comes to about $1.20 each. Good placements on real sites cost more than that, so something in the bundle has to be thin. Ask yourself who reads any of it.
Tier 2 links are a method from the years when Penguin ran slowly. Google folded Penguin into its core ranking system in 2016, and announced its SpamBrain-based link spam update in December 2022. Layered link pyramids are what such systems were built to discount. Old trick, new filter.
You also have no say in which forums are used. Small-town salons gain nothing from a link on a forum about crypto. Our comparison of retainers and single links shows where the money does more, and the decision tree shows what to fix before spending any. Worth knowing.
Consider the same $99 spent differently. At roughly $30 a placement on relevant lifestyle blogs, it buys three links you can open and read. Three real pages beat eighty invisible ones. That is an example of arithmetic, not a forecast.
Then there is the report. A spreadsheet with 80 rows looks impressive on a Monday morning. Open five of the URLs, though, and you will often find a page with no visitors, no related content and sometimes a login wall. If a seller refuses to show live examples, assume the examples are thin.
Verdict on the example
Skip the bundle, keep the one useful idea
Directory listings with a consistent name, address and phone number help people and maps find you. Take that piece, do it by hand, and spend the rest on a few relevant placements you can inspect.
Forum links: pass.
Tier 2 links: pass.
Directories: do by hand, free where possible.
Relevant editorial placements: the part worth paying for, from $1 and up.
Red flags in any link offer you receive
A fixed number of links with no list of sites.
A promise of page one or the Google map pack.
Words like "safe forever", "risk-free" or "penalty-proof".
No sample of an article that is already live.
A price per link far below $1 with no explanation.
Payment demanded before any basket or order view exists.