It happens because link building is the one part of search engine optimization that feels like it can be bought, and when sales are flat, buying something feels a lot better than waiting. I talked through this on the Keep Optimizing podcast with Chloe Thomas, alongside Justin and Luke Carthy. The Backlink Purchase That Costs You TwiceThe pattern is almost boring at this point. Then two or three weeks pass, and the rankings slide back down, usually lower than where they started. You are out the money, and you have a backlink profile full of low-quality referring domains that somebody has to clean up before the site can build real authority again.