On October 19, 2026, we read through every word of the published packages from 9 content marketing providers. Most of what was listed as price on their price lists was about articles. The oddest thing to read was the promotion. What a package would do to get your site linked from other sites.
Backlink is a link from another site to yours. Only one of the nine packages offered included regular guest posts (i.e. putting an article on other sites). The content subscription package (ranging from $1,200 - $2,750 per month) included 1 guest post per month.
There were two other packages that claimed 100s of links. A local SEO package listed "100 backlinks" for $350/month. The write-up also covers a local SEO plan with 100-230 backlinks per month for $350-$850/month. A bundled marketing package from $1,950-$9,000/month advertised a "40 to 350 approximate backlinks."
Compare that to a local SEO and ads package for $1,050 a month that included 4 to 6 outreach links per year. Outreach links are links that are acquired by reaching out to other sites. The 100 links per month and 4 to 6 links per year are two very different measures of links.
We think hundreds of links a month at those prices are almost certainly directory or network links. Link spam is defined in Google's spam policies (updated August 28, 2026) as creating links "primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings". "low-quality directory or bookmark site links" is one of the examples given. They don't mention network links. That half is our guess.
Also, we have a data point about the nature of the junk. 12 small businesses (like an Austin plumber, Denver dentist, etc...) who rank on Google's first page, links pulled on October 19, 2026. We examined their top 300 linking domains. Approximately 79% of the domains were link farms - nearly identical "backlink services" directory sites that weren't created by any of the businesses. (That's in our white hat link building guide)
We couldn't verify what links you get from a $350 plan, and the write-up doesn't name the 9 providers. We read the packages on one day. We see what a provider says they will provide on a price page, but not what they do deliver. One of the six questions in the write up, what does "promotion" mean to them, where do links come from?
Ram writes about this for RankControl, an AI SEO and AEO platform. RankControl's Link Control finds backlink prospects for every article and drafts the outreach from your mailbox. The full write-up has all ten price lines, the extras and the contract terms.