Best way to get backlinks from blogs

[paul911]

Been doing some research and appears that a good way to boost our google rankings is to get some backlinks. I'm told linking back from blogs is good.
Anyone have experience with this?
Should I be paying for it to be done by some dodgy, on a bunch of dodgy sites?
Cheers.

[rank1]

Keep researching SEO and you should answer your question about paying for it from dodgy sites.
(Try googling "black hat SEO")

[intelliGEORGE]

I will dig up a list of PR sites that are used for this exact thing. I was doing it with my websites. The aim is to get your anchored backlinks on sites that have high google page ranks. It is time consuming to do yourself, I was writing atleast 4 articles a week and posting them on 25 PR sites but it does work.

[z1gg33]

have not used this in years..... so umm might not be suitable for you needs (or obsolete)

[intelliGEORGE]

Download the WSO pdf, it's a step-by-step guide with a list of PR sites to get you started.

[paul911]

thanks to all.
What about buying a site in the same business that is no longer used.
It used to rank highly on google about 6 months ago, but we ran him out of business.
Is it worth buying his domain name and forwarding to our site?
How would I put a value on it?

[intelliGEORGE]

If the website is established and has good traffic then definately buy it. Stick in a banner saying "we have moved here" and put a link to the site you want to fully maintain.

[paul911]

If the website is established and has good traffic then definately buy it. Stick in a banner saying "we have moved here" and put a link to the site you want to fully maintain.

I have got the site, but it's only the domain name. I have got cheap hosting and have it live with your advice above of links to our other site.
It has good google history, but the site structure is gone (and some of the links point to missing pages).
When you click on a google link, it comes up as a 404. I have changed the 404 to direct to the new homepage, which works well.
My question is, should I keep this or create a 301 redirect to the new homepage?
What is best for google rankings/crawling?

[rank1]

A 301 would be best because it will maintain its rank and pass that on to your site, while serving the same purpose of a we have moved page - which is to send customers to the new site.
I can only assume its rank will drop if the site's only content is "we have moved here"

You can consider doing a 301 to a landing page specifically targeting his existing clients so they don't get freaked out by the new site having a different name etc, but then all the juice will go to your landing page and not your home page.