Robert Scoble says that some SEO’s are paying bloggers to do some link juicing.

Even more troubling? Are the search engine optimization companies that are hiring bands of bloggers to link to certain things so they get better Google Juice (higher relevancy on Google). They do this without reporting that they are doing this.

And he clarifies in the comments:

SEO’s are hiring networks of “authoritative” bloggers to link to their stuff. That locks everyone else out.

Seriously? Who has the lack of integrity to do something like that?

Oh, who am I kidding! I am willing to put money down that there are people reading this post right now who are thinking, “Where do I sign up!?”

I don’t see how any sort of decent, popular blogger could get away with linking to poker-phentermine-coolness.super_dee_dooper.com and not get caught. Wouldn’t their reader immediately notice the crap spammy links?

The only answer I have: That the only companies doing the paying are those that run large, reputable websites that want gobs of link juice. How would you know if I linked to nytimes.com that I wasn’t paid by an SEO (hired by the Times) to do so? You wouldn’t, and you’d continue to read the Times’ website instead of one that I would normally link to because I considered them a better source.

This whole idea depresses me. Can we catch and out these people? Please?

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

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