Matt Cutts blogged about reporting paid links to Google over the weekend and in 2 days, the post attracted over 200 comments. The reactions ranged from disbelief to anger to gratitude. So what is all this fuss about buying and selling links? Read on. Google ranks their search results based on a number of factors - the 2 most important being relevance and authority. This means that webpages that are most trust-worthy and relevant (as determined by Google) to what a user is searching for will rank higher. The “relevance” portion is easy since you have control over your webpages, but what about gaining “trust”? You can achieve this by making use of Google’s Pagerank information which is a sort of trust indicator - yes, that little green bar has more use than for showing off. Basically, you buy links on relevant websites with high Pageranks whereby each link is counted by the search engines as a “vote” for your website. This has created a secondary market of paid links for SEO. If you searched Google for “buy links for SEO”, you’ll find a bucket load of brokers and marketplaces in both the organic and sponsored results. Google frowns upon this tactic and according to Matt’s blog, is going to provide a way for people to report the buying and selling of links to “game” the search results. If caught, your website won’t be able to “pass on trust” anymore. Hence Matt advises the use of javascript, redirects or the nofollow attribute when posting paid links on your webpages. Infact, Matt had indicated that even links in sponsored blog posts, reviews and articles are included in Google’s definition of paid links. This extreme announcement has raised many questions like: While the main benefit is that it will “level the paying field for the smaller guys” like someone commented, it will also most certainly force all commerical websites to go the advertising route, e.g. Google Adwords? :) It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Personally, I think there is nothing wrong with being able to buy links for better rankings, although I’ve never found the need to. I mean even a guilty man can be freed on technical grounds if he has the money to hire the better lawyer - is that fair? Then again, maybe it is time for a web 2.0 search engine where the results won’t depend on the algo of 1 search engine, but the collective opinions of the users. Your thoughts?
- why should I do the work? Can’t Google come up with a better ranking method?
- how do you differentiate paid links for traffic and paid links for SEO?
- won’t competitors start reporting one another?
- why make the Pagerank information available then? Most people don’t even know its function.
- will this be the end for SEO services since link building is the primary weapon?
- what about the $299/yr link on Yahoo Directory? Almost everyone’s objective is for SEO.
- why does Google allow link brokers to advertise on Adwords if it’s not encouraged?
Google wants to ban everything which is not making money for them. Don’t allow links, because this could hurt Google ads. One way to go against all of this Google dictatorship is to click on any Google ad you see, this will reduce ROI and people will advertise less on a selfish and arrogant company which is behaving like EVIL!
Comment by Pedro Delgado on April 17, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Google can’t stop people from advertising. They can try, but they won’t succeed.
Comment by Darren McLaughlin on April 17, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Pedro is right. Paid SEO links reduces the relevance of Google Search. And Google Search is their core biz.
Read : http://blog.harro.com/2007/04/17/the-pay-per-post-plague/
Comment by Harro! on April 17, 2007 at 9:25 pm
I think this is nonsense. Moreover, do we now have to report all the directories that have paid submissions? Is that also considered paid links? :)
Comment by ZoomY on April 17, 2007 at 11:55 pm
For you people earning money from paid reviews and links, you slam Google.
For the general user, paid links are plain bad. It distorts the search results and we might not find the site most relevant to us, instead of a site that has money to pay for SEO and reviews.
Google is providing a free service, one that improved the user-friendliness of the Internet, only in exchange for little text ads.
Why are you guys jealous of Google making money? Why are you slamming Google because they say correctly that paid links and SEO is cheating, and bad for the general user?
Comment by aw on April 18, 2007 at 12:04 am
2 aw
Basically you need to see the difference between links bought for PR sake and simple paid ads which lead to relevant resources. Paid link is not necessarily spam.
Comment by ZoomY on April 18, 2007 at 12:12 am
aw: “…in exchange for little text ads”.
I don’t think making revenues exceeding US$2.5 billion a quarter is “little”. :)
If every commercial website have to go the Adwords route, imagine how much a spot on the sponsored links column will cost. Can small mom and pop shops afford an ad?
And should webmasters be doing more work to help improve Google’s search results or should Google themselves come up with a better ranking algo? Remember that a better search engine means more users and hence, more advertisers. Who benefits more in the end - Google or the webmasters?
Comment by Larry on April 18, 2007 at 12:15 am
So…if my blog gives free reviews because I enjoying giving my 2 cents worth on other people’s blogs as well as giving them some publicity and link (free), my blog will forever be condemned as an untrusted blog???
Comment by pablopabla on April 20, 2007 at 2:41 pm
pablopabla: it’s ok if you’re linking because you think that they deserve a “vote”. But for paid reviews, link exchanges, etc. Google wants you to use the nofollow attribute - see why many webmasters are pissed? :)
Comment by Larry on April 20, 2007 at 4:40 pm