I've decided to perform a test on link building services and publish my experiences with it. While I've always been one to believe in "slow and steady wins the race", I've got to admit that I've often been curious to see what an active link building campaign can actually do for SEO on the short and long term.

Obviously there has been a great amount of success out there with link building campaigns. The trouble is, most use gray or even black-hat tactics to build up back links to their websites. This can cause tremendous short term results, but in the long run, search engines tend to catch on and can penalize or even ban websites for their "sins".

With this risk heavy on my mind, I went ahead and logged on to oDesk and hired a VA (virtual assistant) to start a link-building campaign for one of the websites that I control. Right in my job description I stated that I only wanted quality back links from quality websites, using only white-hat SEO and link building tactics. I got several responses from qualified contractors on the site, but eventually went with the applicant that had the most experience with what I wanted to do and  had the best reviews. This VA happens to live in India, though I reviewed candidates in the US, Pakistan, Bangladesh, as well as the Philippines.

Starting now, I will be getting weekly reports on the status of the link building campaign that this individual has launched. I will also be tracking the results with some of my own tools, namely Market Samurai, also seen on my SEO Resources page.

I'll be letting you know how this goes as the campaign picks up steam in the coming days and weeks. It will be very interesting to see which side I eventually come down on (if any). I'm itching to know what the short and long term effects will be in the search engines, as well as if I feel it is a completely white-hat SEO operation. Needless to say, it'll be exciting to find out!