Paid links and Google

[aidantech]

Hi All,

I have been reading all your posts re paid links and Google attitude to them and the fact that its difficult to determine which links are paid and which ones are not.

Anyways i have read arguments on all sides and was looking into the whole area
and was wondering has anyone used any of these brokers as their guidelines appear to fit in well with everything some of you guys have mentioned regarding quality incoming links.


Ie Here are their guidelines
http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/link-buying-guide.html:

1. Relevancy of the Site the Link is on
2. Link Popularity and Pagerank of the Site
3. Number of Outbound Links on the Page
4. Age of the Site the Link is on
5. Placement of Link (Zone)

Are these not good attributes a perspective incoming link should have?
Has anyone used any of these brokers: ie: http://www.textlinkbrokers.com

It sounds unfair to me that Google would penalize s such links , while at the same time running its own absence programme. This smacks of double standards as incredible has pointed out..

looking forward to your responses

Regards
Aidan

[thindenim]

I would say the best thing to do is actuallly ignore the brokers and find sites you would like a link from and email them yourself asking for a text link, which you will pay x for. Particularly where a site is a hobby site, the owner may be unaware that it has any value and you will potentially get a good link on the cheap.

They can only say no, and if you do get it, it's highly unlikely to be flagged as paid for by google.

[incrediblehelp]

Dont know if Google will penalize links, just ignore them more than likely. I do agree it would be hard to tell, but the tools Cutts/Google have and pretty powerful.

[marcel]

Originally Posted by thindenim

I would say the best thing to do is actuallly ignore the brokers and find sites you would like a link from and email them yourself asking for a text link, which you will pay x for. Particularly where a site is a hobby site, the owner may be unaware that it has any value and you will potentially get a good link on the cheap.

They can only say no, and if you do get it, it's highly unlikely to be flagged as paid for by google.

Sounds like a lot of work to me... and I usually ignore requests like that since it involves so much spammers, haggling and negotiation.

Links for sale brokers[/url] save you time. But of course, i would say that since I run Blog Posts For Sale

[craigmn3]

Sounds like a lot of work to me... and I usually ignore requests like that since it involves so much spammers, haggling and negotiation.

It is the quintessential problem of SEO....do it yourself and know you are getting the best effort and take incredible amounts of time. Or pay someone to do it and hope they have your best interests at heart.

[jrb@w3f.com]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Dont know if Google will penalize links, just ignore them more than likely. I do agree it would be hard to tell, but the tools Cutts/Google have and pretty powerful.

Oh great 'credible, how does 'G' penalize you?
How do they know to?
What do they see that is the trigger?

Your minions need to know...

[factoring]

Google has asked for webmasters to write sponsored link, paid link, ect. on their website. This is to inform the bots they are paid links.

They will also probably look for a cluster of links together in a sidebar from a non-authority site. This is most likely from paid links.

They do not penalize. They just don't count.

[ADAM Web Design]

First off, there is no way Google will possibly be able to catch every advertiser link without any associated attributes. It's like spam; there are just too many ways to set up such a link.

However, what I think will happen (and what I suspect Jaan thinks will happen) is that Google will algorithmically detect the more common patterns and setups.

factoring alluded to one (a cluster of links in a sidebar). Some others may be:

Common advertiser network codes (Burst, ValueClick, CasaleMedia)
CSS IDs and classes (e.g. #ads, #advertisers, .ad-link, .advertiser-spot)
Detection of phrases and patterns that indicate a link is being sold to game the SEs (e.g. "PR5 link for sale")

etc. and so on.

[aidantech]

Thanks for the replies lads, all points made were very interesting and informative.

My understanding then so far is as follows,

Its ok to sell a couple of links on your site as long as they are embedded well in text content and not in prominent positions or clustered together.

At worst if detected by Google they wont penalize the site but just ignore the links from a PR Perspective.

If i can sell a couple of links on my site to other high value sites and then use the revenue gained to by buy similar incoming links on other separate high value sites then its not a bad proposition.

I thought the brokerage was a good way of doing this, as it saves a lot of time as it places both willing parties together, and its strong on not entertaining low quality sites. is this not a perfect place for prospective linking partners to hang out?

By the way i have no vested interest in any link brokerage site or anything of that nature, im just a regular webmaster with an interest in IM.

Regards Aidan

[Webnauts]

I think you would like to read this too: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/a...nofollow/4473/

[jrb@w3f.com]

Link farms, with no other content should not be considered authority on subject (re keywords). Google needs to figure that out. But what if you have a directory with content, and some of them are paid?

The site just may be quite relevant to the keywords, since people are searching and decided to click on that Google entry? Duh!

I guess it all comes back to this whole link popularity crap. Popularity has NOTHING TO DO with relevance. They need to get away from that, or the searcher is going to continue to get a raw deal.

Note to Google: "Give us RELEVANT LINKS, not "popular" links and we stop all this wandering around to find what we want." Anyone with enough resources can become "popular"... so what? What does that have to do with me wanting to use your service to find what I am looking for? Remember? "Content is king, Not popularity?"

(MY 2 cents).

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by jrb@w3f.com

Oh great 'credible, how does 'G' penalize you?
How do they know to?
What do they see that is the trigger?

Your minions need to know...

I don't buy links so I honestly don't worry about.

At SES shows Matt shows off paid link identification in past sessions. He asks for a example website to see if he can find them, logs into his "G tools" and starts rattling them off to the Cutlets in the crowd.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I don't buy links so I honestly don't worry about.

I don't buy or exchange links, so I honestly don't worry about it either. :)

[factoring]

With this new algorithm, is it the sites selling the links or the buyer that is in danger?

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by factoring

With this new algorithm, is it the sites selling the links or the buyer that is in danger?

What new algorithm? Google never said anything has changed. They just want paid link reports and advice at this point. Of course that is not to say some negative weighting is being applied to paid links currently. I don't work at Google, so I dont know.

[SEO Recruit]

I think the nofollow attribute is the important issue here.

SEO Recruit

[aidantech]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I think you would like to read this too: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/a...nofollow/4473/

Thanks Webnauts, a very interesting article on the subject alright, i was aware of the nofollow attribute as i have seen Matt Cutts postings on this matter in his blog, I think its pretty obvious that Google are adamant about people using paid links to pass on page rank artificially and i think the are right in doing so.

Originally Posted by factoring

With this new algorithm, is it the sites selling the links or the buyer that is in danger?

I think that this is the million dollar question. As natural links will always be attractive from an SEO perspective and who is to know how they were attained. :>)

Regards Aidan

[aidantech]

After a period of reflection i agree with this policy of preventing artificial links and agree with incredible in that links should be for traffic and not to artificially inflate page rank.

I think Google are actually leveling the playing field by ensuring all links that are natural are indeed a vote for reasons other that financial ones.

I think trust rank will replace page rank and that building links from authority sites such as human edited directories with the nofollow attribute will still have value but this will be measured differently in the future..

Regards Aidan