Link Selling - Unethical or Just Unwise?

[Tubby]

To webnauts.
John, I am perfectly happy to recommend you as the most meticulous SEO I know. ( I think probably incrediblehelp is a bit more in touch with reality though)


But I do see you as a vigilante (self appointed) on behalf of google's guidelines. I think nobody is corrupt, unethical, or dirty, because they simply do not follow guidelines from Google that say use a 'nofollow' tag. (You publicly say they are.)

You can sit there saying you do not do this John.
I will sit here all night saying you do. .

P.S. This would make anyone who creates a website using most wygiwys editors - "dirty" (unless of course they sent the html to you to clean it up....

[Webnauts]

Tubby if we would always agree, we would not have any chance to debate here.

Even if we do not agree at some points, I still love you man.

[Kate Lennon]

Oops. Apologies: please disregard.

[Tubby]

John said
"Even if we do not agree at some points, I still love you man."

That pretty mutal John. (you still give me the shits sometimes, my sons do that as well. . I love them anyway)

[dirtydavid]

Link selling is not unethical or unwise.

As many have already said on this page, it is how google itself makes its money.

Google is very broken, in almost any logical search terms users would enter the first few results offered by google bear little relation to the original enquiry. They are almost always dominated by lists not websites.

My first entry to prove this was pet shops in bedford - the first relevant item on the list was at position number 5. I have tried using google many times myself to find things and given up to use an engine that gives better results.

PR does not matter very much, my main site has a PR of 5 sometimes 4, I get over 5000 uniques a day, of which 80 come from google (on a good day). Many sites come out above me for my search terms most with lower pr.

Google does not address the things that matter sites using your site name to gain prominence, placing your site name on a landing page 100 times so it always rates above you.

I moved away from trying to please google 3 years ago, I gave up trying to please them after spending over $1000US a month for a year for SEO's to try and get a good placement on Google. (in this time my visitor numbers went down and my PR slipped - because we got rid of most reciprocal links (I have re-instated many of them, and they are again the main source of users to my sites, people follow links) I now only ever look at my placement on G or test their results when a message like the one from webproworld yestaerday lands in my inbox.

The stated aim of Google many years ago when they launched themselves was "To do no harm", by their actions over the years they have hurt many small businesses by listing the results badly, hurt many webmasters by changing the way they need to code their pages every so often, and hurt themselves now with their poor algorithms.

Ethics and google should not be used in the same sentence.

Unwise and google are a very good match

David

[edhan]

Originally Posted by dirtydavid

Link selling is not unethical or unwise.

As many have already said on this page, it is how google itself makes its money.

David

My personal opinion that I do agree with David that link selling is not unethical or unwise from business aspect. Building a website is to make money, whether selling a product or service. Before selling links, personally I will find out who and what am I linking to. I won't want to sell a link to porn site when I am doing something else like selling educational toys.

[Webnauts]

I just invited Matt Cutts to visit this thread. I hope he will have the time to express Googles point of view.

[Aviator]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

...They have a right to try and stop it, but how does that make buying or selling the commodity they released on the open market, a matter of ethics?

I'm listening, MJ

Google created this mess and now that it's falling apart, they are trying to save it. Simple as that. But it won't work, short of their current heavy-handed intrusion into the free market, nothing is going to impinge on the market as long as Google is the only game in town and they value back links.

We have three choices. Quit using Google so much so as to help diversify the market, fall in line with their rules or buck them and suffer the consequences if caught.

Or... come up with a better, more reliable method. That's what I've done and they are going to copy.

My toolbar reports PR (I call mine 'penetration ratio') using the total number of people actually bookmarking the website. Scaled from 0-100, this metric cannot be bought or sold or influenced by any trading schemes. Your site simply must be bookmarked by others or it won't receive a high ranking. It parallels Google's PageRank very closely where link-selling/trading hasn't been involved.

Now, in case you haven't figured it out. This will be the next thing that Google 'invents'. They are going to use the information from their 'free' bookmarking service for Firefox to copy this technique and add it in with their current technology as soon as they have sucked in enough users to give them decent statistics to work with.


For more info:
Sync2It - The BookmarkSync Toolbar

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

On another thread, The ability to pass pagerank. Can it be lost?, there was a suggestion that selling links is unethical.

In the current climate of Google's war on paid links, I certainly see that selling links is unwise, but is it unethical?

Merriam Webster defines ethics as 1: the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation and 2: a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values.

Google based its search technology on an evaluation of site/page popularity (PageRank or PR), and then publicized the results through its toolbar. Webmasters capitalized on that information by first trading and then buying & selling links to help affect the PR of their own sites. Google's response: don't do it. And please help us stop it.

Fine. They have a right to try and stop it, but how does that make buying or selling the commodity they released on the open market, a matter of ethics?

I'm listening, MJ

I guess that it's not the product that is to be considered unethical, but the way that it's sold. If you make your client believe that he's going to get super rankings in Google because of the links you´re selling to him, then you´re being unethical.

It's like that song:

"It aint what you do, it's the way that you do it"

[RichAtVNS]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I copy here what I wrote in another thread, so no one will blame me for hijacking this thread:

Some statements of Google. Please read carefully:

Source: Why should I report paid links to Google?

Source: Link schemes

Source: Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Information about buying and selling links that pass PageRank

Reading all the above, I do not see anything unfair from the part of Google. It is a fair and an ethical requirement to protect the webmasters from spamindexers or black hat SEOs, and the searchers from manipulated and irrelevant search results, and above all that to improve their search engine quality.

I have observe this topic for a while, and I have noticed that they hit the PageRank of the pages where bought or sold links have been found, but reading the bolded in red marked phrases, whole site can be negatively affected in terms of ranking results.

I am not a fan of anyone, except of myself but still I think Mr. Cutts wrote something which this time I fully agree with him: Selling links that pass PageRank

After reading the above, I do not think there is any space left to blame Google for anything. If you want to hide links, just do. But do it clever enough that you can pass the PR. If you do that, you must know that you are already wearing a BLACK HAT!!! You are not doing anything else than cloaking or whatever you want to call it. to manipulate the search results! I am against such dirty practices and I reported several sites already to Google. Who's next please?

JUST MY LAST FEW DOLLARS...

As to the first quoted method...

I can see a reason why someone would report it.....
If they were my competition essentially spending to get ahead of me in page rankings instead of having relevant content on their own site and selling superior product.

I would report them as fast as I go after someone who has hijacked my content.
--------

Having an fair playing field is the only ethical thing in a capatalistic game.

Andrew Carnegie fell under Anti-Trust/Monopoly laws because US Steel bought up the train lines and then used them to get unfair advantage against their competitors.

MA Bell got broke up because no one could enter the phone market, now 30 years later we have a plethora of phone companies and services!

Microsoft had one of the longest antitrust lawsuits because of unfair use of internal codes on it's Windows operating system after saying to all it's developers of software (including the competition) that they were using a fully open API.

Companies are regulated all the time in specific industries against doing certain practices.

Would it be ethical to dump PCBs in the hudson river just because your factory was there and let the government clean it up? Oh wait that's what GE did and got slammed after 30 years.

For all of you who play the internet like the wild west, just understand that even that got tamed.

Is it unethical to buy and sell links for page rank? that's the question...

It should read "Can a large company spend lots money to get an unfair business advantage and crush smaller businesses in a sector?"

Take a look at what google them self does with ebay advertisng in Adwords already and you have your answer!

Darn tootin it is definately unethical... But then again so is most SEO!!!! LOL

[williemanillie]

Sure it's unethical. However, there's nothing that can be done about it other than Google knocking down the lists or page rank.

It's cheating. Simple.

[Feydakin]

Rich - each of your examples involve a company or person breaking a properly enacted law.. We are talking about a rather larger company telling you how you should run your business to make their business easier.. No "laws" being broken at all..

[puamana]

I think it really depends on what business you are in or focused on. If all your revenues come from paid links, and linking is your business, then how can paid links be unethical? They are certainly not unethical for Google. (See Rentalo, VRBO and others.)

On the other hand, if your website is an adjunct to your business, and you get your income from the services it advertises, and by some incredible luck, longevity (or hard work!) you've managed to gain a good pagerank on Google, you'll be inundated with emails daily asking you to exchange links with sites that are manipulating the Google pagerank results (or attempting to). I dump these requests into the recycle bin immediately, especially if they are asking for a link to several third-party sites, or even MENTION the word 'pagerank' in their request.

I provide a 'freelinks' area for people to submit links to, that allows me to review the site
and decide if it meets my qualifications for linking, and if it does, I approve it - if it doesn't, I delete it. (Basically, no gambling, phishing or adult content sites.) Just about anything else is fair game for my freelinks pages. I don't consider the freelinks pages to be 'quality' links, since they are held in a data file and displayed on the 'fly'. No return link is requested or necessary.

IF I am approached by a real siteowner for a site that has real, valuable content that I think my clients would like to visit, then I go to the trouble of adding the link to my ACTUAL links page (hard-coded), and I request a return link from the submitting site.

I've followed this policy for many years, and the result has been a good pagerank for my own site. I have no plans to charge for these links, though I probably COULD at this point... It just seems greedy to me. I've gained my pagerank status through years of ethical conduct regarding links. Why mess with a good thing?

Puamana

[chrisJumbo]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I have a problem with Google if they would allow the rich and powerful to buy the #1 position of the ORGANIC (FREE) SEARCH RESULTS! If that would happen, that would not be anymore a serious business model. It would be if they would switch to paid search with bids, which would be absolutely fine with me.

And here is the crux of the issue. The SEOers view paid links as unfair. The feel like people are buying their way to the top. The Paid Linkers view SEOers as a bunch of holier-than-thou page manipulaters. Neither is right.

Google doesn't make you pay them, but they most certainly make you pay in blood, sweat, money (to others), time and/or tears.

You either follow their guidelines or you don't get ranked. You either spend your time or pay someone else to make sure your pages meet their guidelines (if you want to rank in their search engine). It is that simple.

SEO/SEM is manipulation. There are just certain techniques that Google has said are okay and others are not. It is their search engine. They can dictate their terms. They can change their terms, as well (and we all know they do). They currently don't like hidden paid links. You are free to continue your business, they are free to continue theirs.

The fact is they have to have a way of ranking sites. If 6,480,000 sites all have the term CD Rates on it, how do you suggest to the searcher which is the best. At this point, the majority of people use Google and believe they return the best answers. A big part being viewed as the best is links. Google wants those to be natural links. Trust given, because trust was earned.

I don't believe it is unethical to sell/buy links. I don't believe SEO/SEM is unethical. You do what works the best for you. I don't believe Google is unethical in their dictates. It is their search engine. If you don't like it build your own and then spend your blood, sweat, money, time, and tears getting others to believe it is better than what is already out there. It is marketing either way. Marketing is about making (manipulating) your message so that it is more attractive than others with the "same" message. It really isn't about ethics, assuming you aren't falsefying information.

If you want to toe the Google line, don't be surprised when they move it and you are on the other side.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by chrisJumbo

SEO/SEM is manipulation. There are just certain techniques that Google has said are okay and others are not.

I am an SEO and I do not attempt to manipulate search engines in anyway, and I do not care which techniques Google or other search engines like or not. All of them have to like my techniques. And I only have success. So please stop spreading such fairy tails.

[Feydakin]

Webnauts, I realize that English is not your first language so let me provide the definition for you from dictionary.com..

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
ma·nip·u·la·tion /məˌnɪpyəˈleɪʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[muh-nip-yuh-ley-shuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. the act of manipulating.
2. the state or fact of being manipulated.
3. skillful or artful management.

Take a real close look at #3.. Manipulation in itself is not evil.. And to claim what you do is not manipulation is either a misunderstanding of what the word means, which I really think is the case for you, or you are being deceptive, which I don't think is the case..

You manipulate the pages you work on in an attempt to help them rank higher in the search engines.. Why are you so offended by that??