Paid link converted to no-follow after a month... recourse?

[motocross123]

I bought a niche edit backlink that I found through manual outreach about a month ago. It was originally a do follow but at some point since it was switched to be no-follow. I understand this is a common scam link sellers will do but is there any recourse here or a way to prevent it from happening again in the future?

 

[Steve Brownlie]

Moan at them 'nicely' and ask politely for the money back. People will often just put it back to get rid of you. Even doing natural outreach you can often get people to remove the nofollow in the link they put to your piece if you just ask a couple times so if you actually sent someone money it's hard for them to deal with your politeness. Failing that you can mention that you'll have to put a dispute in with PayPal if they don't just quickly refund you or sort it - although PayPal almost certainly won't give your money back the seller likely knows the nuisance you're going to cause them and if they've had a few disputes before they can even get their account locked etc. Part of the reason to only use PayPal when buying these kinds of things. People are more scared of the inconvenience/hassle than of the outcome.

It doesn't happen very often though so I wouldn't sweat it too much - though it is happening a tiny bit more at the moment because of all the FUD Google put out over links this year - it reminds me of the Penguin era a little bit where webmasters were freaking out and nofollowing and deleting things. It always seems to wear off after a few months though so unless you're horribly unlucky I don't think you'll be dealing with this situation very often.