How to report paid links

Update, 3/2/2009: Use this authenticated paid link report form now.

One thing I heard at SES London was that people wanted a way to report paid links specifically. I’d like to get a few paid link reports anyway because I’m excited about trying some ideas here at Google to augment our existing algorithms. Google may provide a special form for paid link reports at some point, but in the mean time, here’s a couple of ways that anyone can use to report paid links:

– Sign in to Google’s webmaster console and use the authenticated spam report form, then include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report. If you use the authenticated form, you’ll need to sign in with a Google Account, but your report will carry more weight.
– Use the unauthenticated spam report form and make sure to include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report.

As far as the details, it can be pretty short. Something like “Example.com is selling links; here’s a page on example.com that demonstrates that” or “www.shadyseo.com is buying links. You can see the paid links on www.example.com/path/page.html” is all you need to mention. That will be enough for Google to start testing out some new techniques we’ve got — thanks!

Update, May 12th, 2007: I finally got some time to circle back around to this subject. I wanted to add an example or two of the sorts of reports that we’d be interested in getting, and try to answer a few questions about paid links. Let’s start with some questions.

Q: Can you give me some more background on how Google views paid links?
A: Absolutely. Start with this post from 2005. It’s a pretty good review of our policies at the time (e.g. link sellers can lose trust, such as their ability to flow PageRank/anchortext. Also, we’re open to semi-automatic approaches to ignore paid links, which could include the best of algorithmic and manual approaches.). You can also read about panels at search conferences where we did a site review and how much paid links stood out in a site review. I even mentioned earlier this year that paid articles/reviews/posts should be done in a way that doesn’t affect search engines. Here’s a post from January, for example, where I said:

Yet another “pay-for-blogging” (PFB) business launched, this time by Text Link Brokers. It should be clear from Google’s stance on paid text links, but if you are blogging and being paid by services like Pay Per Post, ReviewMe, or SponsoredReviews, links in those paid-for posts should be made in a way that doesn’t affect search engines. The rel=”nofollow” attribute is one way, but there are numerous other ways to do paid links that won’t affect search engines, e.g. doing an internal redirect through a url that is forbidden from crawling by robots.txt.

So this post shouldn’t be a surprise; it’s inline with our previous discussion of paid links. Some people wanted a way to report potential paid links and that was the main reason for this post.

Q: Now when you say “paid links,” what exactly do you mean by that? Do you view all paid links as potential violations of Google’s quality guidelines?
A: Good question. As someone working on quality and relevance at Google, my bottom-line concern is clean and relevant search results on Google. As such, I care about paid links that flow PageRank and attempt to game Google’s rankings. I’m not worried about links that are paid but don’t affect search engines. So when I say “paid links” it’s pretty safe to add in your head “paid links that flow PageRank and attempt to game Google’s rankings.”

Q: Can you give me an example of the sort of things you’d be interested in hearing about?
A: Sure. Here are some paid text links on a site dedicated to Linux:

Example paid links

There are a few interesting things about these links. If you take off your webmaster hat and put on a user hat for a minute, you quickly start asking yourself questions like “Why is a Linux site linking to a bunch of poker, pills, and gambling sites?” Users often consider links like this spammy or low-quality. I’m sure some people will happily defend links like these, but in my experience people who search on Google don’t want links like these to affect Google’s search results.

There are a couple other interesting things about these links. First, you can’t tell it from the image, but the “Sponsored Links” text in the example above is actually an image, not text. The rest of that site is very text-heavy, so the choice to make the “Sponsored Links” be an image is potentially trying to avoid detection of these links as paid. I can’t be sure that’s the reason, of course — maybe they just wanted that phrase to be pretty. The second interesting thing about these links is that our current approach to paid links worked quite well in this case. Our existing algorithms had already discounted these links without any people involved. However, our manual spamfighters had detected these links as well.

Q: So in addition to algorithms, Google has people who take action on spam?
A: Algorithms and algorithmic spamfighting are an essential way to improve Google’s quality, but Google does reserve the right to take manual action on spam (here’s a reference from 2004 where GoogleGuy, a search engine rep, said that Google can take manual action on spam). For example, if someone reports off-topic, keyword-stuffed porn for someone’s name, we do reserve the right to take manual action on that. In my personal opinion, Google’s philosophy on webspam is to look for scalable, robust approaches that improve our quality (with a heavy emphasis on algorithms). I did an interview last year with John Battelle where I gave my personal opinion in more detail.

Q: That paid link example was helpful. Can you give me another example?
A: Sure. This one also has “paid advertising” as an image, but our existing algorithms still discount these links:

Example paid links

Q: Okay, that example gives me a feel for the sort of paid links you’d like to hear about. What will you do with the new reports you get?
A: There are several ways that we intend to use the data. Our current algorithm detected the paid links above just fine, but these outside reports are a great way to measure (and then improve) the precision and recall of our existing algorithms on independent data. Next, the reports help build datasets for future algorithms. So the data helps us build the next generation of algorithms to improve quality. It also lets us work on new tools and techniques to improve how we detect paid links. Finally, we can investigate and take direct action on many reports that we receive.

Q: This is all well and fine, but I decide what to do on my site. I can do anything I want on it, including selling links.
A: You’re 100% right; you can do absolutely anything you want on your site. But in the same way, I believe Google has the right to do whatever we think is best (in our index, algorithms, or scoring) to return relevant results.

Q: It’s Google’s job to return clean/relevant results regardless of what people do on the web, so I don’t intend to send any feedback to Google.
A: You’re right, it is our job. If you’d rather not send any feedback to Google, I respect that decision. The primary intent of this post was to enable the people who did want to send us reports to do so. I appreciate when people do send us feedback, because that data helps Google improve its search quality and helps Google design new algorithms to give better results.

Q: Are you getting pretty good reports in response to this post?
A: Definitely. We’re getting a nice quantity of reports — I believe that we’ve gotten more paid link reports than there are comments on this thread. The quality is also high, in that many of the reports are pretty detailed. It’s also cool that (at least from a quick glance at our reports), a majority of the reports appear to be going to our authenticated form. I’m glad to see people using that form, because we can give those authenticated reports more weight.

Q: I’m worried that someone will buy links to my site and then report that.
A: We’ve always tried very hard to prevent site A from hurting site B. That’s why these reports aren’t being fed directly into algorithms, and are being used as the starting point rather than being used directly. You might also want to review the policy mentioned in my 2005 post (individual links can be discounted and sellers can lose their ability to pass on PageRank/anchortext/etc., which doesn’t allow site A to hurt site B).

Q: Are you interested in things like affiliate links? Are you interested in hearing about directories in this report?
A: Nope, I’d be most interested in feedback like the examples that I mentioned above, or things like paid posts that might affect search engines. If you’re still unsure what sort of reports we’d like to get, that’s okay. Fortunately, the vast majority of people sending in reports are on the same wavelength and are sending in solid feedback like the examples above.

Q: Hey, as long as we’re talking about directories, can you talk about the role of directories, some of whom charge for a reviewer to evaluate them?
A: I’ll try to give a few rules of thumb to think about when looking at a directory. When considering submitting to a directory, I’d ask questions like:
– Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site.
– What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.
– If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.

Those are a few factors I’d consider. If you put on your user hat and ask “Does this seem like a high-quality directory to me?” you can usually get a pretty good sense as well, or ask a few friends for their take on a particular directory.

Q: Google’s quality guidelines say “Make sites for users, not search engines.” Put that in context for me; how does that interact with buying links?
A: If someone is buying text links to try to rank higher on search engines, they’re already doing something intended more for search engines than for users. If you finish that guideline, you’ll see that it’s talking about doing radically different things for engines versus users (for example, cloaking or creating doorway pages). It would be a misinterpretation of that guideline to think “Okay, I can only do things for users, I can never do things for search engines. Therefore I can buy text links, but not in a way that doesn’t affect search engines.” That same philosophy would mean that you wouldn’t create a robots.txt file (users don’t check those), never make any meta tags (users don’t see meta tags), never create an XML sitemap file (users wouldn’t know about them), and wouldn’t create web pages that validate (users wouldn’t notice). Yet these are all great practices to do. So if you want to buy links, I’d buy them for users/traffic, not for PageRank/search engines.

Q: Suppose I didn’t want to read all the comments on this post. Did you post any other nuggets that I should be aware of?
A: Hmm. Well, someone did mention AdSense spam and so I reiterated how to report MFA or AdSense spam. I’ll quote that for folks that are interested:

If you see a spammy or made-for-AdSense site, do the following:
– Click on the “Ads by Google” link.
– At the bottom of the page, click on the “Send Google your thoughts on the site or the ads you just saw” link and fill out the form.
– When you fill out the form, at the bottom you’ll get to a section that says “Add additional information here:”. Include the word “spamreport” all in one word to make sure that the webspam team can see the feedback.

I don’t want any Google user to encounter spam, so please feel free to use Google’s authenticated spam report form for any other type of spam. We can also handle authenticated spam reports in several different languages.

Q: I kinda liked that nugget. Got any other interesting nuggets?
A: One rule of thumb is that if a link seller is talking about how hard it is to find a paid link or how paid links are made so that no one will know, that’s probably a bad sign to Google. For example, someone forwarded me an alleged email from one link seller that went like this:

Matt says they will try to find the links. This is where our service really cleans up ALL the competors! Google may be able to find the competition very easily (sitewide links are easy to spot), but our ads are too hard to find. Here’s why…

1. I have removed all identifying “buy here” items (ads/html/divs), making our ads hard to find.

4. Our service is not high profile, not flashy, not well known… making our ads hard to find.

Personally, when the link seller is talking about how a paid link is hard to find, that would worry me. (Yes, this was a different company than the post I did about undetectable paid links and spam earlier this year.)

Q: I don’t think paid links are the biggest threat to Google’s quality. I think technique X is having a bigger impact; why aren’t you tackling that?
A: It’s a safe assumption that Google’s webspam team is working on several different things at once. The posts I did in mid-April were mainly to reiterate Google’s stance on paid links and provide a way that people can give us feedback if they want. I hope that the examples above give an idea of the sort of things that people want to tell us about, and that we want to hear about.

885 Responses to How to report paid links (Leave a comment)

  1. So is Google saying we can not sell links? or?

  2. Dont think thats a great idea. So does that mean I can go on adbrite, text-link-ads, payperpost, and reviewme then go report all those sites?

    There needs to be a difference between selling text links for the sake of PR or SEO vs selling text links for advertising. This wont be easy to determine so I think its a horrible idea.

  3. Heres one for you to start on.
    http://www.forbes.com/mesothelioma_attorney.html

    What is Google going to actually do to people who buy & sell links and forget to use nofollow? Penalties? Devaluing of all their links? Discounting of only the paid links?

    I think we need to know where this is heading before people start firing off reports on who just paid $10 for a blogroll link.

  4. I don’t think this is a smart idea for a second.

    Why? Well simply put online businesses will now be able to knock out the competition just by making some false reports.

    There needs to be a better way for this. Selling links isn’t necessarily spam, either. =

    Your own company does it through it’s advertising network! 😮

  5. Cool! I will quickly buy some links for my competitors on text link ads and then denounce him. Good idea, thanks Matt.

  6. How can I tell if a link is “paid”? What if it’s just a helper for a friend (paid in form of a beer)? Are links on a web-designer’s homepage to their clients paid? Are general links to your clients paid (eg “buy my service/product and I’ll link to you – your site will be better off”)?

    What will happen to the person with the links on their page? Are we getting the publisher penalized or are the links just going to be ignored (“penalty” for the advertiser)? There’s a big difference and I’m sure it will matter. If the publisher is going to get penalized many people (especially those reading your blog :-)) will think twice about reporting such a link. If the link is just discounted then it’s a whole different story.

    I’m kinda worried about this move …

  7. wow ,

    is this another 1th of April fool day joke ?

    Things are starting to be messy over here 🙂

  8. How many more trojan horses Matt? Nofollow was supposed to help us point out links we can’t vouch for, now Google wants us to use it on paid links. Now, the spam report – which we thought was supposed to be used for reporting spam activity – is to be used to report “suspected” paid links?
    What’s next? Asking us to share our Google Analytics data so you can weed out the pages that users don’t find interesting?

    With all due respect, this is going too far!

  9. is this another 1th of April fool day joke?

    It has to be a joke. There’s no way Google would take someone else’s report of legitimate advertising on a site as spam. I’ve seen the rumors on what kind of intelligence they look for when hiring Google employees. Like we’d actually believe that someone smart would come up with an idea like that!

    Heh! Good one Matt! I mean, it’s a little belated, and you probably should have just stuck with the “my blog’s been hacked!” gig, but kudos for trying to pull one off 2 weeks after the fact.

  10. I agree how will you tell if there paid or not, and is there a penalty on this or is the link just ignored. Just as an example the yahoo directory is all paid links so what happens with them.

  11. If the links are relevant to the readers, and are clearly marked as sponsored links, I don’t understand what the problem is.

    I’ve got a travel website and are currently running paid links (via Text-Link-Ads) which are linked to an airfare website. The links are under a heading reading “Sponsored links” so it is clear that these links are paid advertisements – I’m at a loss as to why I should be penalised for something like this.

    If I ran the links for free would I still be up for a penalty?

  12. I have submitted my site to a few paid directories 🙁 am I gonna get banned coz of that 🙁

    I read at google itself that directory submission was alright and it did say submit to yahoo directory which is paid aswell and I can still see that text there ..

  13. I have to admit that sounds pretty stupid to me… So people will just look at their competitors High PR backlinks and “guestimate” that they probably paid for them and everyone will be reporting everyone else that ranks higher than them. Yippee back to kindergarten and tattle-tailing everytime someone is beating you in the rankings.

    IMO Google needs to get its act together on more important features like the REAL spam report, I have reported (weeks ago!) a group of hackers that are hacking several unmaintained sites and some governmental ones too dumping hidden links on them to boost their casino affiliate site but no one at Google seems to care….

    Regards

  14. Hey Matt,

    I was one of the many people lucky enough to meet you at SES London. In fact I was one of a number of people who specifically mentioned the subject of ‘paid links’ to you.

    I’d just like to say that it is great that yourself and Google actually listen to mere mortals like us and take action to improve your services where possible.

    Thanks again.

  15. Ash, there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank). At http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ I mention a couple ways to sell links that Google would have no problem with.

    Aaron Nimocks, I believe AdBrite constructs their links with JavaScript so that links are being sold for traffic, not to affect search engines. Things like JavaScript, the nofollow attribute (or meta tag), or doing a link through a redirect that is robots.txt’ed out would be techniques to sell links for visitors/traffic, as opposed to trying to influence search engine rankings.

    Justice McCay, these spam reports won’t directly cause a site to go down. We’re going to use these external reports to test out some new techniques.

    JohnMu, we’re looking to collect data for a new approach or two that we’re exploring, so I’m happy to receive pretty clear-cut reports right now.

    Chaaban, nope, definitely not an April Fool’s joke. 🙂 We’ve got a lot of data within Google already, but I wanted to put out a call for external reports to widen the set of data that we can test on.

    Andy Beal and Michael VanDeMar, in the old days some people objected to the idea of a spam report form altogether. Over time, the spam report form became less controversial as people grew more comfortable with the idea of reporting problems and giving feedback to a search engine. Google has often used specific keywords in the past to let people report issues via the spam report form.

  16. One question so will the buyer or the seller of a link you think is a paid for be penalized or will the link just not be counted? I can understand not counting the link or passing rank but penalizing is another thing.

  17. Matt,

    OK, so what you are saying is you want to shut down every paid directory and all forms of advertising except for Adwords. On top of all that, you want us to do the work for you?

    Isn’t that just shooting ourselves in the foot if we decide to help you? I mean all the work we put into our sites to get quality links would end up being just wasted time, as those links may not count now.

    Why is it only OK for Goog to get paid for advertising and no one else? The people buying advertising or selling advertising will now be penalized for maximizing their revenue, but that is how Goog makes its money. I am sorry but this is hypocrisy.

    If you are so worried about the quality of your index then may I suggest you use something other than links to judge relevancy and quality of the website. Perhaps content and up to date material should count more.

    Just be straight with everyone and tell us that you only want us to advertise using Adwords.

  18. BigBadWolf, is there a specific string/keyword/phrase you used in reports that I could use to look up the spam report you did?

    Golfer, happy to help. I enjoyed talking to folks at SES London. 🙂

    Jeff Selby, right now I’m just looking to increase the size of the dataset that we’re running some tests on.

  19. I’m still not certain – you want us to report every instance of sold links (eg paid banners, footer links, etc) that we can find? You might as well search for “powered by phpbb” or any of the other common easy-to-use CMS systems. Soooo many sites have paid banners in some form or other. If we do report them (because they’re clueless and won’t read our mails) and they get deindexed, should we have a bad conscience? (maybe 🙂 – but for them it’s serious). Can we expect some official communication from Google about this that we can send them as a link?

    If I have an open-source project and link to the contributor’s websites (even if they’re unrelated), is that a form of a paid link (work for link)?

    (I have to admit I find this whole idea more than a little bit frightening)

  20. The other thing is, what if a business sponsors a forum and gets a link out of it? Should we say that this link hasn’t been earnt the same way that “writing good quality content” earns a link?

    Without the sponsorship that allows for hosting to be paid for, that in turn, allows people to create quality content, there would be no content for Google to index.

    I know one forum I frequent has no advertising except for a link to a web host. This forum is very large (150000+ members, 11,000,000+ posts), and without the support from the web host from the very beginning, there’d be nothing.

  21. Big sigh, this is not a good move.

  22. I think this is a good idea. It will help make the results so much better. There are these issues though: How will you be able to tell paid and non paid links apart? How would could you stop someone that didn’t like you from posting a link then reporting you?

    If you can solve those two issues then this will work out great for the search results.

    Scott

  23. Matt you can contact me via the email that I’m using to post here and I can send you all the details you need, or I can post the URL here if you like. 🙂

  24. is it just me or did anyone else spot matt skipping this post?

    #
    Jeffrey Said,

    April 14, 2007 @ 4:02 pm

    Cool! I will quickly buy some links for my competitors on text link ads and then denounce him. Good idea, thanks Matt.
    ———————

    what about this? this is going to get Google neck deep in angry webmasters
    and it is the webmasters that keep Google in business.

    or is google planning to be the only one to sell links on the WWW
    sammie

  25. “Golfer, happy to help. I enjoyed talking to folks at SES London – Matt”

    Ok then let’s start reporting people selling text links from London 🙂

  26. SEOs will be out of a job without the ability to buy links. Not a good move Matt 😀

    “If I ran the links for free would I still be up for a penalty?”

    Obviously not. But more importantly, if you weren’t getting paid, would you still be running those links on your site?

    I thought not.

  27. Sheesh with all those people you guys keep hiring and companies you keep buying I wouldn’t think you’d need to exploit people for free, doing the work your algo is supposed to be doing. It’s not like Google doesn’t have the cash lying around.

  28. Matt, We know how to report you paid links. You showed us how Google reduce the impact of googlebombs, but ¿What do you think about the SEO contests like habitaquo?
    http://www.technorati.com/wtf/habitaquo

    Thanks.

  29. I should get used to writing comments outside the form again. I jut lost the content I wrote because a windows up decided to reload the page. Anyway, I will not write everything again, but maybe it is better this way, keeps it shorter.

    Googgle’s shift of the discussion from “purpose of the link” to “is it a paid link or not” is a step backwards IMO.

    If you would have to rate each link on a site by the following three properties that express intend on a sliding scale, then you would get a lot of combinations back, which would actually reflect the real intention of the Webmaster more accurately.

    I kept relevance out of it on purpose, because that is a different issue IMO. You can use the results of the determination of the relevance to check if it does not conflict the values determined or specified for the intention of course.

    (B) Personal Benefit: 0 – 10
    from 0 = don’t see a dime, over 1-9 = get commission/some sponsorship to 10 = get paid a chunk of money for the location, target and anchor text of the link

    (S) SEO Intention: 0 – 10
    from 0 = “SEO, what? Google, who?” over 1-9 = “it helps a bit with the SEs” to 10 = “SEO Baby, yeah”

    which are both being offset by

    (E) Endorsement: 0 – 10
    from 0 = “no endorsement/not reviewed yet (links added by others)” over 1-9 = “does not hurt to check out/advertising/good stuff” to 10 = “Love it. Best thing since sliced bread”

    Some results should make the link being ignored completely and even reflect poorly on the webmaster, some should get full voting power and even extra power for B=0, S=0, E=10 ratings for example and everything in between depending on decisions made by the SE.

    How to get the ratings is the tricky part, “nofollow” alone will not cut it. Forcing the addition of “nofollow” to a link that has a high value for Endorsement, but also a value for Personal Benefit and or SEO Intention would be wrong and dilute the accuracy of search results, make them less relevant, because they have the word “lie” and “censorship” written all over them for a large number of search terms, especially commercial terms that are related to online services and e-commerce.

    If you go on with “threatening” webmasters and force them to do something that does not reflect their opinion, be at least clear about what you want to impose on them. A 100% clear definition of “paid link” would be a start. Is a link that generates commission for referrals a paid link? If you link to a sponsor who supports your cause financially, is it a paid link? etc.

    Webmasters that boycott this and rather express their opinion honestly than lie about it, only to make Google happy, would like to know what ethical perfectly okay action is getting them banned.

    It would be bad enough if your answer to my questions above is yes, because you effectively deny webmasters the right to state that a link is an endorsement and vote for the linked to page, by threaten them to get them banned if they don’t deny the vote, because they also get financial benefits from the link as well.

    All this to just make it easy for you to “fix” some of your problems in figuring out the webmasters real intention, is bad.

    I am painting the worst case scenario here, because blind believe that you don’t have to fear anything from Google if you don’t do anything “wrong” does not cut it for me anymore.

    That trust got lost over 2 years ago.

    That is what you get, if you are avoid being very clear and specific and issue vague warnings that have a too much room of interpretation and makes people that believe they do the right thing think that you are talking to them and not just to search engine spammers.

    You have now the change to clarify some of the items and provide some insights about Google’s reasoning and position to those things.

    Note: My tone is harsh, but I want to make clear that this is not meant personal or that I don’t even imply that you are doing or not doing things. I respect you professionally, but there are some problems that needs to be discussed, straight forward and honest. Avoiding and/or ignoring them does not help anybody.

    Thanks Matt.

  30. Correct me I am wrong, but where did Matt or anyone from Google say that sites that buy paid links will get a penalty. I just thought they would not have the link counted. If this is the case why the silly comments about buying links to competitors sites to get them a penalty?

  31. JohnMu, this is a feedback method that people can use, but I wouldn’t worry about using it if you’re unsure. This is to help people that do want to give feedback. Several people have asked for this, so I wanted to provide a standard way that people could use.

    Nikhil Jogia, I’m most interested in directly paid-for links right now. I’m happy to hear about other types of situations though.

    BigBadWolf, I dropped you an email.

    “SEOs will be out of a job without the ability to buy links.” I don’t agree with that, Halfdeck — I think you might be joking a little bit, too. 🙂 SEOs add value in a ton of ways. A good example is Neil Patel getting a 20% bump in Calcanis’ traffic just by doing good old-fashioned SEO: http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/calacanis-seos-next-evangelist0307.html
    None of that involved buying links, I believe. 🙂

    graywolf, I think other internet companies benefit from their users’ interactions. Yahoo has got Yahoo Answers, people write reviews on Amazon, people rate sellers on eBay. If anything, I’d say that Google should be doing more to help users improve our quality.

    logadmin, we definitely pay attention to SEO contests. Personally, I think it’s interesting to see which techniques people try to use. The SEO contests that I like the least are for actual words, as opposed to made up or nonsense words.

  32. I dont think this is true,but if it is then google are starting to control
    all webmasters by telling them what to have on their own websites and what not.

    I know we all wish that google gets stronger competition from eithor
    msn or yahoo and i cant wait for it

  33. Matt I’m a first time poster to your blog. Basically the story is like this. I have a small website that I’ve sold some links on before originally to pay for hosting bills, as the site rose in ranking for a term I now admit to make a some money off of.

    When I accept payment for a link, it is for a review of the site. I never accepted poor sites or spam. Only quality related theme sites that I wouldn’t mind linking to and showing to my visitors. I also always placed them as Sponsers Links. Any site I believed was spam I would not list and refunded the payer’s money

    I just have some questions, sorry if they were asked before:
    Now are you saying these type of links that I have accepted are spam and that my site can recieve a penalty? How is this different from directories such as yahoo? Is the penalty a drop in rankings?

    I’m probably willing to try the redirect to a robot.txt, but I don’t have one of those, (how do you set it up? robot, redirect, etc) and the reason I’m a bit hesitant because as I learn more about seo I have learned the advertisers I’ve accepted probably does advertise for other reasons besides traffic, and if I add a no-follow they might leave.

    Thanks for your time

  34. This is one of those “enough said” moments, thanks Matt!

  35. Dave (Original)

    I certainly hope Google can soon detect paid links and take appropriate action.

    RE: “A good example is Neil Patel getting a 20% bump in Calcanis’ traffic just by doing good old-fashioned SEO: ”
    ==========================================

    Matt, how do you *know* that no link buying was/is invloved? I ask as they advertise one of BIGGEST link mongers out there (Text Link Ads) it would seem all was not white hat. The fact alone they adertise them speaks volumes IMO.

    Text Link Ads prominetly promote their service as;

    “Text Link Ads are served as static links that can help your natural (organic) search engine rankings”
    http://www.text-link-ads.com/textlinkads.php

    SEW and many other popular “SEO” forums (who know full well that’s it’s against Google’s guidelines) are proudly $affiliated$ with Text Link Ads and MANY other link mongers & black hats.

  36. Why would anyone want to be a rat for Google? An unpaid rat at that…

  37. Hey Matt, email me your address. I want to send you a crash helmet for your birthday or Christmas. That way, when you read all of the drivel and nonsense that’s bound to come out of this and you start bashing your head off the wall, you won’t hurt yourself.

    To everyone else: do you not think you’re all jumping the gun just a little bit here? Stand back and look at the situation objectively for a second.

    What information do we have? Google wants to know where we see paid links.

    What other information do we have? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Bupkes.

    So…what do we do? We all assume the worst gather around like a bunch of bloodthirsty sharks to circle around Matt and whoever else might get caught in the crossfire.

    Nobody said that people would get banned for advertising.
    Nobody said that Google was going to start major revisions of the algorithm that would make the world fall off its axis.
    Hell, no one even said anything would happen at all!

    Not only that, who says that Google doesn’t already have a large portion of this information gathered? It wouldn’t be that hard to pick out a common affiliate link or an ad network script or whatever from the code. If they haven’t already gotten this stuff, it wouldn’t be all that hard for them to get some of the more common stuff…and that’s assuming they haven’t already gotten it (which Matt said they did, and I tend to believe him.)

    Matt: what exactly are you looking for in terms of paid links? Affiliate links? PPC links? CPM? Pay $30 for the year and your link will be featured on somedirectorysite.com? Silly schemes like the v7n.com one? Legit stuff? Illegit stuff? Both? Does it matter?

    I’m thinking if you listed off some of the examples of things you were after, it might clear things up…it would for me, anyway. The problem with paid links is that it covers a fairly broad spectrum of advertising ideas and techniques.

    That, and not having the spam form used for this if it’s not a spam technique…that’s just a geek PR (as in Public Relations, not PageRank for the search-engine-optimization-obsessed, or SEOO for short) disaster waiting to happen.

  38. Aaron Pratt, I just wanted to be around in case people had questions, but I’m about to go get dinner. 🙂

    Dave (Original), Neil talked about the specific changes that he did here:
    http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/03/29/patels-calacanis-challenge-update
    It was mostly things like tweaking post titles and meta descriptions.

  39. @Carsten Cumbrowski – that was the short version…?

    @Matt – I am not against the spam form, or reporting spam. However, if you were to take the number of legitimate results that are being unjustly lowered due some webmasters purchasing links for ranking benefit, and then compare that to the amount of real spam that Google currently has in it index, then it should be apparent that spending any time, and I do mean any at all, on this issue means that your priorities are, well… whacked.

    Honestly, Matt… and if your legal team won’t let you answer this, then I understand, but if you are allowed to answer then I (and I’m sure others) would really, really like to know… as the G algo stands now, exactly how much off balance would you say it is due to the insidious act of buying and selling text link ads? How many man hours have you spent combating this crime against humanity, and at what cost? And is it seriously skewing the results that much, that all the efforts spent on it were, and continue to be, justified? Is the algo that fragile?

    The other main reason that I disagree with this idea is that you think (or appear to be implying, anyways) that Paid Link === No Human Review. This not the case 9 times out of 10. You should know that.

  40. “…it should be apparent that spending any time, and I do mean any at all, on this issue means that your priorities are, well… whacked.”

    I can’t think of a single situation where a paid link should pass PR. For that reason I see this as a good step towards better serp quality.

    You seem to imply it has a minimal impact on serps. Do you think people would be shelling out thousands of dollars for PR8+ links if that was the case? The only people who would complain about this enhancement have a vested interest in buying or selling links as far as I’m concerned, as there is nothing but benefit for end-user searchers.

  41. Michael VanDeMar, be nice to Carsten. 🙂 We prioritize what to look at in search quality and webspam the best we can.

  42. Longterm link awareness
    If a website is built to last, which most should be anyways, couldn’t you argue that legit outbound links today shouldn’t be affected by the decision to sell links in, let’s say, 5 years? – It seems to me that by disclosing that you sell links in 5 years, that Google may not able to decipher which links have been paid for and which ones aren’t. Granted Google knows the age of links, but by simply saying on your site that links are paid for, this seems like it would discredit all outbound links in a general sense.

    Site structure issues
    Websites have changed in structure over the past few years; consider a static website vs. a blog. Many years ago, someone may have sold links on their home page or a category page, while today someone may sell links within a blog post. To me, those are 2 separate things, and is Google smart enough to know that a paid link within a post is different than my next blog post with outbound links to my new favorite website?

    PageRank vs. Traffic
    I recently bought a link on a well known site’s subcategory that relates to one of my sites, undoubtedly others buy links on that site as well. The difference is that I bought the links in order to get on-theme, and targeted traffic, while others may have bought links simply for the PageRank Boost. How will Google know the difference? – will my site be penalize just because someone submitted a report that the site is selling links?

  43. Dave (Original)

    Matt, it seems to me that ANY site would increase in rankings IF they have no Meta descriptions and non-descriptive/non-relevant page Titles and then fixed it. Bit like saying an example of a good mechanic is one that puts some air in your flat tyres 🙂

    While I cannot prove it beyond doubt, it would seem to me that all the links to the site is what really got the site 90% of the way, the tweaking was simply some icing on the cake. Again, while I can’t prove it, I would say the site owner has/is buying links for ranking.

    Why doesn’t Google put a 6 step guide to long term ranking in Google? In my mind it would be something like;

    1) Content. Write good content for your target audience.

    2) Ensure the page Title accurately & concisely describes your page content.

    3) Ensure the page Meta description accurately & concisely describes your page content in a slightly longer form of your page Title.

    4) Contruct pages in logical manner for human reading.

    5) Don’t be afraid to link out to other relevant pages (your site & others) if the linked page will be of use to your visitors. If unsure, use nofollow. We (Google) link to over 10 billion other pages 🙂

    6) If you get an email to exchange links and the site is not within your target audience, delete it. Only exchange links with relevant pages if they will be of use to your target audience. If unsure, use nofollow and never expect any boost in ranking from exchanging links or other forms of self promotion.

  44. Matt

    I’m very glad to see you pay much needed attention to Backlinks Merchants.

    You may wish to consider adding a specific line under “Tool” to report paidlinks. Something like:

    Tools
    Download data for all sites
    Report spam in our index
    Report Paid Links
    Submit a reinclusion request

    That will be a big help to webmasters to see where exactly to report paid links. And it will have additional value; signaling that Google is serious in fightingback on paid links.

  45. Harith, that’s a good suggestion. We’ve talked about doing something like that.

    Dave (Original), that’s a pretty good list for beginners; I’d imagine that the first several points there are completely uncontroversial. We do provide some info along those lines at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/

  46. Good move, matt. I think Google should have acted a bit early. The paid link schemes have already polluted search results in many cases.

  47. Dave (Original)

    Thanks Matt. While they are mixed and spread about on the pages your mention, it would be nice to have a single page that those who frequent SEO forums can simply link to.

    My reasoning is; those who offer black hat advice can be contradicted without any doubt by the OP or others who read the Threads.

    I also believe it would go some way torwards letting unwary Webmasters (the vast majority) know that SEO is not rocket science and most SEO have a vested interest in promoting and charging as such.

  48. Dear Matt,

    I’m going to be very direct and hope you can appreciate what I am about to say.

    I find it quite interesting that Google is trying to tackle the “paid link” problem, yet for 3 years I have complained and submitted spam reports regarding some blatant violations (3 different URLs ,owned by by a publically traded company, with the exact page content on all URLs – ie: styles,graphics,copy) and have yet to see ANYTHING done about it.

    Furthermore, your PageRank (PR) algo is completely flawed. Although the intial concept was valid and remains such,”the importance of a page”, Google has managed to create a commodity out of PageRank. People buy and sell links based on PageRank “vanity”. I see MFA sites with higher PRs than sites owned by govermental bodies or associations. I can’t understand how your algo can’t differentiate between MFA sites and sites of governing bodies in a particular niche and assign PR based on their true merit and status.

    Additional, as back-links are a major factor in the Google SERPs algo, Google is once again creating a commodity. There are literally dozens of schemes and networks out there promoting link building (paid and free). Folks are gaming social sites in order to game the Google algo. Unfortunately I can’t see it changing for the better. Do you have any idea as to how many useless link directories are out there and being launched daily? Thats a dirrevative of the Google algo! How about Tags/Cloud sites?

    Spend a little time on Yahoo … you will see that their SERPs are substantially better now than G’s SERPs!

    If you are so inclined to investigate the issue discussed in my first paragraph, please feel free to email me.

  49. Matt, I humbly request that you please change the language of your request for people to report paid links, to “report automated paid links” or something more along those lines.

    I understand that the goal is to allow everyone – from the small mom-n-pop hobby site, to the large corporate mega-sites – to have an equal chance at showing up for a search query on Google.

    However, it is my view that this assumption is fundamentally flawed. Here’s why:

    #1 Large corporate sites already have a huge advantage over smaller sites, no matter how good the content on the smaller site is. Their brand recognition alone makes it more likely that they will receive more incoming links. So giving smaller sites the ability to purchase a human-reviewed, page-rank-passing listing actually levels the playing field more than dissalowing the practice completely.

    #2 If someone asks you to link to them, it is reasonable for you to request compensation for the time and effort it takes to review their site and consider linking to it. Nobody likes to work for free. And just because you do not work for free, does not mean that you don’t “vouch” for the site should you end up linking to it from your directory, sponsored link section, or even within the body content of one of your pages.

    IMPORTANT: I am referring to human-reviewed links from websites that actually take the time to check out the quality of the submitting site. The submitting site doesn’t have to be a big name, have the best content, or a good design. The point is that someone has looked at it to make sure they are not trying to rip people off, serve up meaningless content (as in incoherent scraper sites), promote illegal goods and services, or utilize spamming techniques.

    If a website is serious enough about the success of their business to pay a listing review fee, and the reviewer finds their content to be of some value, what the heck is the problem with passing page rank through on the link? The link buyer is being proactive like any good business person, and the seller gets compensated for their time, bandwidth and other assets, such as their own hard-earned Page Rank. So again, what is the problem?

    Please change your language so people understand that buying and selling human-reviewed links is a legitimate way to increase traffic, brand awareness and, yes, even Page Rank.

    By the way, unwise webmasters who have a rubber-stamp policy when it comes to reviewing links are hurting the reputation of their own website, both in the eyes of the visitor and the search engine. If they want to do that, let them. It is their business mistake to make, and I would hope that your algorithm can at least see this type of site for what it is instead of punishing everyone for the misdeeds of some.

  50. “I understand that the goal is to allow everyone – from the small mom-n-pop hobby site, to the large corporate mega-sites – to have an equal chance at showing up for a search query on Google.”

    I should have added “…as long as they have quality content and provide useful (or at least entertaining) information, goods or services.”

    The point is, we all know that you want a site ranked on its merit, rather than how much money it spends on links. I would like my President to be ranked on his merit, rather than the money he spends on a campaign. We both know this isn’t going to happen, so let’s stop being idealistic and start tacking the problem realistically.

  51. Matt, check my blog if you want to read the long version of this.

    The beauty in all of this is that each of us thinks we can do a better job picking a good website than the google algo can. Google has as its roots using links as a/the major way of determining the quality of a site. But what is the truth? How easy is it to manipulate that? What other options are there. More on my blog. If you put a link here to my site, I will send you one of the below,

    A) ten bucks,
    B) a ford festiva,
    C) thank you card,
    D) catnip.
    E) a link
    F) karma

    Question: Which of the above would be considered payment for a link?

  52. I want to report a site: http://www.google.com:

    – They receive A LOT of money to display ads in front of all other found sites in their search engine even if the paying site itself isn´t relevant. Spent enough money: 1st place in the search engine!!! No SEO neccessary!

    – Google “spam” nearly each and every site on the internet displaying paid text links (they call adwords).

    OK, what´s wrong with paid links? In my opinion: NOTHING. In “real life” companies pay much money to advertise on tv, radio, newspapers and so on. That´s ok. Now: how many tv- or radio stations will survive without paid ads? That´s what YOU think about!!!

    Without google adsense, amazon and paid links I can close my site! That´s what google want´s? DO NO EVIL!

  53. Dr. David Klein

    Read your said article on your blog. Very interesting indeed. However when it comes to selling links for the purpose of boosting PageRank of the buyers sites, its mostly done for more than ten bucks or a catnip 😉
    We are talking about say around $800 a month for buying a backlink from a ite of PR9 and a round $2.000 per a month for a site of PR10. No thank you card and no karma as you see 🙂

    In real life those PR-Backlinks sellers are a big problem not only for GOOG, but for decent SEOs. When a site owner see his compititor achieving higher PR value by buying a PR-Backlink from for example a site of PR10, that site owner will for sure press hardly his own SEO to do the same, though the SEO is a white Hat decent person.
    In fact what Matt is doing is helping those SEOs to continue on the Whaite Hat path.

    From now on a SEO can refer to Matt’s current post(s) to show that its a risky business, if the site(s) owner is pressing to purchase PR-Backlinks for the only purpose of boosting PR.

  54. That’s nice idea. We’ll soon see the followers of Pavlik Morozov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov) reporting his relatives to NKVD for the sake of Communism ideas, ops, sorry – reporting to Google for the sake of Page Rank purity!

  55. What happens when webmasters can no longer buy relevant links? They will spam for them.

    Don’t open that can of worms.

  56. Claus Lampert

    “OK, what´s wrong with paid links? In my opinion: NOTHING.”

    Agreed! provided the paid links are for the purpose of advertising, generating traffic, branding, web promotion etc..
    In that case there should be no problem at all, neither to to sellers or buyers, in adding a rel=nofollow to the paid links.

    But its wrong if a site offer/buy paid links for the purpose of boosting PR value. I.e manipulate PageRank aiming to achieve better ranking on the organic listings on Google serps.

    As to AdWords and AdSense, they have no whatsover influence on the advertising site’s ranking on the organic listings of Google serps or the PR value of the said site.

  57. And don’t forget: ebay is never spam!

  58. If this really is all about Google trying to stop people manipulating their site’s PR by buying paid links on higher PR pages, and if PR has no other particular value to us as webmasters, then surely a far simpler solution would be for Google to stop displaying PR in the first place.

  59. @Harith Said: I have only about 10.000 Visitors a month (Niche-Site with, as I think, interesting and actual content, Pagerank is 5). Paid Links double my revenue compared to adsense and amazon earnings. And that´s not much, trust me 🙂
    Do You really think that someone will pay me a single buck for a “rel=nofollow link”? Do You really think that someone shares a link with me for the sake of visitors?
    Selling links for the sake of giving PR to other site is ONE possibility to maintain a website (concerning “income”).

  60. Down this road madness lies….

    On the other hand, I did look at the custom t-shirt business (very briefly), and can assure Matt that the top two or three results in Google were dominated by paid links, and other interesting techniques at the time. I suspect the same is true of most big product categories.

    Some of the paid links were text almost(?) randomly place in peoples blog pages.

    T-Shirt hell also has an affiliate scheme, which is totally different, but also offers recompense for links, be it less directly. Does that count?

    These days the T-Shirt hell links, seem to be dominated by advertising links from a company called “blogspot.com” (suggest you block em from the Index and see what happens ;-). Also noticed a load of links from totallyfree, which don’t seem to appear in the content served to my browser.

    Despite all this, my automatic T-Shirt idea generator, with few links, mostly “no-follow” links, made it to page two in Google for “idea t-shirt”, with little effort on my part.

    I’ll know Google has cracked something when Googling “click here”, tells you something about Web Page design, instead of the Adobe, Quicktime, Realplayer and Java downloads. That should have gone with the Google bombing code surely?! Except no doubt they had “click here” on the linked page somewhere.

    But I think the paid link thing is madness. For starters the smart folk already did a lot of different text in the links, as that allows you to cover a lot of key words. And payment for a link is such a vague concept, I found a paid review linking to a T-shirt site, is that a paid link? Clearly it wouldn’t exist but for the money, but I think paying someone to review your site is a reasonable transaction, and a review without a link is pretty pointless.

    I know my chess club took a paid link from a chess equipment supplier, that along with other such links distorted their Google rankings, but if they contributed as much to the other clubs as they did to ours, I think they deserve a good ranking, as it will encourage competitor to be as generous. I don’t think you meant this to put up the price of chess club memberships, but perhaps I’m wrong on that.

  61. Okay..
    Let me figure this out.
    Google wants us to create an awesome quality site and then wait for 10 years to get..ahem.. quality backlinks and visitors. Because According to google, we should not exchange links and we should not buy link ads either.

    So now is there anyone going to tell me how are supposed to advertise our sites??
    Yes answer is not difficult one.. there is Adwords always, isnt there.

    And what if I go and buy my Competitor a handful of paid links or some of the spammy sites of the first degree and then report those links to google?

  62. then please do not sell PAID LINKS on YOUR results pages. This is a free market – anyone can sell whatever they want. You’re starting to be funny. Hope that this will end soon.

  63. I do not to be understood badly.
    I’m not buying or selling links personally, but I think that for instance Yahoo or Adwhatever are selling links – clickable, visible links, and this is not spamming technique but Ad technique. I am of course against hidden/small links.

  64. @Matt Cutts:
    What do you think about Link-Vault and other automated link exchange programs? Is it spam? The links aren’t only for search engines, but also for users.

  65. My concern is, how on earth can Google determine whether a link is paid or not paid for? If it is exploring new technologies, then they surely must be working this into the algorithm now.

    But what if lets say you never sell links but for some reason the algorithm determines that your site is providing them. How do you prove otherwise? And it allows too many opportunities for the competition to try and knock you out with penalties.I don’t see how this can be fair. The way that Google has made it’s algorithm (i.e. made the rankings a popularity contest) has been conducive to the situation we have today and penalising paid links is not the answer.

  66. How can we tell if a site is relying on paid links as the vital element of their SEO strategy? It’s no use reporting paid links if they’re not doing anything useful :-).

    Do you have any location to send mass reports to? If anyone is reporting these things, they’ll soon have 1000’s of sites to report…

  67. Seems to me like if person A can report person B for selling/buying links this is opening a can of worms thats going to entail a whole bunch of work monitoring as their will be a whole bunch of people reporting sites for the wrong reasons.

  68. I will give you a simple solution Matt…but you won’t like it.

    Just don’t disclose pagerank and most link buying /selling done for manipulating search engines will stop.

  69. Has google ever considered that perhaps telling webmasters what kinds of links are good, bad and netural?

    Also, I can tell you that im not a nofollow supporter. Why? Because it hasnt stopped anything. True spammers are still spamming like they always did. All Google accomplished was to greate a little more work for me.

  70. I have to wonder what will stop companies in competitive industries from :

    a) reporting false paid links

    b) buying blatantly paid links against competitors

  71. Let’s not read more into this than there is. I’m eager to have paid links reported. Many of my competitors have been beating me on some terms for years using paid links. These are links that are easy to see are fishy when looked at by a human, but perhaps not so obvious to an algorithm. They are typically at the bottom of or off to the side of the page, and without surrounding text that ties them to the page on which they are on. But they are not labeled “sponsored” and don’t have “nofollow” tags. And there are lots of these, and they pollute the SERPs. So if these sorts of links aren’t filtered out, should I start buying these too? Or just be content to be at a disadvantage?

    Of course these sorts of links should be filtered out; the site to which they link shouldn’t be punished, though, because that would allow competitors to buy links to sites they don’t own just to report them.

  72. I guess it will be of great benefit for further discussion , to recall a previous relevant post of Matt:

    Text links and PageRank

  73. With this move–i can see the end of Google as the dominant SE in 2/3 years time as it will create havoc and confusion among webmasters and internet surfers in general.

    While I do not support SPAM, lots of people will loose interest in creating high quality websites of free information to surfers as getting natural links are not a matter of joke.

    Google must understand –it thrives for two things– Content based Search Results and PR.

    Can you answer Matt– how I’ll provide high quality informations to the internet community by spending hrs of my time developing it and earning $100/month from Adsense? Thats not on. I must earn some more revenue by selling links –that is what every webmaster looks for -aspire for. Isn’t?

    Google is getting outrageous/ too overconfidence –complacent with this policy and mark my words –soon there will be some-one to seize the oppotunity if you leave this ground.

    Analyze your policy –why Google is the most favored SE now? If you know this answer you will not dare to implemet this policy.

  74. Inbound links are uncontrollable, therefore, the only thing Google can do is prevent site that are selling links from passing PR.

    What prevents me from making myself pass on as a Markeeter of site X, buying links all over the place in the most obvious manner, and then simply report myself to Google? The motivation for doing something like this is rather blatant.

    In conclusion, Google is going after the site’s that are selling the links, neutralizing them by making it impossible for them to pass PR and link weight.

  75. Matt, thanks for a way to report link buying – it is not a practice I do but my competitors do a lot.

    My competitors have a ton of money to buy links which I don’t have so it is nice to see Google trying to level the playing field for the small guy like me.

    Thanks!

  76. @Dave: I think is quite the opposite, buying links could be a method for you to get your site noticed and a lot cheaper than AdWords.

  77. What happens when webmasters can no longer buy relevant links? They will spam for them.

    I’ve got news for you, dude…they already do. Have you looked in most webmaster or SEO forums and seen the number of link exchange requests lately? Or have you gotten the random spam from RedAlkemi at least once a week for a three-way link exchange? This is going to have little to no bearing spamidity (my word).

  78. when i first read matts post i reacted like most people did.

    google obviously want their results to be relevant for users etc and as much as we all buy and sell links for seo purposes, the fact remains we did this because google put so much emphasis on them.

    the search engines set the rules and webmasters do everything they can to promote their site within those rules and every few years it seems that the search engines change the rules to keep everyone on their toes.

    whilst i understand googles position, i also hope think they appreciate how much this kind of advertising revenue is part of the industry now. there is a high % of websites and blogs that just wouldnt make any money because they arent directly selling a product.

    the internet still lacks regulation which is why we’re seeing the major search engine on the web also being the biggest advertising network on the web.

    i think that its something they will find hard to control. whats stopping any webmaster putting ‘friends sites’ lists on their site and just removing any reference to advertising from their site so that all info is sent via email.

    i agree with claus in this comment : http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/#comment-101593

    why would anyone want to use javascript based advertising company like adbrite or google adsense if they can get the same traffic benefits from a regular link and have the seo benefits as well

  79. Maybe google should have done this one silently.
    Too much of sweeping thing to do and businesses and incomes will be destroyed for you killing something that was happening even before google.

    Although its fun to see all the panicing white hats who have been buying links for years without realising.

    There is going to be fun on the forums with scared people 😉

  80. After reading the 118 comments on this post and the previous one (Hidden links) I’m surprised to see so many friends defending Sell/buy backlinks. It seems we are dealing with a whole Paid Backlinks Industry.

    But as in most things in life; you can’t have both way. Soooooo…. Add rel=nofollow to those fancy paid backlinks of yours ..or else 🙂

    To all of you happy Paid Backlinks fans, few words of comfort from Matt:

    “What if a site wants to buy links purely for visitor click traffic, to build buzz, or to support another site? In that situation, I would use the rel=”nofollow” attribute. The nofollow tag allows a site to add a link that abstains from being an editorial vote. Using nofollow is a safe way to buy links, because it’s a machine-readable way to specify that a link doesn’t have to be counted as a vote by a search engine.”

  81. Although its fun to see all the panicing white hats who have been buying links for years without realising.

    Don’t you mean panicking black hats? Just wondering.

  82. I found your post here via an unpaid link.

    I don’t pay anyone for links, but I do trade links to sites related to my own. And I remove links for sites that don’t reciprocate.

    My paterank is 4, so I must not be paying enough attention to what’s going on with Google.

    I’m spending more time on adding content that’s relevant to my visitors than I am to anything else.

    But it just seems very hypocritical of Google to want to be made aware of who is paying for links, when your own business model is based on this very thing. The more links you sell, the more your shares sell for, the more revenue the shareholders paid.

    But, others are not supposed to follow your example.

    Do as I say, not as I do. Is that the message here?

  83. For all the people posting here that think paid links are not spam, read

    http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=48187

    “A New Age Of Seo – Link Buying Taken To The Extreme, Who says you can’t buy the Google #1 spot?”

    Yeah, it only takes money and a span of 2 weeks to buy your way into #1 for “car insurance.”

  84. So, first Google creates some sort of arbitrary site ranking system that is heavily based on backlinks.

    Then it gets outraged that people start selling links to get better PR because Google has told us this arbitrary measurement will impact how sites are ranked in the SERPs.

    Can anyone who came up with the original idea of PR, honestly say this wasn’t a predictable result?

    Google has turned PR into a commodity and now decides that they don’t like that people are making money. Too late guys, that genie’s out of the bottle. A link to a site with a No-follow is a red flag to me that the link is not really honored by the site displaying it. It’s like saying, I’m putting this link because I have to, not because I believe in the site.

    I believe that many paid links are nothing more than traditional advertising like has been done since the first newspaper was ever printed. How exactly does a site visitor know exactly what transpired for link placement and whether or not it is paid for? A website owner has every right to sell advertising on their site, just like every printed magazine, newspaper and even book does. Product placement has made millions for the movie industry by simply showing an actor using a particular product. Does a movie about WWII have any connection to Coca-Cola? Were the movie a website, would they need to be reported as a spammy site for having an advertisement for Coke?

    There is a big difference between someone paying for a relevant link in a directory category or blog article and those who paid for placement sitewide on unrelated sites (regardless of the PR of the page the link appears on). I can only hope that this “spam reporting” of sites that accept/purchase paid links is targeting the obvious abuses of this rather than those that are simply part of doing business on the web. Why shouldn’t webmasters sell their website’s page space?

    Should a high PR site on pets sell a sitewide link to a site selling umbrellas? Not really. If that’s the type of things Google is looking to make some changes in the algorithm to combat – I say go get ’em. If Google is looking to end the ability for site owners to sell links on their pages – Google is being hypocritical and the entire page rank concept should simply be disbanded.

    I agree with another poster that there needs to be some way to get true authority sites, like government and manufacturer’s higher in the SERPs. I am so tired of having to wade through all the hotel, city information, and other generic (and I have no doubt, highly profitable for Google) websites that ultimately have nothing of value about that small town of 500 I am looking to find information about. How can a generic city site be a more authority site than the town’s own government page or their Chamber of Commerce? Are we expected to believe that if site owners make the paid links to the bigger websites No-Follow that this will change? Or is this simply a way to go after the little guys selling advertising on their websites while those with huge budgets continue business as usual?

    The fact that the reporting is to be done through the spam reporting section of Google is why so many are seeing this as leading to sites being somehow penalized. Again, how could the folks that make these decisions at Google, fail to see how many webmasters would interpret this placement?

  85. ok – I admit that I didn’t read every comment here, just most of them, but I didn’t see a comment or question about sites like http://www.prweb.com. Look at these press releases and I bet you find that 60% or better were placed, at least in part, for the purpose of getting links.

    So once you have your data Matt, just how do you propose dealing with such situations? We all know that whatever you do on this one you’re going to pull some of the weeds, but not all of them – and others will grow in the cracks.

  86. @Halfdeck: “Yeah, it only takes money and a span of 2 weeks to buy your way into #1 for car insurance.”

    With enough money you can do that IMMEDIATELY via adwords. With a different background-color and surely in front of all other search-results!

    What´s the difference? Buying and selling LINKS is “evil”, “adwords” [tm] and “adsense” [tm] is not???

  87. Thi is my first spam report about paidlink. The adress of website where allways selling many links is http://adwords.google.com 🙂

  88. I don’t see where this is going to help.

    Site ” A ” buying links ( with a large marketing budget ) is going to approach other websites offering to pay for a one way link.

    Site ” B ” selling the link will never display on there site they sold a link.

    So problem will still exist. Big budget guys will over run the algo. Small guys will be nailed again.

    Honestly I think the whole backlink thing is one of the worst factors in SEO since it is so easy to manipulate it. ” blog spamming, auto forum posting software, guestbook spamming ” etc.

  89. All links are paid links. Period.
    The web is a market which is driven by that invisible hand where each webmaster/publisher/blogger takes care of her/his own interests. That is, you place a link on a page because you either get something for it or intend to get something (money, return link, fame, fortune, whatever).
    This is a natural behavior. Live with it, or rather build an algorithms that lives with it and still provides value.

  90. Happy to help, Jayson Joseph. At least there’s a way to provide feedback now.

    Dave (Original), it would be nice to update our html documentation and add more examples, plus concise one-page guides that people could check out. One issue might be getting good translations of that info into lots of languages, but in general I’d be a fan of that idea.

    LaCabra, I responded to you on the other post, but I dropped you an email to get some more info about the same content on different urls. Sometimes that happens by accident (e.g. the Chicago graduate school of business had the same content that could be reached at two different urls), but I’d be happy to ask someone to check it out.

    Everett, we definitely agree on the “we all know that you want a site ranked on its merit” part. But I do think that different approaches to paid links can be realistic.

    Dr. David Klein, this is a response to requests that I got at SES London about an easier way to tell Google about paid links. I’d be most interested in the “I’ll pay $X for a link that affects search engines” type of stuff right now, whether it be via a link that passes PageRank or a paid post/article that isn’t disclosed as paid. That’s the data that would be most useful right now.

    Claus Lampert/sq-/Amateur/Kris, I appreciate your suggestion, but Google uses robots.txt to exclude our search results and ad redirects, so neither of those links passes PageRank or affects other search engines (unless they ignore robots.txt).

    Harith, part of this post is to let people know in advance that Google is looking at some new ways to approach paid links that affect search engines, so it’s true that this post serves as a place to point people to. Google wants to hear about paid links that pass PageRank or potentially affect search engines in the same way that we want to hear about things like hidden text or keyword stuffing.

    Michael, if you’d prefer not to use the spam report form that’s of course your choice, but I wanted to provide a mechanism for the people that are interested.

    Martin Avis and Neeraj, I’ll pass that suggestion on, but lots of people who aren’t webmasters enjoy seeing the PageRank bar, so I wouldn’t expect that to change.

    Simon, it’s cool that your site started to rank for custom T-shirt stuff. I would be interested to hear more details about the paid links you saw.

    The Webmaster, there are lots of creative ways to let people know about a site other than paid links, from providing useful information to a new idea on a service. techmeme.com was registered less than a year ago, but think about how quickly it has become daily reading. Aaron Swartz use to run the #1 ranked site for [google blog], then he decided to go off and make this little site called reddit.com. Of course not every site is going to be a reddit.com or a techmeme.com, but there are lots of sites that do well by finding a creative angle or hook.

    Ivan, there are lots of creative ways you could approach the issue (there was a fun comment in Scoble’s thread, for example).

    JohnMu, the authenticated spam report form is the best place. Next best is the unauthenticated spam report form. We’ll look at better mechanisms down the road, but I wanted to provide a way to do it now.

    Joeychgo, Google’s algorithms and scoring relevancy definitely benefit from the additional data that disclosure provides.

    avecfrites, well said. 🙂

    Glad you mentioned that post, Harith. I’ve been saying this for a long time:
    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/
    The only new information from 2005 is that there’s a way to directly communicate about this, and people have some advance notice that Google will be looking at some new approaches on paid links.

    John Rang, I think Google does well and is able to provide relevant search results right now partially because we continually focus on search quality and webspam. Or at least I hope it’s not all just the holiday logos. 🙂 I think competition in search is a good thing (whether it be a start-up or Microsoft/Yahoo) because it keeps every engine focused on delivering quality search results in the best way that we know how.

    “My competitors have a ton of money to buy links which I don’t have so it is nice to see Google trying to level the playing field for the small guy like me.” Happy to try to help, Dave Dugdale.

    Michele, I do think that disclosure of paid links is important, and I do think many people would agree (see Dave Dugdale’s comment or avecfrites’ comment, for example).

  91. The logical next step: Weed out those “Get two back links for one article submission” sites. Mostly irrelevant content, targeted link texts, passing PR is the only reason theses sites exist.

  92. Say I buy a text link which displays my keywords, which is what I am ‘advertising’ and it is featured in the left column menu in a list of 20 other external text links. Is that a bought text link that could penalize me? I have in many circumstances bought such a text link and never received any hits from it, then that site (months later) reaches the top of the search engines and starts to get a lot of hits, as a result it gets me a few hits, therefore it was worth the money I paid for it. Is this site, and my site, going to be penalized as spam for this?

    I am in an industry where one hit could mean thousands of dollars and I don’t think I should be penalized if I want to buy 150 paid text links on different sites that never gets me any hits. The potential of a hit here and a hit there is worth it for me to buy those ‘paid text links’, but I don’t think it should hurt my own site’s SEO.

  93. I would classify this as one of those “good, but half-baked ideas” that will probably/should probably be discussed come those Monday morning chit chats at the ping pong table or over Wii Tennis.

  94. Robert Wetzlmayr, I’ll take that feedback under advisement. I’m always open to feedback on what Google to do to improve results quality.

    eddytom, it sounds like you’re most interested in the actual visitors; something like a link that goes through an internal redirect that is robot’ed out would let you get all the visitors without worrying about search engines.

    Hagrin, using the spam report form and giving a keyword to report specific issues has been a pretty good way to let people give us feedback. Keywords like “gilligan” and many others have been used in the past. 🙂

  95. See, it’s pretty simple. Google don’t do evil.

    So if you are a competitor, trying to sell links, you are taking away Google’s potential revenue, cos if you didn’t sell links directly, they’d put AdWords on your site and sell links that way.

    But if you put links on your own, and you keep the money for yourself, that’s just plain selfish.

    So Google will punish you and the people who buy from you.

    This isn’t evil Google stifling the competition. It’s just them playing the right hand of God, so don’t go bitching all you “shady SEO”s!!!!

  96. If we have to login with our account to report the paid links does that mean you’ll penalize the the sites of the owners who submit false claims?

    To me it just seems that many web site owners are going to get penalized and not even know why.

    I think the sites you get on this first page that are just full of google adsense and other links need to go first.

  97. To be honest Matt, this is kinda a big subject for a lot of people.

    I find it somewhat funny that this post is relatively short and nondescript. On top of that, it’s buried behind 3 other posts on the same day – a review of spicy food, some funny pictures and a short clickbot post. One might be forgiven for not catching this post first time round.

    I think if there is going to be a witch hunt on paid links, then you / Google needs to give us more information.

    For example…

    Google needs to clarify in much much more detail what a paid link is. Are you just talking about Text-Link-Ads, or are we talking about every paid link which is not nofollowed?

    What does that mean for paid directories such as Yahoo directory? I really hope that Google isn’t saying it’s ok for them to sell links but not for the rest of us.

    What does this mean for links traded for a box of beer or some other non-cash goods or services?

    What does this mean for WordPress template footer links? Surely this is an example of link bait – provide a free template in exchange for links – surely that’s ok right?

    What does this mean for paid reviews where the post is clearly marked as paid, but it includes a natural link. In the grand scheme of things, surely a post about company X is a natural place to expect a natural link?

    What about web designers placing a “Web design by …” link on their client’s sites? The client has paid for the site, and included in that package is a link.

    And then…

    What happens when a website is reported – pray do tell us?

    -Does the whole site get deindexed by Google?
    -Is the ability to pass PR stripped from the whole site?
    -Or is the ability to pass PR stripped from that page?
    -Or is the ability to pass PR stripped from those paid links only?
    -Do you tell site owner when said penalty is applied?
    -Once the paid link is removed or nofollowed, is the penalty removed 100%?
    -Some website owners have contracts in place for links, and can’t legally change the links for several months. Is there a grace period?

    Matt / Google – please, please give us more information. This is a serious change to how a lot of site owners do business, and I find the lack of specifics somewhat insulting actually.

  98. Matt,

    It’s a bit coincidental that my blog was de-indexed straight after this reporting thing was created by your team. I won’t mention the url here. However, you can see the url through the email address I used to make this comment.

    Is it de-indexing that will happen to those who have been reported? Or is it something else that may have caused my blog to be de-indexed.

    I was getting a nice amount of natural traffic from Google search until this happened.

    If you could provide an answer through here or privately through email, I would appreciate your honesty and comments.

    Thanks,

  99. Harvey, Google is going to try out some new approaches to paid links; that’s why we wanted to collect reports to get feedback and see how well some of these techniques work. I’m most interested in the “I’ll pay you $X for a link that affects search engines” reports for now, whether that happens via a direct link or paid posts/articles. I discussed the idea of WordPress sponsored themes in the post before this one, but I’d read Matt Mullenweg’s post for his perspective as well.

    I’ve talked about our current practices for a while now; here’s a post from 2005 with more background: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/
    Google (and I’m sure most search engines) have algorithms that assess the trust to put in individual links, individual pages, and entire sites. The data that we get from people that want to give us feedback will help us assess several new things that we’re looking at (both algorithms and tools). I’d also like us to look at additional ways to communicate about paid links down the road, but right now I’m more interested in getting some additional data to compare against the internal data that we already compute.

  100. I read a this post and the comments with great interest and several thoughts come to mind. Firstly, is this not going to start a wave of webmasters title-tattling on each other and worse still turning on each other? Somehow, this does not sit well, in the past I have seen many ideas come out of here some of them bordering the fantastic and others more mediocre. This idea of telling tales on each other is not one of the better ones, in actual fact all I can see it doing is causing friction amongst webmasters.

    Secondly, why is Google asking others to do its job, isn’t this something that the Google algorithm should be figuring out without having others resort to reporting their competitors and other websites unrelated to them?

    Yes, we all want our sites to rank high, it’s given, our businesses depend on it. To this end some of us are working damn hard to produce unique and compelling content that will be naturally linked. But, it is appearing more and more that no matter how much you play by the rules or try and keep it reasonably in the guidelines that the goalpost moves again and again . This time it could come at a high price.

    I am wondering how far this is going to go, will it affect link-buyers who buy just a few links or purchase them in the hundreds, will this turn into a kind of purge on a mass-scale or will each report be independently judged on its merit and the ‘offending site’ in question be thoroughly investigated by manually before action is taken or will it become an automatic decision based on a scant glance beca8use of the large amounts of reports coming in?

  101. hey matt- would you mind addressing some of the things that I mentioned in my previous comment on this post?
    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/#comment-101551

  102. Good job fending the questions Matt!
    This may have been the spiciness to go with that chicken sandwich!
    😉

  103. Ain’t this statement,

    Matt Cutts Said,

    April 14, 2007 @ 4:41 pm

    Ash, there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank). At http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ I mention a couple ways to sell links that Google would have no problem with.

    just a bit circular? I doubt people are getting links for PR simply because that green bar looks pretty on their site. Is not everything webmasters do designed to bring traffic to their sites. Very few of the high PR sites don’t have a nice flow of traffic, just as very few high traffic sites have low PR. What good would be having a high PR site if no-one ever visited it?

    How and who is going to decide if a paid link is for PR alone and not ultimately for traffic? I can tell you 100% of my backlinks are for getting more traffic to my sites. I have only one “paid” link – the webmaster owed me money for some writing I did for them and actually gave me the money to buy the link to test their payment system. I didn’t pay for my link on that PR0 page (at least at the time) – but there’s absolutely no way anyone else is going to know that by looking at either the page or code. I guess I “paid” for the link by doing some testing for the other webmaster – how will Google or anyone else be able to differentiate those links?

    And like someone mentioned on the hidden links post, what happens when a directory turns from free to paid? Are the free sites grandfathered in as being permitted PR links or must they now be nofollowed?

    Additionally, if I have two very different sites that are related by topic and I put a banner on one to the other – what’s to keep someone for “reporting” both sites as exchanging paid links? Do you plan on checking the domain records? And just because webmasters traditionally pay for banner placement does not mean that’s always the case. Does Google plan on bothering to ask webmasters if a reported link is indeed a paid one? Several webmasters have freely linked to a site of mine with banners (some I made available and some they made) because they like my site – how does a visitor to that site or some algorithm know that those banner links were or were not paid?

    Since the Internet began, long before there ever was a Google, people have been trading and selling links just like any other advertising medium. I have always told my clients that links are no different than those referrals you give to someone you’ve done business with. So, under this new policy if say a Realtor has a link to a carpet cleaning service on their site and that carpet cleaning service gives the Realtor a 10% commission the Realtor needs to report to Google that the link is “paid”. Sorry, that’s not Google’s or anyone else’s business if that Realtor is getting a commission or not. And how exactly does Google plan to ferret out that dastardly Realtor and make sure any compensated link is a no-follow or rel=paid or whatever?

    Is Google going to be able to differentiate between a sitewide footer link that has been paid for vs one from the ultimate owner of the site? I have a tutorial site where every page’s footer links to my business site. How do you plan to differentiate between that sort of link and one’s that are paid for by a third party? The rationale for the link is obvious – I sell my writing services and that entire tutorial site functions as a great big writing sample – why shouldn’t one site link to the other? The direct traffic from the tutorial site to my business site has been negligible, but, they are certainly not there for PR.

    It’s these types of questions that drive me nuts about your blog. You throw out something that has major consequences for all site owners and yet you fail to truly explain what is changing. I do understand that you won’t put a step by step explanation of how the various algorithms are going to handle links, PR, and SERPs; but, yet again you have posted a somewhat threatening (like how else could we take this) post about what Google deems acceptable without giving the webmaster community enough information to comply.

    If I have read all the of your replies here and in the other thread correctly, if any “paid” (a term not completely defined by you) links are not identified onpage and in the code then _________________ happens. What that something is seems to be left up to our imagination.

  104. it seems to me that Google would have the common sense to not effect a penalty against a site when the offense could easily be replicated by a competitor. otherwise well, you wouldnt even have to pay for a link, just set up a bunch of spammy sites that not only link to your competitor but sit under a great big fat H1 called “THESE LINKS PAID FOR BY SHADY SITES”.

    how the mighty will fall when this one hits – i know a number of large corporations using external SEM agencies that spend a fortune maintaining paid for links. It will be interested to see the effects on those.

    i thought i should be worried about this at first but then then realised i dont need to be since i dont pay for text links, when i started freelancing and not being forced to tow the line with an agency i decided to hold back on paid for links and applied good old fashioned seo. it works too, the ranks are achieved and it converts! And guess what, they can even take a break from seo for a while and see no major change…because there are no paid links to maintain!

    if you are whinging about this potential development ask yourself if your REAL concern is that you wont be able to hold you clients over a barrel anymore when they want to leave by threatening removal of their ‘quality’ links and drop in ranks. shock horror, maybe you will have to learn about onsite SEO and how to attract genuine IBLs.

  105. Matt,

    Can you please let us know if this has something to do with all the dropping sites.

    I just had 2 sites drop out. I made all the links connecting them nofollow and one cam back but the other is still buried. I even did the reinclusion request but still nothing after 2 months.

    I would love to know if my main site will ever come back.

    You can even email me if you want. I would love to know why that site is not ranking or at least know I’m going in the right direction.

    Thanks,
    Bob

  106. Okay, I’ve kept my mouth shut in here for a while now, but this is just getting silly.

    Everyone who has their shorts up in a knot about this should read what avecfrites posted. (S)he nailed the whole issue; there are things that would appear fishy to a human, but not necessarily be detectable via algorithm unless someone pointed the links out and then big G could react accordingly. There are an almost infinitesmal number of ways to code pages, hyperlinks, etc., and by extension ways to code pages, hyperlinks, etc. in order to deceive users and search engines. So Google’s approach is perfectly logical in this case, since they’re looking for feedback that they might necessarily see themselves (they can only see so much) and going from there.

    If you’re buying links purely for traffic purposes, then this really shouldn’t make a bit of difference to you. You bought the links so that users could find your site from another site, and SEO benefits have nothing to do with it. Furthermore, if you bought the right links (i.e. ones that will send you traffic), anything big G is doing will have a minimal impact at best.

    There’s nothing wrong with buying links, but if you’re really that upset about this, then you’re not buying links for the right reasons and quite frankly, you need to look at how you’re doing this.

    There’s no threat. There’s no bullying. It’s a warning of possible things to come. At least this time, you’ve got plenty of time to fix the situation (if you think you’re in it) before it becomes one.

    Would you guys who are complaining rather see Google implement something like this, maybe give a few hints after the fact, not ask for our input, and do it in a heavy-handed fashion? Or would you rather have time to know about the issue, contribute to the issue in such a way as to help provide an increase in relevance, and deal with it in advance? I’ll take the latter any day of the week.

  107. Whoops…forgot to close the <strong> tag after users. Not trying to resemble SEW or anything…just an accident.

  108. So – the links that come default in the WP installation (as an example) – what are they considered?

  109. Matt

    This seems to opening a bag of worms as who how and why will PAID LINKS be decided
    Surely a better way would be to stop displaying PAGE RANK on toolbar and no backlink command available , backlinks would only then be displayed in G Webmaster Tools to the Webmaster of the actual site , or Y’s equiv if at the same time you could work with Y and MSN to go similar route so no backlinks displayed on any SE

    The problem could be cut back

    This would leave webmasters to sell advertising even if they were links according to traffic which would seem more relevant at the same time as supplying what links / advertising were supposed to achieve in the beginning

    This seems like the opposite of Do No Evil as it appears to be saying only G can provide advertising

    PS I do not sell or buy links and never have , but have bought advertising based on traffic that advertising may supply

    steve

  110. Divide and conquer is not the answer. The answer is to change PageRank and Search engine results, not to change Webmasters and Business owners behavior.

    This is a historic post. 10 years from now we will remember this blog post.

  111. Hi Matt,

    a simpler solution: stop displaying PR.

  112. matt – if I pay for a link that is for traffic, yet it appears in a section that looks like a ‘bad’ paid link, I have no control on whether that person puts a nofollow tag or a redirect to my page. And I will not link to an internal page of my own (that is robotted out) to redirect to the real page I want it going to because, then, aren’t I creating something for the search engines instead of for the user?

    multi-worded adam – the real fear here is that I could have a link on a site that someone else reports as a paid link, yet it is for traffic, yet google somehow perceives it as ‘bad’ paid link and penalizes me and my entire livelihood is ruined because, although I make pocket change off of the paid links, my big money comes from great search results which I have earned by working fairly for the past five years of my life. So I can understand many white hat people here who have just been following all the rules set forth by Google being a little scared and writing angrily.

    That being said- I also feel we should not be getting on Matt Cutts for reporting this, it is a good thing, but I think our responses are hugely important and everyone here should continue to state their concerns so that Google can take our opinions into consideration before it moves forward with implementing anything.

  113. Matt,

    I’ve been following your blog pretty much since you started it and I’d have to say that you have for the most part done a great job in educating the webmaster community out there on why Google doesn’t like you to do certain things and how to avoid making obvious mistakes.

    In running a blog like this, to gain trust there will need to be give and take, this is very much a take subject, in that you are asking us to grass or file reports on other sites that ‘may’ be selling links, you will then use this information to create algorythms which will in turn create more penalties and as a result many sites will get whacked.

    My fear is that innocent sites will suffer as a result, on the whole the SERPS may appear OK bit there will be consequential losses, pretty much in the same way as the ‘950 penalty’ where large quality sites that should rank for a term or phrase or bounced right back to the end of the SERPS because of the phrase ranking penalties, which in many cases may kick in due top the same site wide navigation links, you should really write up something about why this happens and how to avoid it if you want to win trust from the webmaster community.

  114. I’d fully support a rel=”paid” attribute on paid links. That way, optional browser extensions could highlight the paid links in another colour, which would be nice for users.

    Nofollow says “I don’t vouch for this link”. I don’t like the idea of using this on paid links, because most of the time I do vouch for the links, paid or otherwise. I really think a link deserves juice if it’s relevant to the page – paid or otherwise.

    Using Javascript or redirects on links for the sake of it flies in the face of usability, accessibility and web standards in general. I don’t consider this a reasonable alternative either.

    I’ll be doing some housekeeping on my sites based on this post, and that’s ok. But I really think the focus here should be more on relevant/irrelevant or quality/rubbish vs paid/unpaid.

    Thanks for your response Matt – I understand Google is just testing the water here, but I think we can all see where this is heading. I’d really like to see a bit more detail from Google regarding this kind of stuff because links are so fundamental to the web. So rather than a hidden penalty that webmasters don’t know about, let people know what they need to fix.

    eg in Webmaster Tools something like this…

    WARNINGS…
    1. Your http://www.domain.com/links/resourses-254.htm appears to have low quality links on it. This may be effecting your trustrank.
    2. The link to http://www.mesothelioma-cures.com on your homepage appears to be a non-relevant paid link. We have devalued this pages ability to pass PR until this link is nofollowed / removed.
    3. Your entire site is supplemental because of the 10 sitewide footer links. These appear to be paid and non-relevant.

  115. It’s interesting that you consider this more important than sites that display AdSense and link directly to pornographic sites. And even after I’ve submitted a report to the AdSense team twice about one blogspot.com blog, a year and more later, the site is still running Adsense.

    And what about all those porn and pharma sites that keep linking to my legit sites? How are you fighting this sort of thing? Isn’t that more important than having unpaid masses report what might or might not be a paid link used for SEO purpose or not?

    What about reports that Google plans to offer link ads? If that happens, then the exercise you write about turns out to be hypocrisy.

  116. I agree with the comments that stated that Google would do better to root our the real spam that is still polluting its index, and to pay attention when one reports real spam sites.

    Putting the spotlight on paid links is simply going to foster/grow/explode a subculture of informal link selling & buying networks. You are just going to drive it further underground, you will never stop it.

    To be honest Matt, why should you care if good and valuable content is bumped up the SERPs a few notches by purchased links? You should care and do something about it if crap or spam content is benefiting from paid links.

    Root out the spam sites and the sites that do not add any value to anybody, and the question of paid links should become a moot point.

    It is very annoying when one reads stuff like this post of yours and you troop off to do a search on Google and find half of the sites on page #1 are spam sites. I think many people do not even bother to report spam sites any longer, because from those that I reported absolutely nothing has happened. They are still happily sitting on page #1 displaying their AdSense ads on pages that contain nothing more than scraped content and/or links.

    Here’s an idea: Why don’t you offer webmasters something like a bump up the SERPs or a link from a PR 6-8 site for their bona fide sites for every X number of bona fide spam reports that they make and that you agree with are spam sites? That will kill two birds with one stone.

  117. Matt,

    Was out for the last weekend of snow skiing with wife and kids (they crushed the black moguls! ;-), but got a chuckle reading this thread as I re-enter the online world Sunday night.

    As far as “examples of paid links”, these have been plastered on the main web pages of the mainstream media outlets in my (decent-sized) market for quite some time. I just spent about 10 seconds per site, and of the 3 TV stations (ABC/CBS/NBC) and 2 major newspapers, I’ll bet you a $100 (at 10-1) that at least three of ’em are selling text links – it’s so obvious by the keyword rich text links used. I don’t want to mention where I live, although obviously you can geo-locate my IP and figure it out.

    But look at any major US market (I’m sure international as well) and you’ll see these all over the place – heck, even look at the bottom of the Stanford Daily (Google’s alma matter) and it appears they are selling keyword rich text links … again! 😉

    I.e. tell me with a straight face these aren’t trying to game the search engines – wedding favors, mortgage rates, long distance cheap calling card rates, etc.

    Sure, all these guys put a “sponsored/paid links” block around the text/links, but do you really think the advertisers are targetting Stanford students for long disance cheap card rates?!?

    So would be curious how Google plans to handle examples such as this?
    alek

    P.S. Don’t mean to give you/Google a hard time – like it or not, page rank has become something of value, so people naturally capitalize on it. And while I don’t buy/sell links (really!), as a free-market type of guy, I can’t fault folks like the Stanford Daily for trying to make buck.

    I.e. the genie is out of the bottle and you can’t put it back in!

  118. Having waded through the rest of the comments, I want to agree with LaCabra that in many cases it is easier nowadays to find what you’re looking for on Yahoo! Search than to find the same thing on Google.

    I’m finding myself using their search more and more, not because I like or dislike one company above the other, but simply because I find what I’m looking for easier and quicker with their search results.

  119. Ooops … forgot that my Controllable Christmas Lights for Celiac Disease allows folks/cpmpanies to “buy” text/advertising links … if they make a donation (directly) to the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research … so guess maybe I am a text link seller … but hey, at least it’s for charity! 😉

    Another random thought is you will eventually want to algorithmically automate this text link buy/sell process – not just detection, but perhaps also the downgrading of link mojo by domain. How would either “offending” party be aware that this has happened? Yea, in many cases you don’t want to disclose due to “secret sauce” concerns (plus obvious gaming of the system) … but false positives do occur and this would cause accidental collateral damage to innocent parties.

    Maybe consider notification via Webmaster Tools … although realistically, even that leaves out the Mom-Pop sites that don’t spend their Sunday evenings reading search engine blogs … 😉

    P.S. Speaking of collateral damage, you might check the URL in my signature which got totally clobbered by Google by whatever algorithmic tweak was done on April 10th. S*it happens … but I bet if you dig into it you’ll say “ooops, our changes had a minor unintended consequence that unfairly de-ranked some legit web sites” – if nothing else, it was nice to rank #1 for my first name for years … now, I’m just a nobody! 😉

  120. So Matt, are ‘free hitcounter’ links also classed as paid links? How do you detect those?

  121. Should I go ahead and switch to “image only” ads to make sure I’m covered?

  122. Dave (Original)

    Those with nothing to hide, hide nothing 🙂

    Why is it when Matt posts something with nothing more than scant details there is always the vocal *minority* screaming foul based on…..NOTHING but their own imaginations?

    If you see ANY site selling links, either report it or don’t. Let Google worry about whether the site is selling PR, or not. I would think common sense (which I guess isn’t so “common”) should state that Google want a VERY broad range of sites (selling PR, banner ads, using nofollow, not using nofollow etc etc etc) so they can TEST their new idea. If they only get the sites they wish to target then the test data would likely be useless.

    For those who cannot see any difference between AdWords and sites selling PageRank……what can I say?

    1) Google doesn’t mix AdWords into it’s organic results.

    2) Google clearly identifies AdWords as advertisments.

    3) Google own PageRank and last I heard it’s not for sale and buying AdWords wont get you any.

    4) AdWords has no bearing what-so-ever on Googles organic results.

    5) Google wants its organic results to stay “organic” and be objective NOT subjective.

    All of the above add to 1 thing. Better search results for the World!

  123. Here’s a novel idea.. What if the search engine rankings relied on the content instead of how many people linked to it?

    The first web site I ever built was for the company I work for which manufactures and sells a small piece of hardware (I don’t mention the product name here as I don’t want this page beating us out in the serps!,). Anyway, I built the site and that was it – I didn’t know anything about SEO or how to rank in search engines for a key word or pretty much anything.

    Some time after the site went up, maybe 6 -8 months, one of the owners came to me and said “How come when I search our product on Google I can’t find our site?”

    Thus my intro to SEO. I found out that we didn’t rank anywhere in google so I determined that I needed to submit the site to some directories and buy a few links.

    Within a month or so we were ranking 82 in google for a search on our product. Keep in mind there are approximately 1/2 a dozen major manufacturers of this product world wide.

    After purchasing one link we finally made it to the top 20 and then, finally, to the front page.

    The web site is all about the product, it’s mentioned in every page, it’s what we do but other sites that mention the term in passing on a sub page still out rank our site.

    If I had never purchased a link, would we have ever made it to the front page? Should we not be there purely from our content?

    There have got to be billions of websites out there, without the ability to buy a keyword link that will give the search engines a clue that they exist, how will they be found?

    Just don’t base page rank on links.

    look at the relationship between the link and the content of the page, look at the relationship between the anchor text and the content of the page and use that information to decide if it belongs in a relevant search for that term, base the page rank on the content of the site.

    Lisa

  124. Everyone is way overreacting. They’re merely testing a new system.

    Also, there is no way to differentiate from a paid link and a real link if its not done in a spammy way. IE not crammed in the footer with 20 other links, or not identically dispersed to thousands of sites. If you use the cheap/quick/easy way and go buy links in a standard way from sites that sell links in bulk or use a broker, yes, you might not receive any benefit from those links. However if you put the effort into buying paid placements within content at individual websites, no one will ever know.

    Also, SEO is far far more than buying links. If an SEO needs to buy links to stay in business, maybe they shouldn’t be in business.

  125. We do advertising for our company’s blog as well as our site as a whole (AdWords, StumbleUpon, BlogAds), and we bought 17 links from PayPerLink when they first started, as an experiment. We haven’t repeated it, mainly because we only used it to promote a couple of special posts in our archives to bloggers in our niche.

    We find that bloggers — nice people that they are — are not really professional publishers (obviously), and making individual contact trying to get promotion can eat up a lot of time we don’t have to spare. For example, they may never have been contacted about an ad before, and they want a lengthy back and forth e-mail discussion, or they don’t have a realistic conception of the market value of their blog as an advertising vehicle, and we don’t have the time to educate them. PayPerPost seemed like a good way to get promotion in a hitherto inaccessible media — just place an order, as with any other ad.

    At any rate, are these old, forgotten blog posts going to dock our entire site in the rankings? Dock just those pages? Simply nullify the link-value of those links without affecting more “legitimate” (in the eyes of Google) inbound links? Are you telling companies like ours to go out and do a search-and-destroy on old links like these in people’s archives, who don’t necessarily care about our rankings and are not motivated to spend their time purging their blog of a post, which for all I know is bringing them traffic they’d rather not lose?

  126. “For those who cannot see any difference between AdWords and sites selling PageRank……what can I say?

    1) Google doesn’t mix AdWords into it’s organic results.

    2) Google clearly identifies AdWords as advertisments.

    3) Google own PageRank and last I heard it’s not for sale and buying AdWords wont get you any.

    4) AdWords has no bearing what-so-ever on Googles organic results.

    5) Google wants its organic results to stay “organic” and be objective NOT subjective.”

    All true, but for the average joe searching google for Angelina Joli or whatever do they REALLY see the sponsored links as being any different from the number 1 search result?

    If Google is truly interested in ‘organic’ results then why show paid advertising at all?

    When it comes down to it, I can have a great website with wonderful content but my choices are limited in getting it noticed. Without the ability to obtain a link on a more “important” site (as determined by google) my other alternative is to pay google to show my site at the top of the page.

    Seems somewhat along the lines of microsoft including IE with their software 😉

    Lisa

  127. Wow, talk about throwing in a red herring! Is this your way of stopping all the yip yap Pagerank Update squawkers?

  128. I’m starting to understand the reason for this and the using nofollow tag for all advertising to prove that it’s not for PageRank reason. I took a look at techcrunch just to see what the big sites are doing and they do indeed have “nofollow” tags on their advertsing along with “TechCrunch Sponsors” heading above it.

    I suppose if we were all doing it for the right reason (sending traffic to sites), we wouldn’t worry about this anyway.

  129. Dave (Original)

    RE: “All true, but for the average joe searching google for Angelina Joli or whatever do they REALLY see the sponsored links as being any different from the number 1 search result?”
    =========================================

    *perhaps* not if it is their 1st time on Google and/or they don’t see the colored “Sponsored Links”, other than that I would say most certainly.

    RE: “If Google is truly interested in ‘organic’ results then why show paid advertising at all?”
    =========================================

    I guess they need to foot the bills for all their hardware, employees etc and make a profit. Anyway, it’s not *only* organic results Google wants, but they likely don’t want people to be able to buy their way to the top of them. Many a SE has tried that and users do NOT want might is right search results, they want objectivity and relevancy.

    RE: “When it comes down to it, I can have a great website with wonderful content but my choices are limited in getting it noticed. Without the ability to obtain a link on a more “important” site (as determined by google) my other alternative is to pay google to show my site at the top of the page.”
    =========================================

    One should NEVER think like that. If you think your “choices are limited” then they will become limited. Heard the saying “we create what we fear”?

    If you know your subject matter and are not narrow minded in researching and linking to other pages (even if you don’t agree with them), you will in-time attract TRUE votes from “important” sites.

    Also, keep adding content perputually so you are not reliant on a few pages, but rather a few thousand! Forums etc are a great way to keep your user coming back and adding content for those phrases you never thought of.

  130. Blog Owner, you said “It’s a bit coincidental that my blog was de-indexed straight after this reporting thing was created by your team. I won’t mention the url here. However, you can see the url through the email address I used to make this comment.” and you said that it was okay to give feedback here.

    So I checked out the blog from your email, and your issues started before I even did this post. Blog Owner, I’d recommend asking a friend to take a look at your website with a critical eye. Yes, there certainly do appear to be paid links sprinkled throughout your posts (nearly all of them, in fact), but my favorite was one post that stopped in mid-sentence. That seemed strange, until I found the article that you’d copied wholesale from an article bank. The original article stopped in mid-sentence, so your post did too.

    Okay, so not great on the quantity. How about quantity? Dude, you wrote thirty-four blog posts in one day? I wrote maybe seven this weekend (cuz I won’t get a chance to blog much during the work week) and that took pretty much the whole weekend.

    It looks like perhaps you didn’t write those 30+ articles by hand. Searching for a long phrase from one of those posts returns 400+ other results. In fact, coincidentally enough, several other people wrote an identical blog post, down to the last word.

    Blog Owner, my advice is to focus less on any paid links you have and look at the larger picture. Right now, your site doesn’t even look like it was written by a human. What value does your site add compared to the other dozens of sites with the same content? That’s the question I’d recommend looking at for your site. You said you’d value honesty, so that’s my honest feedback. That’s the sort of site that causes people to complain to us. 🙁

  131. Matt said, “Lots of people have been asking for this.”

    Hell, I’ve been asking for why my AdSense is taking a crap since 4/1. I’ve been asking why our indexing fluctuates 30K pages overnight. I’ve been asking for a more accurate assessment of keywords for AdWords campaigns.

    Who ARE these people? Are they the same people asking for more sex and violence on TV? Are they the same people asking for higher gas prices?

    This feels like one more meaningless “exhibition of power” from a company that holds my family’s livelihood in the palm of its hand, and yet remains distant, aloof, and unavailable / unaccountable.

    Matt, I enjoy your writing, and I love your blog. But it’s a SHAME that those of us who attain our PR through legitimate means are being lumped in with those who would “scam” the system…

    Doesn’t it all come out in the wash anyway?

  132. Dave (Original)

    I don’t subscribe to the;

    Stamp out link buying for ranking and more will use AdWords either.

    It simply makes no-sense. There is only ever going to be 10 pages on page 1 of any Google SERP. For every page that drops, another rises. The one that rise may be using AdWords and thus stop using it.

    The ONLY reason that AdWords is a sucess is because Google’s *organic* results are what the searcher wants, not what the Webmasters want.

    If Google turns a blind eye to Webmasters manipulating their results there will be less and less users using Google. If that become the case, there will be no more link mongering at Google’s expense (and even their own customers) and these low moral people will focus on destroying another business for their personal gain. Who knows, it could be yours!

    If Google had not come along I truly believe the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft would totally dominate information retrieval and it would become like a business directory , where you can buy your way to the top.

  133. May I report Yahoo? They are selling the links in thousands !!!

  134. I’m not sure on this, but we may have just seen Matt punk out a webmaster for the first time ever on this blog. And I gotta say that it’s about time! That kind of smackdown has been so needed for so long and today, it finally happened.

    Matt, you gotta do that more often, dude! That’s some quality snarkitude right there. Seriously, that kicked ass.

  135. Sorry, I only added my one cent – here’s the other:

    I completely concur with the following suggestions for Google –

    1) pay attention when someone reports real spam sites
    2) rely on the content AND consistent TRAFFIC instead of how many links a site has

    Why is this a “big deal” for us? Well, for almost 2 years now, we’ve watched a similar site, with one-tenth the daily traffic, one-half the content, and one-hundredth posts per day consistently hog the #1 spot in Google for “Nissan forums”.

    Meanwhile, we bust our tails to be #1 through superior content, useful and helpful resources, 24-hour spam removal, quality outbound links, and continual marketing.

    Yet, inquiries to Google are met with vagueness, placating and “try harder” rhetoric… With some of the best and brightest employees, I’d hoped they could do better.

    I hope someone at Google has the forethought to step on the brakes and say, “Let’s fix the foundation before we get crazy fixing the minutiae”.

  136. Is Google going to penalize this kind of sites in the near future?

  137. Dr. David Klein, the only down side is that a few people aren’t reading all the comments, so some questions are getting repeated.

    BobR, any recent changes in ranking aren’t related to this. I’m just providing a way that people that want to give us feedback about this can. This post from 2005 gives a fair amount of background info on how we’ve handled paid links for quite some time: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/

    Multi-Worded Adam, I took my best guess about where you’d want the strong to close. I agree that one S.E.W. is enough for any blog. 🙂 You may not have much luck with your message though.

    Marcel, collecting reports and feedback from the outside world is part of the way to test out new approaches/algorithms for paid links.

    Vermut, I already chatted a bit about that back here:
    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/#comment-101651

    eddytom, if you’re buying the link, but only wanted traffic from it (not to affect search engines), I think most sites would be happy to use one of the techniques I’ve mentioned to prevent confusion. I agree that it’s better for Google to give some heads-up that we’re looking at this issue, so that people can decide how they want to proceed.

    Steve, thanks. I do hear from people on a pretty regular basis who want to compete but feel that some sites are trying to spam by buying links. I may try to do a post about your third paragraph at some other point, but stuff like that would be algorithmic scoring.

    Harvey, I liked your mock-up text. Certainly the trend I’d like Google to be going in is toward more transparency along those lines.

    raj, there are already ways to report any spammy AdSense publishers. I’ve talked about at webmaster conferences before, but I’m happy to reiterate how to do that. If you see a spammy or made-for-AdSense site, do the following:
    – Click on the “Ads by Google” link.
    – At the bottom of the page, click on the “Send Google your thoughts on the site or the ads you just saw” link and fill out the form.
    – When you fill out the form, at the bottom you’ll get to a section that says “Add additional information here:”. Include the word “spamreport” all in one word to make sure that the webspam team can see the feedback.

    Webspam uses that data, and Google has ramped up on kicking publishers that violate our quality guidelines out of AdSense. I’ll talk more about that ramp up in the future, but I hope that repeating that guidance helps.

    Dewald ama-Canuck, hopefully the feedback I gave to Blog Owner shows that we do focus on sites with duplicate/spammy content as well. 🙂 I would be happy to hear about which topic you were talking about though.

    Eric, a good rule of thumb if you’re buying links for the visitor traffic (as opposed to PageRank) is to buy them in a form that doesn’t affect search engines.

    Kaediem, there were many search engines before Google (e.g. Northern Light) that judged results primarily by page content, but users tended to prefer search engines that included both topicality (e.g. on-page content) as well as reputation (e.g. PageRank)

    Well said, Dave (Original).

    M.W.A., I don’t do it that often, but I have done it once or twice. Blog Owner asked for an honest opinion and if B.O. couldn’t see any issues with that site, they needed to hear that assessment. It also helps to let other people know that Google does continue to work hard at improving search quality and that we focus on a lot of different aspects of webspam.

  138. Hey all, I blogged and responded to comments pretty much all weekend, so I’m going to try to earn husband bonus points by doing the kitty litter, taking out the trash, and spending the rest of the evening with my wife. This is shaping up to be a busy week, but I’ll try to stop by when I can to respond to comments.

  139. i definitely not agree about this.Large corporate sites already have a huge advantage over smaller sites and no matter how good the content on the smaller site is. Their brand recognition alone makes it more likely that they will receive more incoming links. So giving smaller sites the ability to purchase a human-reviewed, page-rank-passing listing actually levels the playing field more than dissalowing the practice. Seriously,this pumping my heart fast!

  140. Matt,

    i think it is a good initiative, but can’t see how you can properly police it. The only people that can rank for competitive terms are those that have huge marketing resources. The barrier for entry for the web is becoming difficult and something needs to be done for the manipulators.

  141. Hi Matt,
    I cannot understand, why google is pushing with Adwords buying and Backlinks? – Type in google search: “buy links” and you will find a lot of linkbrokers on top and on the left side…

    Now you are coming and you tell the people here, that google do not like that… I think that is a kind of bad joke in my opinion!

    First google has to clean in front of their own doors…

    My site http://www.erfolgreich-praesentieren.de has been banned from the google index, without any blackhat stuff or paid links – other sites like http://www.click2day.com have had hidden text, this site was back on index after 2 weeks. Thats the truth and that is not fair!!!

    The other thing that pisses me of at the moment, are these nph-proxies, which seams to destroy a lot of websites (they get banned) at the moment: http://miproxy.com/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi or http://www.gizliweb.com – they should get banned from the index.
    But even Spamreports won’t get them out of the google index – what a shame. These proxies have worked on about 10 of my websites – all get banned by google!!!

    Jens

  142. enjoy seeing the PageRank bar?

    ha ha ha..

    the fact is – every Google user would enjoy more, if the search results became more relevant and didn’t get dominated by those sites which managed to buy the high PageRank links.

    Google has lost the plot somewhere…it was never about appearances…it has always been about usability and relevance..

  143. Michael: Why am I always being ask that? 🙂 Anyhow, “short” is maybe wrong word, lets call it “incomplete”.

    I spent quite some time about the problem in general and if I link to the individual posts that address the individual parts in detail. It’s a very complex topic and fundamental for Google, because it is about the core element Google relies on the most since they started, LINKS.

    Google (tries) to combat any attempt of using linking to game Google. Google’s strength is also it’s biggest weakness.

    Progress was made in some areas e.g
    – boilerplate stripping (so if the same sponsored link exists on most pages, chances are, it will not be counted)
    – FFA link farm detection
    – artificial link networks (at least to some degree)
    – contextual irrelevant links (still in it’s infancy, “pills” promoting links on authority .edu domain show that they still have a long way to go to make that work)
    – unnatural amount of reciprocal linking

    Google has a problem if a link is
    – is contextual relevant
    – is not reciprocal
    – is not part of a linking scheme
    – is not a boilerplate

    Links can be placed (paid or not paid) to be exactly that for SEO
    reasons. You could argue that nothing is wrong with that, because links are added to sites by webmasters that follow the same pattern without them knowing anything about SEO.

    On the other hand are links counted by Google and boost a sites ranking where the webmaster who placed the link did not intended it at all, quite the opposite, and would remove it, if he would know what he has done. I am talking about linking to something bad, something you want to make people aware of and see with their own eyes (and proof that what he says is true = reference).

    Google might want to read this Wikipedia guide about referencing sources (Citation).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CITE

    But, obviously is Google not that good yet at the determination of all the factors I mentioned above. Specifically the determination of relevance.

    This is the only explanation I have why they are going after paid links so badly that they don’t care about the collateral damage they would cause if they don’t care about relevance and user experience.

    It seems that Google is okay with simply “shooting” anybody who dares to put links on the site that can be crawled by SE without excluding them (nofollow, js, etc.) if he gets something out of the link himself (got sponsored, commission for referrals, freebies as thank you, advertising money etc.). Then put up a system where webmasters can go and defame each other to make the internet a happier place, right.

    Maybe “10,000,000” casualties are acceptable to safe the world, to use an example that is popular when it comes to political decisions that include military involvement.

    The part of “webmasters” being encouraged to defame other webmasters and report “paid” links (whatever “paid” means. Keep it vague that you can use it for or against anybody) is the one that bugs me the most. Being born and raised in East Germany, I do know a thing or two about how this works.

    See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

    East Germany had about 15 million people left in 1989 when the wall came down, down 2 million within a few years before that.
    Almost 400,000 were either full time working (25%) and the rest (75%) were inofficals or informants. That’s over 2% of the population! Get the picture? Did I mention how many people got “problems” in east Germany because of wrong defamations?

    Matt: I hope this reference is better than my last one. Again, I don’t compare Google with the East German Stasi, but I point out the direction things could lead in the worst case. Tendencies must be shown and stopped before it is too late. Everything started “somewhat harmless”, but had the “seed” for the disaster already planted in.

    I hope Google can do better than this. Did the engineers run out of ideas? C’mon.

  144. One can see where this is going to go. Cut-throat competition in the market place will drive many unscrupulous paid listing directory owners to report their competition to drive them out of business. This will become a very effective marketing strategy. It may even become a web-based cottage industry as companies line up to provide a service to report your competition to Google. Who loses? The small-time directory owner who makes in one year what Google makes in a matter of seconds. Who wins? The unscrupulous paid listing directory owners.

  145. Oops, incomplete sentence 🙂

    “if I link to the individual posts that address the individual parts in detail”
    …people would not read it, but complain about the number of links.

    I posted a bunch of stuff over at Loren’s SEJ about Google, Linking, nofollow, paid links, Google and affiliates etc.

    corrections (english is my 2nd language and I think a lot faster than I write hehe).

    “is not a boilerplate” … on a boilerplate of course

    conclusion to links Google has a problem with. If a link meets all the criteria I mentioned, the fact if a link is paid or not paid should be irrelevant, because it is a relevant link, relevant for the user.

    Since Google can not make that assessment very accurate yet, are they using the factor “paid” as criteria to play down their inability to determine how relevant a link is or not.

    Reference to the “400,000” in East Germany does of course mean “400,000” worked for the Stasi

    sorry for that 🙂

  146. Matt,

    I’m with you all the way on this one. However, when is a paid link a paid link?

    There are so many transactional mechanisms. How we simple SEO folk know what is legitimate practise and what is not.

    I see lots of dubious SEO practises that go unpunished. Paid links is one of the lesser problems.

  147. Matt,

    In regards to your response at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/#comment-101746

    I understand I submitted 34 articles in one day. However, that is my whole business. I write articles (or reviews). Some clients supply an article for me to publish and they pay me to do so.

    Are you saying my domain was de-indexed because of this? If so, then down goes all “Review” companies such as PPP, Blogsvertise, Reviewme, Blogitive….the list is endless.

    There’s no difference between what I am doing and what they are doing. Providing reviews for customer’s businesses.

    Let’s take a different angle here. Take for example, a company such as an online newspaper like http://www.theage.com.au

    If you take a look at their Business section they have a number of ads displayed by various companies. You can be fairly satisfied that those companys would have paid $$$ or $$$$ to have their ads or “links” to their web site.

    How is this any different to how my business operates?

    I can understand if PR was to be invalid as a penalty but to de-index is confusing.

    If you can confirm my domain was de-indexed for this reason then why shouldn’t the big guns sites be de-indexed along with mine? Fair question?

  148. Do this policy also include web directories that want money for listings?

  149. *************************************************************************
    The Webmaster, there are lots of creative ways to let people know about a site other than paid links, from providing useful information to a new idea on a service. techmeme.com was registered less than a year ago, but think about how quickly it has become daily reading. Aaron Swartz use to run the #1 ranked site for [google blog], then he decided to go off and make this little site called reddit.com. Of course not every site is going to be a reddit.com or a techmeme.com, but there are lots of sites that do well by finding a creative angle or hook.
    **************************************************************************

    Thanks for the Answer.. But Matt Are you 100% sure or can you guaraantee that neither techmeme.com or reddit.com or any site for that matter never bought a paid link ?

  150. I submitted my spam report and wrote about it. Too long for a comment, so I blogged it.

    http://www.jlh-design.com/2007/04/i-submitted-my-spam-report/

    It’s amazing the blatant spam you can find if you look for it…. 🙂

  151. Dave (Original) said:

    “Those with nothing to hide, hide nothing”

    So, you are saying that Matt should give more information? I agree.

    Why would I run around gathering data for someone when they won’t tell me how it will be used, and won’t compensate me for doing that work?

    What’s really funny… this data could affect all sorts of people in all sorts of ways. If I were running a SE and I wanted to identify people who were overly concerned with affecting their own rankings, it would be those people most eager to turn people in for something.

    Know why? Because those are the people who are looking. The people trying to influence their own search engine rankings are the people who are paying attention. You listening?

    I have several websites, and I don’t know what my rankings are… don’t really know who the competition is, either. I’m busy running websites. Know what else? I’ll link to who I like, how I like, without fear, because I’m running my website the best way I know how.

    Trip over yourselves trying to please Google, spend your time telling them that YOU are a search engine manipulator by saying “Hey, look at me and what I can tell you”, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, Google or not.

  152. Good lord. So now we’re suppose to all spy on each other and turn each other in? Is this another ‘pinko’ scare?

    Frankly, I hope this backfires on you guys. G has too much power (which is scary) but its getting oppressive. We’re not allowed to promote our businsses anyway without fear of getting in trouble with the google police?

    PS – this is the kind of stuff that is going to get Google regulated by the gov’t when the Dems come back into office in ’08. Its *GOOGLE* who should be watching their step with this crap.

    Grumble

  153. I have a site which uses text-link-ads for revenue.
    I approve about 10% of the ads – the rest are off topic and not appropriate to my audience.
    Should these links be marked as nofollow?
    Am I not exercising editorial review?
    How should I indicate to Google that this is happening?

  154. I was a fool who had links on my site that were paid for obviously google kicked me in the nuts with the 950 penalty, once those links are removed how long do I have to wait before kissing google’s ass will get my site indexed again?

  155. Dave (Original)

    Matt has answered that many times. If you buy links use nofollow and never expect or pay for PR. If you sell links let your customers know upfront that you use nofollow.

  156. Interesting.
    How, then, does one join the exhalted company of Yahoo, who accept money before putting links on their site, and are apparently encouraged in this activity, because they do something called ‘using editorial discretion’ and refuse some links?
    I can’t see a difference between what I do on that site and what Yahoo does, except in scale.

    Actually, I think I am better – I refuse their money if I won’t be linking to them.

  157. short circuit.

    if paid links are only for users and if google wants to give value to websites useful to users, you must evaluate paid links as normal links.

    better said (?), if i sell a link that have to be only for users, i’ll put rel=”nofollow” attribute. but then google has to evaluate them.
    or do we have to wait Google buys Text Link Ads?

  158. Google can do anything they want to, so can Yahoo. Just because someone has bought links doesn’t mean their content is crap. Only a fool will channel money into a bollocks site and expect it to stay.

    As soon as the new “rules” are released there will be a new market in how to get around them. For example instead of text links we will have links in content. Perhaps the over the counter link selling services will have to close shop, but the “black market” will never be stopped.

    All prohibition has ever done is create an underground that is impossible to police. Read the history books. Money is like HIV – the virus will evolve to get around the attacks of the host, requiring new host attacks. Eventually the host becomes consumed in a web of complexity find itself significantly changed from its original self.

    Caution is warranted – a heavy handed approach will surely harm public relations. The White Hat Public relation campaign should be strengthened.

    Ah, what to do?

    At least we can play a game.

    Personally – I see this conversation has been going on since 2005.

  159. I agree that Google needs to find new and innovative ways to stop people spamming search results …. but I really fear that the proposal as described could be used by webmasters to spark a war whereby people seek to undermine competitors by reporting their links as spam.

    Think of it another way, today some search results are over-stated through people buying links; tomorrow it could be that some search results are understated by people undermining their competitors. The upshot could be poorer search results, not better.

  160. Dave (Original)

    Lea de Groot, not sure what you asking or getting at now? However, you seem to be assuming a paid link in the Yahoo directory will boost rankings in Google. While we never know for a fact, I would guess it doesn’t. Nor should it IMO.

    In others words, Google can likely automatically identify Directories and other forms of self-promotion and act accordingly.

    RE: “if paid links are only for users and if google wants to give value to websites useful to users, you must evaluate paid links as normal links.”
    ========================================

    Why and what logic do you have to make that statement? Are you saying those who use Google mostly want sites with the deepest pockets to rise above those without?

  161. There are PLETHORA of reasons why someone would report a shady link to Google. Few of us will report sombody; unless he is a competitor

    Ther is too much of fuzziness in this idea – I am afraid

    Cheers

  162. Thanks Matt for providing feedback.

    My concern is –todays phenomenon has been a by-product of Google itself. Due to Google’s present search algo that Contents and links ( read PR) are the major determining factor for SERPs -so the link market has grown now into a multi-billion dollar industry. Google created this market!

    On the other hand – you said good OLD fashioned SEO still works out good. What does it mean? Let me give you example of a blog –seems that it will get minimum PR7 by this update from its present PR6 because I checked its backlinks and it has following backlinks. But as Google treats BLOGs favorably —this BLOG has 90% chance to be PR8.

    Backlinks: 93030 (766 Domains » 677 different IPs)
    PageRanks: 296xPR0 19xPR1 51xPR2 118xPR3 135xPR4 92xPR5 40xPR6 11xPR7 3xPR8 1xPR9
    LinkStrength: 448.38 [A score calculated based on all PageRanks that link to http:// ?????]

    Do you practically think — this amount of high PR backlinks are possible naturally for even the best sites to get FREE? There must have been some money exchange or link exchange ( which is also bad according to your policy).

    Please just mail me any domain of a commercial website that comes into your mind–and I’ll work for you and show you which links have been bought by which way -either banner or text links or other way.

    There is another way that I buy links. — Lots of Freeware development companies and organizations need funds to carry on their noble causes. So they ask the online community to donate. In return they display the list of contributors. What do you do with that? Yes I Pay money -and get link-backs –but is it a paid links?

    As I mentioned before – the magnitude of the link market is as big and varied as Google itself. If somehow Google implements a ban on sites which have bought links and sold links – then Google’s search will result into empty results as my rough guess is that above 80% websites are involved in paid links by one way or the other.

    So do I support random link-buying? NO. I think Google should change its whole concept of ranking sites slowly and slowly . It should strengthen its algo on finding links only from related sites and give the desired ranking for it either by SRPs or PR. As long as the algo will maintain its basic characteristics of SERPs ( and PR of course) on the basis of Contents and Votes by High Qaulity sites ( Google’s webmasters guide language) – the link market will thrive in one form or other.

    It has been a long post.
    Thanks for your patience.

  163. Dave (Original), let me say i never bought a link. and i have competitors buying links, so i’d be happy seeing all those links not evaluated by Google (though i already rank better, of course).

    but there’s a short circuit, and you cannot see it.

    follow me in this example: i have a popular blog. i receive a request to link a website for money. i accept and put that link with rel=”nofollow”. humans see link and click on it. (remember they don’t know it has nofollow, unless they use search status extension for firefox or some css to highlight nofollow – both very uncommon situations). so, that link is for users. but what the hell does google do if not giving users relevant page? and since that nofollowed link must be relevant, if i don’t want to lose visitors, google should evaluate that nofollowed link. short circuit.

    i think they should look at the problem by another point of view. and i’m sure they already have many other point of views. but paid/free link doesn’t make sense to me.

    relevance is much more important thing to watch (and i think after tons of paid-link reports they will be sure about it).

  164. Dave (Original)

    RE: “But as Google treats BLOGs favorably”
    ================================
    I doubt that very much.

    I also doubt Google will ever “ban” any page or site for buying links. It seems clear to me that Google would simply ignore paid links and not treat them the same as true votes. With “votes” being the keyword.

  165. Dave (Original)

    RE: “follow me in this example: i have a popular blog. i receive a request to link a website for money. i accept and put that link with rel=”nofollow”. humans see link and click on it. (remember they don’t know it has nofollow, unless they use search status extension for firefox or some css to highlight nofollow – both very uncommon situations). so, that link is for users. but what the hell does google do if not giving users relevant page? and since that nofollowed link must be relevant, if i don’t want to lose visitors, google should evaluate that nofollowed link. short circuit.”
    =========================================

    Not so, as it’s not a vote in the spirit that Google intends for PR. It’s simply a paid advertisement. Like I keep saying, Google cannot afford to see sites with the deepest pockets as being the most relevant. I’m pretty sure 99.9% of Google users would agree.

    IMO, if you buy a link and/or can add the link yourself, it’s simply shouldn’t be counted toward PR. By all means do so, but do so for click traffic, not a ranking boost.

    Google is unlikely to ban or punish any site that *self-promotes* paid and/or free. However, it certainly cannot afford to see sites/pages that do the most self-promotion as being the most relevant. It simply makes nosense.

    You have to think in terms of *objectivity”.

  166. Hi Dave
    Although Matt mentions about a new technique — is it clever enough or should I say sophisticated enough to differentiate which one is paid and which one natural?

    I believe humans are the most intelligent entities so far and if humans find it difficult how could they make an program as you suggest?

    I aslo mentioned I buy links –by way of donating to freeware sites — what about those? Do I buy?

    About “rel=nofollow” — has not this concept come to stop spammers on blogs and forums? Has this technique worked? The answer is NO. I get more than 50 trackback comments on my BLOG -with links to nude and drugs sites. I have got fed up to delete them everyday -so just ignore them. I have Spam Karma as protection.

    My suggestion to Matt and Google is to rationalise the whole thing. They have given birth to this phenomenon (Internet Frankenstein given birth by Google) and now they want to stop it! I wonder if its already too big and lucrative a market and out of their control.

  167. It will be interesting to see the results of these new techniques in filtering out the paid for links.

    It would also be interestign to hear what exactly is a paid for link. Lots have used yahoo directory as an example. I know of noone that gets pays the 200 bucks to get traffic. I have never seen traffic from the yahoo directory on any sites i own or manage.

    There exist 1000´s of examples of spammy purchased links. But a clear response on the yahoo example would help use not so clever SEO´s draw the line.

  168. I have always assumed that Yahoo does carry weight because the Google Webmaster guidelines say “Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site” … “Submit your site to relevant directories such as … Yahoo!”
    I take that as saying that a Yahoo listing will assist your ranking.

    Now that Google is becoming really serious about paid links, I am bemused that they are still giving Yahoo special status. Perhaps the guidelines should be rewritten? Something like ‘assume if you pay for a link that it may be useful for traffic, but not for improving your rankings’?
    Or perhaps Google would like to put some thought into broadening the rel scheme – I don’t like having to mark the links I have carefully reviewed as ‘not worth following’. 🙁

  169. D’oh ! I just paid for a link on a PR7 site…

    I may as well pack it all in! 🙂

  170. google drops the ball again, what a terrible idea

  171. Dude, you’re getting into Anti-Trust land.

    My brother-in-law is an Anti-Trust attorney, and he said that one of the signs of anti-trust is a business that discourages competition by limiting the business practices of another under threat of duress or retalitation.

    Google is the biggest web scraper in the history of the world that sells text links for a living, and you’re telling others not to do the same thing or you’ll punish them.

    Shame on you, Matt.

  172. I can always put my competitor’s link on a large number of websites available on many sites like text-link-ads and report it? What its gonna do?
    I think this reporting this is just bullshit.

  173. Hi,

    First time here for a non-SEO person who looks after his own site. I have a query about Googles own “Webmaster” Guidelines which specifically suggest that you:

    “Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.”

    So, DMOZ and Yahoo I did – the latter costs $299 per annum. Is this a paid link? Following these guidelines I also submitted to directories both paid and free – where there is a specific category for my niche.

    So, my question is should I or should I not be submitting to directories, some of which charge a review fee – which seems fair – given that Google actually suggests submitting to Yahoo (which costs $299)

    I’m confused now as to what is considered “legitimate” and what is considered “link buying”?

    I trust this is a fair question from a “mom and pop” website?

  174. never forget Google invented Pagerank, not links.
    Pagerank was a great intuition, considering a link as a vote. But if it’s not true anymore, Google cannot pretend anything, because, as far as i know, Google is an important (the most one, likely) part of Internet, but it’s not (yet) Internet.

  175. Bad idea, in general terms.

    How are you e.g. trying to estimate, wether you have a paid entry with better position within catalogues or a regular one? Different layouts mean different programming, which will be a hell of work to distinguish, if possible at all.

    Greetings

  176. I suggest you read the following thread at Digital Point:
    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=300412
    One of many showing the dissatisfaction of webmasters at the oppressive, arrogant way Google think they can dictate how we manage our sites. Yahoo is looking more and more popular by the day. I would encourage everyone to ditch AdSense and AdWords (48% of Google’s revenue) as soon as YPN become international.

  177. Why not just stop page rank 100% so then people stop buying links to improve page rank, if you remove the PR rating then people wouldn’t buy links just for pagerank. I think your doing the wrong thing here but who am i to question what Google do? What about Yahoo’s directory isnt that in Google’s recommended sources for submitting links too.

  178. should i report a site that pays Yahoo for a link from the yahoo directory?

  179. This is madness. Surelly if company X can aforde to pay for links over company Y this means that they are more important and should be reflected in the SERPS as such. This really strickes me as Google trying to focus people more and more through PPC.

  180. Multi-Worded Adam, I took my best guess about where you’d want the strong to close. I agree that one S.E.W. is enough for any blog. You may not have much luck with your message though.

    Nice guess. That’s exactly where I wanted it. 😉

    I don’t expect to have much luck with my message; as long as I have some luck with my message and at least one person who saw it the other way before sees what I’m saying now, it’s worth it.

  181. Matt,

    I thank you for taking the time to answer me.

    I know this is off topic and should be deleted but could you please post something about all the dropping sites?

    At first it was a trickle but now it’s like the Nile River and still no comments from anyone at Google about it.

    Thanks,

  182. I am a big fan og Google and you Matt…but this is stupid and unfair to the very people that have helped make Google what it is. I’ve been using Google since 2000 and this makes me feel betrayed. Please don’t become another Microsoft.

  183. If you’re buying links for the visitor traffic (as opposed to PageRank) is to buy them in a form that doesn’t affect search engines

    There’s no way that the marketing people for every company out there (especially non-webby companies like high street stores or mom/pop sites) ought to know this – for them, they’re just buying advertising exposure. They might not even know that it will help/hurt their ranking in search engines.

  184. Reading all of this page, I’m wondering what will happen to paid web directories?

    They are usually human edited and can provide relevant listing and I do think paying to be listed is fair and can even help search engines!

  185. Thanks for the easy way to report paid links! 🙂 Just reported craigslist for having posts that contain links.

  186. Hi matt
    Just curious. If i have a Women’s Clothing news site and a designer offers me money for a direct link (yes for PR). Does it matter? Assume that the designer’s site is decent with original content.

    Matt, are you saying selling links for PR is not “allowed” or is it still a matter of whether the link is on topic and the destination site provides topical, unique content? If i reported a link like that, even sent in a copy of the receipt for the purchase, does it matter for a “good” link?

    I guess, i’m asking:
    Is a good link, always a good link?

    thanks matt.

    Loved your efforts a PubCon last nov. very helpful

  187. If Google goes ahead in implementing this and is successful, I think that would be great! There are lots of webmasters out there who cannot buy hundreds of links and keep getting more. This way, only the big sites were getting more and more big and getting more backlinks, which was in a way unfair to the smaller sites out there.

  188. Matt,

    I hope you’re finished doing your chores.

    Google should be commended for taking this step to end the chaos they started when introducing Pagerank. I Giggle when I hear people brag about the PR of their website, while it lacks any hint of quality. That’s like Uwe Boll going out and buying an Oscar for one of his movies.

    But the thing is you CAN’T buy an Oscar, but you CAN buy PR. So until you guys get that fixed, I’m off to buy me a big juicy link 🙂

    PS @ Multi-Worded Adam
    “Would you guys who are complaining rather see Google implement something like this, maybe give a few hints after the fact, not ask for our input…”
    That IS giving input and NOT complaining

  189. We never ever bought links for our clients’ sites until we realized that in the competitive markets it was impossible to rank high, without buying text ad links. The “old fashioned way” of using metrics to choose keywords, on page optimization, content syndication, press releases seem to take a back seat over buying from PR 8 sites. I guess Daily Cal has already been “outted” on this forum, but how many here think that Aaron Swartz’s excellent site has ANYTHING to do with payday loans(except that the payday loans guy would like to get a reference from a PR-8 site). I love reading his “raw thoughts”, heck I even contribute to it when I have something to add. Matt Cutts even mentioned Aaron’s sites in his blog posts….which leaves me confused.
    Ultimately, the SEO’s are judged by results. If paid links are “policed” and can be done fairly(IMO an extremely difficult job), then all’s fair. Webmasters will learn other ways to find an edge(which may even entail honest hard work 🙂 ). Otherwise, it’s just tattling and beggar thy neighbor at best and witch hunt reminescent of Gestapo and KGB in the worst case. Even if Google uses the data to automate the process of paid link detection, the algorithms will be skewed to include the sites that have been tattled upon, while others will work around(by detecting what works and what doesn’t). It may take a few weeks or months, and on a micro scale some offenders will suffer, but there’s too much money at stake for people to not try and game the system. And game they will.

    Final thought for Google: Be careful what you ask for! If results become more relevant, people will reduce their usage of PPC.

  190. Heather Paquinas

    Bah, who would pay for links?

  191. I will immediately report to the form and report the google search page for paid links due to adsense. Heil Matt.

  192. http://laughingsquid.com/ have been selling links for a while now (via text link ads). As you can see, the links such as “Moving Companies I-mate PDA prices Great Fundraisers Compare Prices World Phones MySpace Layouts myspace layouts”

    Interestingly, the “great” bit of fundraisers is in black text (hidden/invisible text).

    I have complained to google about this issue a few months ago, but they never got back to me.

    From this its quite clear that big sites are allowed to use hidden text and sell link ads.

    Frankly, I’m disappointed, I think it’s time Google stopped talking about such issues if they are clearly going to turn a blind eye to high profile violators.

  193. I look forward to the day when we get some competition back into the search engine market. Google are going the way of all before them and turning into the bully of the internet.

  194. This scares me – what proof is needed for you to decide that a site has been buying/selling links? Do you take the informants word for it? Does the site owner get to defend themselves if reported? Will you inform sites if you take action against them? What penalties will be imposed?

    There are a lot of sites selling links that are very careful not to advertise the fact that they’re doing this so surely this won’t solve anything, just make people extra careful when buying and selling links.

    I have a “sponsored links” section on one of my sites – none of those links are actually paid links but are link exchanges with other sites that I like and are relevant. However, other people may see this and decide that someone must have paid me to put the links up..

    Also, what happens to directory sites which charge a review fee?

    Anyway, I’m sure a lot of people are going to have concerns over this, some clarification would be nice..

    Thanks..

    Simon

  195. I work for a technology company. We haven’t bought any links yet, but I know that two of our major competitors do.

    I could simply go out and report the sites they’re buying links on to ‘bring them down’.

  196. Matt, can you comment on directories asking for paid review/inclusion, Yahoo directory & BOTW?

  197. He can’t is the answer because this idea is ill conceived and inherently flawed. How on earth can Google tell the difference between which links are paid, which are there as link-exchanges and which are there because the webmaster is genuinely interested in the content of the target site. They can’t is the answer. The only way this will work is by tit for tat tip-offs by competing webmasters.

  198. Moves like this seem to indicate the flaws / limitations in the entire concept of “inbound” links and “citations” being among the more important factors in determining relevancy/ ranking.

  199. Why ndon’t we look at the paid link argument in a couple ways?

    1). Philosophical
    It could be argued that every link is a paid link. It’s a question of degree and intent. If I obtain a link from a non-profit site for a professional association because I am a paid member of that association, and they have a links page for paid members, then technically that is a paid link. But my intent was not to fool search engines. Then again, some folks will pay to be members in such associations just to get the .org link, in hopes of improving rank. Same link, but with two different motives and intents. This scenario isn’t as blatant as others, so I could see where Google could consider both of these “paid” links to be acceptable. Now if a company chooses to join 40 professional associations just so they can obtain 40 inbound links from .org sites, then something just -feels- wrong.

    2). Practical
    If Google’s objective for the searcher is to provide a satisfying search experience, then Google has every right to do whatever they want to ferret out any scenario that attempts to circumvent Google’s objective. At the same time, I can envision scenarios where the searcher’s experience was in fact -better- because of some type of “compensated” link strategy performed by the sites appearing in the results. These two scenarios conflict, and I see no possible way for an algorithm to determine
    human intent with 100% accuracy.

    3). Realistic
    An algorithm today has to behave both as a lie detector -and- a resource discover. Google has been up front with us about what they do and don’t like for years. Google’s cards have always been on the table. They have not equivocated. They do not like it when people buy links as a way of affecting Google’s results.

    It has been my experience that people rarely buy multiple high value links
    by accident. I’ve seen it happen a few times, but it’s the exception for people to be SEO/SEM victims. Don’t be coy. You know what you are doing is a gamble, but you gamble anyway 🙂 Ultimately we only have one choice to make. We either follow Google’s reco’s or we don’t. Nobody is forcing anything on us. Like the speed limit, we can -choose- to drive faster, and usually don’t get caught. Like the speed limit, we have no right to act shocked if we are pulled over.

    -ew

  200. What about link exchange reporting then?

  201. General question and a comment with lots of unanswerable questions:

    Question: Does anyone have positive experience gaining traffic from Text Link Ads/Brokers? By positive, I mean that the channel drives conversions that provide more than 200% ROAS?

    Comment: I really dislike this idea. I feel that it will promote additional black hat linking techniques. It just seems too difficult to determine whether they are truly paid or not. If my competitor has a great link, what keeps me from telling Google that they paid for it? How does Google determine whether I’m lying or not?

  202. Hi Matt
    a few months ago I got a pn at abakus forum:

    “hello einfach , I have had paid for a list at ebay , the boy promised me links from your domain, …. where is my link?””

    My eyes are bigger than the moon and the next galaxy. I know that I whether sell links nor buy for it – ( no adwords for ‘my’ webdesign ) –
    [ I am not mother theresa, only a poor webdesigner . I have had not enough money to promote at this way and this days I don’t need it ;)]

    Many phones and more than one pn and I got the guy from ebay.. a 14 year ‘old’ boy – his mothers name was in the impressum/about ….

    My kids are older than this 14 year old guy -…
    a very long phone -mother to mother …

    but after this post here: I know I have to bring an action against the mother of this boy: slander /libel

    But I can’t bring an action against anonym *spam reports* ……

    I can’t do nothing if a competitor jealousy of my first place this times fill out a spam report like : Monika sell links, Monika buy links ….

    If PR is ‘credit’ for a website – nofollow is discredit for the website – I can’t do that, because I’m using a dot de Domain. A german judge have said: all internet user are contend – because all of them would like to have ‘internetuser’.

    If I’m using nofollow —- does google pay the expenses for disuasion?

    Judas got 30 Schillings for his *spamreport* – ……….

    I’m mad about this, because I feel helpless about all the negative possibilities.

    PR is like the jewelz for the houswife or like the biggest car in the wall streets of the whole wide world…

    google will discredit his own status symbol ….
    this made my laughing ….. “””sorcerer’s apprentice”””

    insane world

    regards
    Monika

  203. Matt… Google says it doesn’t do no evil but I got to say that facilitating evil is the same thing as doing evil.

    What is to stop competitors from making false reports regarding paid links? You probably answered this one already but I just got to add my 2 cents (albeit Candian 2 cents worth 1.72 cents US).

    At the bottom of my site I carry links to other sites that look like they could be paid links but they are not. I try to give 1 way links to sites that I think my readers might actually enjoy. So now I have to worry about how those might get reported as “Paid Links”?

    As I read through this post and comments I couldn’t help but sing an old South Park song from the episode where the boys meet up a family of Mormons. For those who don’t kow the show or the episode I am referrinf to… The song would sing about some historical references in Mormonism and the chorus would then ring out “Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb” before breaking into more Mormonisms.

    I think a parody of Google by South Park is long over due, perhaps a show similar to the “Walmart” episode would be appropriate.

  204. Hi Matt
    Sorry to bother again. I just forgot to mention that — the example I gave above about a BLOG and its backlinks is very very well known to you and perhaps you know the owner too ( did little bit research on you). Naturaly – I avoided posting the URL — to avoid great embarrasment for certain people.

    As it stands — I just analyzed the first 6 backlinks – 1 Free PR9 -it is very temporary -manipulated just ahead of PR. It will be no longer a backlink after few days.( I personally know how to get them to– but I don’t do it)

    The next 2 PR8 backlinks are of the same type — manipulated.

    The 3rd PR8 backlink — comes from a BLOG — and either it is a paid advertisement or a link -exchange scheme -both of wihich are illegal according to Google -or so it seems.

    The next PR7 – it is possible to get it free if the BLOGGER is a friend.

    The third is –either paid or exchange.

    So long — for white -hat SEO of Google and your known BLOGs.

    If you want more analysis – please just drop me an e-mail — I’ll send you a list of site of renowned status ( Google’s Webmaster Guide language) -only PR9 & 8 which are selling links by way of either banner or paid advertisement. I’ll send you detailed proof of my claims.

    So — I stand my by argument that if Google takes any repressive action against sites involved in paid links and somehow finds the audacity to BAN them — Google’s search result will return skeleton results. First they will have to ban – dir.yahoo.com second — they will have to ban Lycoz -because it offers paid listing in their directory.

    Good luck

  205. I suspect Matt has released a shot in the dark to gather some feedback, before the spam team really starts to tweak on an automatic way for the detection of paid links. IMHO is Google at the moment manually flagging the crowd, who is selling or buying links and (no, I am not a G worshiper) I guess, they know what they do, at least from the technological side of it. All our rants and flips here are just food for the next brainstorm session, titles “How to decrease workload from the paid links flaggers” in the Plex.

    From the scientific point of view, that problem “in not just managing the worlds information, but RANKING it” is a very serious one. It is like a cheerleader group stampeding through your wafer microprocessor factory, while you try to create the new 16 core processor. It is only, that tricky webmasters are stampeding through the algorithm. But honestly, I believe these efforts are in vein, because I saw the first sites today, which offer an article exchange with links – as an answer to Matts posting here! Now, these links placed in 1 page articles do really not look like paid links, but they are. The question, I have asked about 2 years ago over at WMW stands: Is a paid link not the sign of a quality site? Who the hell would pay for a link to a stupid site? If the site is converting more visits into money than it costs to buy links to pump it up, it might be a good one or the guy will stop buying links in 6 month anyhow!

  206. Hmmm, I see bh’s using this against true wh’s as an easy way to further manipulate the serps.

    Gathering the information is one thing – how you will use it and training your algo to recognize the difference and act accordingly is another.

    Either way a very risky element.

    GaryTheScubaGuy

  207. Back in 2000 when i first build a website.. I tried to provide the user with as much information as possible on the subject of the site. The user typed in a keyword found my site and the information they were looking for was all related. I continued to build the site with the latest information possible. Site grew at a decent pace and visitors were happy.
    Then came the backlinks into play, site dropped in serp and instead of spending hours and hours a week building quality content, I had to work on backlinks to get back in rankings. It was impossible to do both and provide the same quality contents as before. I never bought links but had to search and spend tons of hours trying to get links just to get some rankings.
    Sites that use to give links to sites they thought had good information quit doing this as they felt they were getting penalized for to many out going links. So getting rid of paid links I think is awesome. More level playing field even though I would prefer the serps were based on quality content and not backlinks.

  208. Matt has answered that many times. If you buy links use nofollow and never expect or pay for PR. If you sell links let your customers know upfront that you use nofollow.

    That’s bullshit. As Lea pointed out, if you don’t endorse the site then you are interfering with your users experience by allowing them to go to a site that you would recommend them not going to, and if you do endorse it then there is no reason to nofollow it. Usually is it isn’t about PR, and many times it isn’t about the quantity of traffic that a paid link will bring, but rather the type of people who would then become aware of your site.

    The nofollow suggestion, as has been pointed out, is one of Google’s biggest hypocrisies, and in direct opposition of their instructions on this page:

    http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

    Quality guidelines – basic principles

    Make pages for users, not for search engines.

    @Lea – maybe people such as us can include a box around the ads with a fieldset tag stating: “Personally Reviewed Sponsored Links” 🙂

  209. Matt

    You’re asking for a specific type of feedback here on link buying.

    Does that mean you feel happy you have a system to tackle the well known link network that so many (some big) companies participate in and also the buying of links from the well known link brokers, again which a lot of big corporate companies seem to be doing these days, in fact there aren’t many that are not!! (Except those that don’t rank highly!)

    These two examples, I would of thought, would be the easiest to spot via the algorithm, but I see so many sites which consistenly have ranked highly for a long time, using such methods and continue to do so.

    It takes me less than a minute to spot this type of stuff.

    Any thoughts you feel able to share on these issues would be welcome.

  210. I dont think this is a good ideals 🙁 This is another way said not to Abrite 🙂

  211. Hi, matt. I submit spam report for this site: https://adwords.google.com/select/Login http://dir.yahoo.com/ and more …

    Google now use SS methods … ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel ) Great…

  212. Michael VanDeMar, there are other mechanisms such as robots.txt which fall in the same realm as the nofollow link attribute. Users don’t directly interact with robots.txt, but it’s a tool to help search engines understand your site better, who in turn are working to serve their user bases. I don’t see a real difference. Yours and others’ argument that rel=nofollow goes against the ‘make pages for users, not for search engines’ doesn’t ring true for me. Do users typically directly interact with META tag data?

  213. You know Matt, with all your spam hunting you seem to lose focus on neutrality. Also you (Google) are being extremely vague. If you don’t approve of buying links then why are sites that sell links still indexed?

    You obviously have some kind of rule as to what is a bad paid link and what is a good paid link.

    It´s pretty normal to pay for advertising, but for some strange reason Google seems to think you´re not allowed to pay for a link. Only if it’s hidden in a javascript (Adwords) you´re allowed to pay for it? Well I am actually sure that Google doesn’t think like that, but you have to realize that it certainly looks like that.

    So you (Google) has a problem with detecting the intention of a link, because that´s really the issue here. Is the link there to simply give a visitor somehwere useful to click on or is it a useless link.

    I don’t understand why you (Google) think that it being paid or not has anything to do with it being a useful link. Sure, there are paid links that are of no use to the visitors of that page. But then again, there are many links that were not paid for that are also completely useless to a visitor. The same way there are perfectly useful links that were paid for, just like there are perfectly useful links that were not paid for.

    Just for informational purposes. I don’t buy links, nor do I sell links. I have no interest in a reduced focus of Google on paid links. I just think Google is starting to get blinded by its own arrogance because its been the best and biggest search engine in the world for way too long.

  214. People complain about google becoming / have become the internet police. This isnt the case, they simply have a popular website and as such can do pretty much as they please with it.. Im sure that in time some other web2.0 (ridiculous sounding) site will rival the great G but for now, you want to be indexed with Google then you obey their rules – no matter how aloof, detached and superior they choose to become..

    Personally i think its all gone a bit far now with this “content is king” guideline for webmasters. For what they really mean is “ONLY unique content will be tolerated, syndicate any information on your site at your peril”.. IMHO 2 years from now google will simply have achieved a self fulfilling prophecy, the epitomy of an MFA site with supplemental blogger listings on page 12.. Great, then we can all get back to building sites that float our boat instead of worrying about something as irrelevant as PR and the reporting of black hat PR manipulators to the teacher..

  215. @Mark
    >Google now use SS methods … ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel ) Great…

    That’s clearly out of line, politely put.

  216. What made google great was giving us a better search experience through innovation. For 5 years they’ve relied on one over arching principle whose time is up. They need to innovate, not try to monopolize mind share with outdated principles – bandages like getting people to report who is using payperpost.com will and should fail.

    Google has created a monetization for ‘page rank’ and published their popularity index. Website owners should not be penalized for capitalizing on their own fame. Some people do this through paid links – the quality sites will have full disclosure about sponsors and users know when they are being sold the Brooklyn Bridge.

    One last thought on this topic, Jason Calacanis you are the poster child for full disclosure, shouldn’t that include your relationship with everyone on your blogroll. The giant ad for ThisNext on the side of your blog? Would you really have that on your site if it wasn’t your buddy Gordon Gould’s product? Not all sponsored links are paid, actually the most insidious are nepotistic. Google how are going to hunt that down? Are we going to have to add yet another tag to every outbound link. Don’t try to police the web through scare tactics and informants — please go back to innovating.

    More about this on my blog.

  217. For those sites that are marked by google as ones selling ads, how do they remove this blackmark or penalty once they remove paid adds or implement nofollows on them?

    I am sure there are some people who may decide to give up paid ads after the contracted time with a particular advertiser is finished. Will there be a reinclusion type scenario for this?

    Also, how well does this your spam protection work?

  218. Words like “arrogance” are sprinkled throughout these comments as well as in related discussions elsewhere.

    The undertone I’m reading into it is that the webmaster community is hungry for a viable alternative to Google. All it will take is one competitor led by someone who has the necessary oomph to kick down a few doors and get things done, and people will abandon Google in one massive exodus. It will start with a trickle, then as word spreads it will become a stream, and by the time it becomes a torrent you at Google will be reduced to spectators. Then you can start calculating your net worth based on $10 per share because you’re sharp enough to know what even a sniff of an exodus will cause on the stock market.

    I trust that people at Google are smart enough to see the red flags waving. They might not be many right now and they might not be large red billboards. However, ignore them at your peril.

    Perceptions of Google arrogance are fueled by many of the objections raised here and elsewhere.

    For example, you spend employee bandwidth on things that really should be low priority side-issues until such time that you’ve solved the real spam issue.

    You also give the impression of insulting inconsistency with things such as allowing cloaking by a well known media outlet, paid links by large companies, to name just two, whilst you clamp down, devalue and often kick out of the index completely the smaller players who are no guiltier than the larger players.

    You’ve created a commodity (PR) that any nit-wit could have foreseen would be commoditized, and now you bare your teeth at anybody who dares to commoditize it.

    The smaller players are the jackals that will destroy the Google vineyard because they will the ones that will start the exodus. The big guys will hang around a bit but they will always follow the money.

    Even though it would also invoke an avalanche of criticism, I think the best course of action would be to close the curtain of secrecy. Remove PR completely, have a few different ranking algorithms that you switch on and switch off at random intervals, and don’t tell anyone what criteria you use or how you rank sites for relevance.

    In other words, don’t create another commodity.

  219. One addition to “closing the curtain of secrecy.”

    If nobody knows how to “optimize for Google SERPs,” everyone will spend all their energy on optimizing their sites for human consumption and popularity.

  220. For some reason my earlier comment seems to have been lost. I’ll repost it here.
    ——–
    Words like “arrogance” are sprinkled throughout these comments as well as in related discussions elsewhere.

    The undertone I’m reading into it is that the webmaster community is hungry for a viable alternative to Google. All it will take is one competitor led by someone who has the necessary oomph to kick down a few doors and get things done, and people will abandon Google in one massive exodus. It will start with a trickle, then as word spreads it will become a stream, and by the time it becomes a torrent you at Google will be reduced to spectators. Then you can start calculating your net worth based on $10 per share because you’re sharp enough to know what even a sniff of an exodus will cause on the stock market.

    I trust that people at Google are smart enough to see the red flags waving. They might not be many right now and they might not be large red billboards. However, ignore them at your peril.

    Perceptions of Google arrogance are fueled by many of the objections raised here and elsewhere.

    For example, you spend employee bandwidth on things that really should be low priority side-issues until such time that you’ve solved the real spam issue.

    You also give the impression of insulting inconsistency with things such as allowing cloaking by a well known media outlet, paid links by large companies, to name just two, whilst you clamp down, devalue and often kick out of the index completely the smaller players who are no guiltier than the larger players.

    You’ve created a commodity (PR) that any nit-wit could have foreseen would be commoditized, and now you bare your teeth at anybody who dares to commoditize it.

    The smaller players are the jackals that will destroy the Google vineyard because they will the ones that will start the exodus. The big guys will hang around a bit but they will always follow the money.

    Even though it would also invoke an avalanche of criticism, I think the best course of action would be close the curtain of secrecy. Remove PR completely, have a few different ranking algorithms that you switch on and switch off at random intervals, and don’t tell anyone what criteria you use or how you rank sites for relevance.

    In other words, don’t create another commodity.

  221. @Taltos

    >For those sites that are marked by google as ones selling ads, how do they remove this blackmark or penalty once they remove paid adds or implement nofollows on them?

    I guess a reinclusion request would suffice. It’s just a question to regain the ability to pass link love, not to remove a penalty, so perhaps Matt will recommend something else. I could think of an improved algo detecting removed or nofollow’ed formerly undisclosed paid links properly, reinstating somewhat trust in linkage automatically. Works this way with hidden text and such stuff.

  222. #
    Dave (Original) Said,
    quote/
    April 16, 2007 @ 3:51 am

    RE: “But as Google treats BLOGs favorably”
    ================================
    I doubt that very much.

    I also doubt Google will ever “ban” any page or site for buying links. It seems clear to me that Google would simply ignore paid links and not treat them the same as true votes. With “votes” being the keyword.
    /quote

    Wrong! My site has been de-indexed straight after the announcement of this post. Matt pretty much confirmed it a few dozen comments ago.

  223. One last thought for the day, as an alternative to closing the curtain of secrecy.

    Instead of trying to play the role of the god of relevance judgment, give control to the web surfer.

    On the Google search page, give people a few choices, like:

    1. Show me everything you got.
    2. Show me the results but exclude those that were artificially attained.
    3. Show me the results with your toughest spam filters applied.

    And so on…

    Then nobody can accuse you of being biased, prejudiced or inconsistent because you will give people the choice of what they want to see. Your filters and algorithms will then be a service to the web surfer as opposed to a bone of contention.

  224. All of you should stop worrying about buying links or working on building links. All you have to do is create a free counter and get it placed on a non-english forum that generates thousands of non-english pages with a link to your site through the counter. Once that is done, you can achieve top 5 positioning for highly competitive search terms.

    I hope you are all staring and blinking right now, but that is exactly what is happening for results for “website design” (without quotations).

    Austinecom.com is sitting at #5 for the above search term, and they only have 11 pages in their entire site, but they have over 1800 links from the non-english language forum from a counter placed at the bottom of the page. Consult with the Yahoo site explorer.

    I am sorry, but this kind of crap really pisses me off…

  225. Hi Matt,

    paid links you say?
    can you get tripadvisor.com out of google SERPs for buying links within 7 days?

    Here is a sample of their rankings by Yahoo!
    http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tripadvisor.com&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=u

    I know these guys are good in travel, but they obviously buy links.

    Once I see them banned I will start to trust you. In the meantime, I will go back to buying my links.

    cheers,

  226. Quote Mark
    >Google now use SS methods … ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel ) Great…

    I have to support Sebastian here that this comment by Mark was completely inappropriate. Before you make comments like that, make sure that you got your history knowledge straight.

    Gestapo would have been the reference, if you want to pick something from the 3rd Reich that is at least somewhat related. It would have at least demonstrated that you know what you are talking about. However, even the comparison to the Gestapo would be inappropriate, and off the mark.

    On a side note: I referred to the East German Stasi, but I did not compared Google with the Stasi, but how that system worked. Over one in hundred people was an unofficial informant and a lot of them defamed other people for the wrong reasons. An environment of mistrust was created, which worked well for the establishment for a while until people figured out who to trust and who not and got organized without being exposed early by false friends that spied on them and then reported back to the MfS. The rest is history.

  227. are you saying Google is the only one allowed to sell text link advertising?

    what happened to Do No Evil?

    -kpaul

  228. Matt, seriously… address paid directory issues.

    Enough people are asking about this.

  229. Wow,

    Now I understand why no one was pointing this out when I comment on another article here:

    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/#comment-101916

    Yes, I agree entirely that even bringing this up looks bad for Google.

  230. Hmmm, this doesn’t appear to be an insignifican’t can of worms?

    In one corner, there’s people that would quite rightly be upset about the stiffling of free enterprise.

    In another corner, there’s the argument that well… “why should the rich get richer”, particularly when your trying to be fair to all content providers – that applies to webmaster’s selling links, and webmasters that are in a position to buy links. Clearly.

    Conversely, marketing is a major expenditure in most businesses. Whether thats sponsorship (e.g. like in sporting events, and even sponsoring of TV programs nowadays), direct TV advertising, publications, etc…………and links. Should marketing in certain “legal” ways be penalised? Should a search engine have that kind of influence or authority? Is that entirely constitutional?

    Many response comments here have commented on the enforcement, and abuse of attempts to enforce policy’s targeting this topic – and they seem like reasonable points to me.

    The final perspective, as it appears to me, is of course that of Googles. Why wouldn’t they want to improve their search results, and prevent anyone from attempting to manipulate the system/index. Actually, I’ve often wondered why the PageRank of any page is displayed in the toolbar if you didn’t want to invite webmasters to attempt to abuse it? To that end, for developers, there’s actually lots of components available out there that you can buy to enable you to determine the pagerank of any URL – and lets face it, there’s a very short list of reasons why anyone would want to do that. Isn’t there?

    It’s entirely understandable why Google, as would anyone, want to protect and improve their systems and results. Afterall – it’s their “raison detre”. At some point though, there must surely become a responsibility to the people and businesses that rely on the service provided – as well as to the users of the service. Again though, a line must be drawn, and in fairness it probably shouldn’t be a very thin, faint line. It probably should be clear and unmistakable. The problem might be though, where to draw that line such that it’s fair to search users, publishers, and of course to the provider of the search service.

    It’s a pickle and no mistake.

    I can’t even decide if I think buying links, if you can afford it, is entirely a bad thing at all? I can’t decide if selling links, if you’ve worked hard to achieve your rank and position, is entirely a bad thing?

    I guess, as others have said here, the thing that concerns me most is how to determine if a links was paid – and is the problem that the link was paid? Should in fact all links just be dismissed? I have a small number of links on our site that might at first seem to be suspect (not sure I should bring attention to that here – but er…??), but they aren’t. But who would know…other than me, as the webmaster? And who is to say that I’m wrojng to “vote” for the sites that I link to without nofollow? At the end of the day, I am linking/voting to help them increase their pagerank – of course I am – but not because I was paid, but because I genuinely want too, for my own personal reasons. E.g. 1 site is another site I am building, and the others are great services run by a close friends/ family, in which I totally believe and would do anything I could to help them.

    It’s a real pickle.

    I would love to know the details of how the anti-spam team are planning on experimenting with this issue. Actually, thinking on that, what I’m really thinking is that ignorance is bliss. My reading this thread is actually the result of a post on an SEO forum I follow, and probably like most people commenting it’s not exactly made my day. Not so much because I disagree with the thinking behind it, not so much that I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing; not so much if I think Google is taking too big a step to protect and improve its results, and not so much for any other reason other than it concerns me that decisions (automated or otherwise) might be made about my intentions behind personal decisions I have made that might effect either my site, or sites that I freely choose to link too – or my future ability (should I decide to go in that direction) to make a few bucks as a result of my hard work.

    It’s a pickle.

    I kinda wish I hadn’t seen this thread now to be honest. It’s given me more to think about than I was hoping for at this time of night, and makes me wonder whether or not I should consider a career move.

    I have to admit, I don’t like that webmasters try to manipulate the system, let alone the so called “SEO’s” that provide the *cough cough* expert advice. I am astonished at the time, money, and effort that some people put into their attempts to manipulate the system, that could so easily have been put to good and legitimate use, and would actually have had the desired and honest effect as the nonsense they attempt.

    I would love to buy the world a coke, and all sit around like hippies singing about peace and harmony, but thats not going to happen. Measures do have to be taken to ensure that we all play fair. Sometimes those measures won’t be effective, and sometimes the ignorant will suffer for their lack of informed advice.

    The internet isn’t just about search results. It’s actually all things to all people – commercial, hobby, personal, relationships, work/study, reference, shopping, etc… the sooner we get rid of the spammers, the utterly useless “content”, and the fraudsters, the better. I wouldn’t like to see an end to free speech/spirit/legitimate enterprise, but it must be so difficult (sometimes) to spot the difference.

    It’s a pickle!

    Anything that can be done to improve the lot of the honest webmaster (and SEO!) is a good thing. A level playing field for all, irrespective of marketing budget is surely a good thing. If that weeds out 80% of the worlds so called “SEO’s” in the process, I think that can only be a good thing too. If you have the answer, and it works, I wonder if you’ll follow the spirit of sharing on the internet and provide the insight to your competitors so as to level the playing field for you too? hehe ..?

    Please keep us all updated on progress?

    Best of luck!

  231. Some of the largest blogs on the web with very high Google PR’s sell text links off their site. How are you going to decide which ones you penalize for it? Depending on whether or not you like the site?

    Take a look at the homepage of TechCrunch, they sell text links.
    “Want to buy text links on TechCrunch?”
    Text Ad $301.00 for one week:

    Is it just that Google does not want anyone else making any money from text links?

  232. Wouldn’t the easiest solution just be to not disclose pagerank? If it’s a value that only Google knows, then there’s no buying links to game the system.

    Afterall, we all know there are PR7 sites that get no traffic, and PR2 sites that get thousands of visitors a day.

    I don’t think anyone really likes paying for a PR7 link that doesn’t send traffic or help make sales on whatever product or service they offer.

    Sites owners that are willing to spend their money to buy traffic (not just links) probably do have more to offer and probably have spent more effort developing good content, products and services that they believe visitors would find useful, or they wouldn’t waste their money advertising (if PR wasn’t a factor).

    My 2 cents — hide PR and you will change the landscape substantially and for the better.

  233. Hi Matt,

    I run a free directory and only add sites that I review and like, but I also have one paid sponsor link in each category, they are clearly labeled “Please visit our sponsor” and they’re image links.

    So do image links like that also need a rel nofollow or it that just for text links?

    Also, will the site that I link to with a rel nofollow suffer any negative effects? Because isn’t that like saying “I don’t trust this site.”

    One more, some of my sponsors are also in my free directory, so will google think it’s weird to link to the site once with rel nofollow and once without?

  234. Dave (Original)

    RE: “So, you are saying that Matt should give more information? I agree.”
    =========================================

    Oh no, Google has a LOT to hide. Besides, if Matt did spill the beans that he know about you and I would be far from the only ones to know.

    RE: “Why would I run around gathering data for someone when they won’t tell me how it will be used, and won’t compensate me for doing that work?”
    ==========================================

    You will be compensated. Those who now buy their way up the SERPs will fall back x positions making room for those who abide by the guidelines to prosper.

    RE: “What’s really funny… this data could affect all sorts of people in all sorts of ways.
    =======================================

    Data doesn’t affect anyone. ALL Google is trying to do is level the playing field for those without deep pockets.

    RE: ” If I were running a SE and I wanted to identify people who were overly concerned with affecting their own rankings, it would be those people most eager to turn people in for something.”
    =====================================

    No doubt some that turn others in for spamming are the real black hats. However, it would be ludicrous to focus on those who do report spam!

    RE: “Know why? Because those are the people who are looking. The people trying to influence their own search engine rankings are the people who are paying attention.”
    ==========================================

    Nope, it most cases site owners and searchers are sick of black hats buying links and all other forms of cheating their way up the SERPs. This is all about Googles end users and little to do with site owners.

    RE: “I have several websites, and I don’t know what my rankings are… don’t really know who the competition is, either. I’m busy running websites. Know what else? I’ll link to who I like, how I like, without fear, because I’m running my website the best way I know how.”
    =======================================

    I run one site and stay within the SEs guidelines. I too link to many sites, most of which ARE my competition. I also use AdSense to advertise my competition. When I 1st uploaded my site many years ago, I requested link exchanges (Google wasn’t number 1 then) from as many similar sites as I could. For about 1 year the links were my number 1 traffic bringer. I now just link to sites that I feel my site visitors would find use in. My forum members probably link to similar sites about 20 times a day! It’s silly to think any site visitor will not search, so why not make it easy for them from my site? (rhetorical).

    RE: “Trip over yourselves trying to please Google, spend your time telling them that YOU are a search engine manipulator by saying “Hey, look at me and what I can tell you”, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, Google or not.”
    ========================================

    I use to think that way many years ago. However, after reading the 3 major SE guidelines it became apparent that these guys are seeking out what their users want. Sooooooo, the best way, IMO, is focus 90%+ of my users.

  235. Dave (Original)

    RE: “Hi Dave
    Although Matt mentions about a new technique — is it clever enough or should I say sophisticated enough to differentiate which one is paid and which one natural?”
    ========================================

    I guess only time will tell.

    RE: “I believe humans are the most intelligent entities so far and if humans find it difficult how could they make an program as you suggest?”
    ==========================================

    I don’t think humans do find it difficult to spot paid links for PR. It’s simply not practicle or viable.

    RE: “I aslo mentioned I buy links –by way of donating to freeware sites — what about those? Do I buy?”
    =======================================
    IMO Google can already idendify most self-promtion type sites such as shareware sites, directories etc

    RE: “About “rel=nofollow” — has not this concept come to stop spammers on blogs and forums? Has this technique worked? The answer is NO. I get more than 50 trackback comments on my BLOG -with links to nude and drugs sites. I have got fed up to delete them everyday -so just ignore them. I have Spam Karma as protection.”
    ======================================

    It was never intended to stop spammers. The intention is to tell SE’s that you are not sure that the site being linked to is a ‘bad neighborhood’ or not. When used, Google will NOT see the link as a vote.

  236. Dave (Original)

    RE: “I have always assumed that Yahoo does carry weight because the Google Webmaster guidelines say “Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site”…
    =======================================

    IMO the keyword there are “find” and “index”. The fact that the suggestion of submitting to Yahoo etc is under the heading “When your site is ready” sort of re-enforces that. Also, it is 1 point and another point under the same heading suggest site maps. However, we will likely never know.

  237. Does this mean that you will finally be penalising the major newspapers.

    I have noticed that they have been selling links and banner ads for years without impunity and without penalty. And they have the nerve to call it advertising.

    And only those with deep pockets can afford it.

    Although this may cause some trouble, as I hear that BMW advertise quite a bit in this way. lol.

    Don’t you think this will cause major problems as to the ethics of paid links and advertising. If you allow advertising in newspapers and such, then surely this will defeat what you set out to do, and “only” the rich will be able to afford it.

  238. Matt,

    So, content doesn’t mean squat to google now? The results your turning up are NOT the best results for an inquiry. You have results coming in from 2002 for goodness sake on certain search terms and NONE of these results have CONTENT!!!! Do a search on Caribbean Cruises, other than Royal Caribbean-who obviously was PUT in position 1, the rest of these sites have little or NO caribbean cruise content. Look at cruises.com-a simple, one page search engine?????? And not 1 reference to Caribbean cruises. Sorry, but you turned the dial a little too much this time and it is COSTING everyone-including Google.

  239. Dave (Original)

    RE: “My brother-in-law is an Anti-Trust attorney, and he said that one of the signs of anti-trust is a business that discourages competition by limiting the business practices of another under threat of duress or retalitation.”
    ========================================

    I haven’t any threats or such? IMO, Google wants to idendify paid links simply so they are not confused with votes. Besides, I’m quite sure Google has legal advice and backing 🙂

  240. Dave (Original)

    RE: “I can always put my competitor’s link on a large number of websites available on many sites like text-link-ads and report it? What its gonna do?”
    =========================================

    Besides waste a lot of peoples time it may boost your competitor’s site above yours…………for a short while, or a long time. At best it will have no bearing at all.

  241. Dave (Original)

    RE: “I’m confused now as to what is considered “legitimate” and what is considered “link buying”?”
    =========================================

    My guess is that Google simply wants to differentiate paid links from votes, the latter passes PR, while the former shouldn’t.

    Unless you sell links for PR and/or rank boosting you have nothing to fear. Those who do have a LOT to fear……….and about time IMO 🙂

  242. Dave (Original)

    RE: “I suggest you read the following thread at Digital Point:
    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=300412 One of many showing the dissatisfaction of webmasters ….”
    =========================================

    LOL! Oh I bet most members there are kicking and screaming. The sooner John Scott and DP get off the Web the better off 99.9% of Internet users will be!

    RE:”.. the oppressive, arrogant way Google think they can dictate how we manage our sites.”
    ======================================

    You can run your site anyway you see fit, Google has never dictated anything to Webmasters. It has guidelines for FREE inclusion in it’s Index, the choice is yours.

    I hope the days of piggy backing off Google PR and Webmasters buying their way up the Google SERPs are behind us.

    IF another SE becomes are big as Google the black hats will simply target them. It doing so the SE (whoever that is) will fight back as well.

  243. Dave (Original)

    RE “That’s bullshit. As Lea pointed out, if you don’t endorse the site then you are interfering with your users experience by allowing them to go to a site that you would recommend them not going to, and if you do endorse it then there is no reason to nofollow it. =========================================

    Why do you think you must endorse a site to have a link to it on your own site? Directories don’t endorse sites, forum & blog links are rarely endorsements. Paid links are certainly not endorsements….they are advertisements.

  244. Dave (Original)

    RE: “Wrong! My site has been de-indexed straight after the announcement of this post. Matt pretty much confirmed it a few dozen comments ago.”
    =========================================

    Are you buying or selling links?

  245. You know, Dave, you can use <blockquote> and </blockquote> . 😉

  246. Dave (Original) – Personally, I generally struggle to determine what point your trying to make in your comments, but it’s a giggle to see you have so many opinions, humble or otherwise. hehe

    The comment about anti-trust is misguided, but I do understand the thought process behind it, and lots of people have commented on it here. Clearly many people rely on the business that search traffic provides them, which puts Google into a very reasonsible position. Finding the most appropriate way to deliver accurate search results, and continually improve the service, is the aim of the game for the nice people at Google. Sometimes their policies/measures will make them unpopular, I assume, but it’s all supposed to be for the greater good. Paid links are another form of marketing, but I can understand why they probably shouldn’t count towards PR. However, if that is removed from the equation, what will be the impact on people that sell links as a form of revenue (for some it’s probably their core business) ? Presumably less people will want to buy links, and even more will be far less inclined to pay through the nose for them. Again I have to say, I think that probably is a good thing – but it does worry me how it will be determined that a link is a paid link, as opposed to an honest link & vote.

    Some sites that sell links clearly identify them as sponsored links, so I guess thats fair enough, but not all sites do that. But what about the sites that display links in an ambigious way, such that it could be argued that they look like they might be paid links? What then? Assume they are… or not? Draw up guidelines for how to create links, and how to display them? Any solution that Matts team are working on is likely to be based on mathematical probability. I assume some kind of scoring system to identify the likelihood of links being genuine or paid, and he’s asking us here to provide feedback which can then be used to determine how successful their probability scoring system is. In order to accurately guage such a system will need LOTS of feedback, but they’ll need to be sure the feedback is accurate in the first place – but I’m not sure they can? Can they?

    If a system is put in place to make determinations about links being “paid” or not, it will most certainly have an impact on many businesses, and business practices (for some), but not really detrimental to Googles competitors though. It would actually be good for them all. I suppose.

    I don’t see how such a system could possibly be accurate though? Surely?

  247. I hate to be a drag b/c I love almost anything that involves Google and I think they’re a great company in general – but this method of “filtering” out will be abused by exactly the same people that Google doesn’t want indexed, let alone selling links.

    Just watch the sabotage take fold.

    Peace and love,

    Kyle

  248. Dave (Original)

    You know, Dave, you can use

    and

    Sorry, bad habit 🙂

  249. Dave (Original)

    BSolveIT, I have no doubt your struggle….in many areas 🙂

  250. Dave – good grief. 🙁

  251. I think it would be interesting to see the whole pagerank info go away.

    If pagerank info was not available publicly it would be difficult for sites selling links based on their pagerank to prove they would affect the sites purchasing. This alone may reduce the number of paid links for search placement.

    I am not sure what benefit comes from it being public other than I wonder why mine dropped resulting in time spent trying to figure out how to get it back up.

    In 2004 my webiste was one of those that new pages would show up within 48 hours of publishing, all pages were indexed, and a large number of our pages were #1 in the search results on the related subject. We have been somewhat clueless on the whole SEO thing and designed our site based on what we felt was best for users so this type of ranking was a pleasant surprise. When people would ask how we did it we would shrug and tell them just design a clean, good site.

    Somewhere around late 2004 to 2005 we started getting bumped by competitors that were working the backlinks heavily (many of which are purchased or part of huge trading schemes). We were’nt as we were still too busy working on a quality site versus SEO stuff. As a result, we started looking at SEO more (which is how we found this blog) and it became a real temptation to start buying links to keep up with these guys. We have not done any of that (other than adding to directories such as bussiness-dot-com) but it is sure tempting based on our reduction in traffic.

    Now in fairness, we also made some changes to our pages and were clueless about the 301 redirect that we have since discovered and that probably hurt us as well but that happened after we saw traffic on a downward spiral.

    So I say, dumping public PR will reduce this kind of gaming to some degree.

  252. I think it’s perfect that a page you reference for its all natural seo techniques (http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/calacanis-seos-next-evangelist0307.html) has a link to “buy relevant links” at the bottom of the page.

    This article bothers me on so many levels.

    Let’s say for example, that I am a new local car dealership and I have the largest collection of new cars in town. My website is brand spanking new, and is created with a limited, yet honest, knowledge of SEO. I don’t have time to write reviews for every car ever made, because I’m too busy outside polishing what should be your next dream car, so link building is difficult. The problem is, you never found it because I purchased some links to help give my start up website a little boost and now my site is dead because my competitor, that has one tenth as good a selection, but has been around since the model T and has had time to build links naturally, is feeling threatened and is looking for every excuse he can to hurt my business.

    This is an effort to help keep results clean and natural, but I think it requires some more thought. This may stop some bad people, but might also hurt a lot more good people that don’t have the time, knowledge, or resources to build links naturally?

  253. Re: #
    Dave (Original) Said,

    April 16, 2007 @ 7:21 pm

    RE: “Wrong! My site has been de-indexed straight after the announcement of this post. Matt pretty much confirmed it a few dozen comments ago.”
    =========================================

    Are you buying or selling links?

    Selling Links

  254. Hey Matt,

    I want to report to google about the paid links for a site.

    what about my identity ? Is the site owner able to see who report about me or not?

  255. Dave (Original)

    If you report a site the site owner will never know who did the spam report. Not from Google at least.

    Just be aware that spam reports are reviewed by humans at Google but action (if any) is dealt with via algos.

  256. Hey Matt,

    Someone else also pointed this out, Google recommends getting listed in the Yahoo directory which takes payment. How does lie with regards to aforementioned “link buying = no good”:

    http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

  257. Matt, why do your strategies always revolve around the SEO community? It’s high time you realize that there are people out there who don’t know what SEO means. They own websites too and they have every right to own a website. What happens when they sell paid links? Did they do anything wrong? Of-course they don’t use nofollow cause they don’t know wat that means.

    This is not google, it’s google’s monopoly speaking. But nothing lasts forever.. keep tat in mind: “This Will Also Pass Away”

  258. Blog Owner, you write one blog post about stopping foreclosure, then prefabricated steel buildings, then debt consolidation loans, then electric scooters, then … You did the same post twice right next to each other and just changed the anchortext between the posts. No offense is intended, but we get complaints about sites like yours a lot. Please put on your user hat and take a fresh look at your site.

    BobR, this isn’t as much the best thread for that, but I’ll see if I can talk about that in the future. The best for us is to see concrete sites mentioned, because it’s much easier to debug.

    RF, I provided a keyword that people could use to give us feedback, because some people were asking how they could tell us about that. I wanted to get the data as well. I want clean search results and a level playing field for sites, so it was a good time to take another look at this issue.

    Carsten, I’ve said before that when you compare people to Nazis, I don’t feel inclined to respond to you. That also applies to your holocaust post you did a few weeks ago.

    SEO Reloaded, your opinion may not be very popular on this thread, but I’ve heard similar sentiment many times. Well said.

    Jeff, I did email all day, but wanted to circle around at least once before heading to bed.

    muckoda, your identity would be confidential. Although I do have to say thanks to the one person who has send 39 different/useful reports in already. I appreciate it, A.

    Dewald ama-Canuck, I was enjoying one version of an interface like that earlier today. One issue is that regular users often think that they want super-duper control with lots of dials to twist, but in practice what an average user wants is a dial that’s set to the right level for them. I like your suggestion a lot though.

    Just to reiterate, I’d be most interested in reports of sites that appear to be trying to game Google’s rankings via paid links that flow PageRank. I appreciate the many responses that we’ve already gotten; the feedback and data that we get will be helpful as we take another look at this issue.

  259. Hi Matt,

    I hope you won’t consider this as spam. I’ve so many things to say that I thought a blog post would be more approriate –
    http://www.larrylim.net/seo-online-marketing/google-wants-paid-links-reported-death-of-the-seo/33/

    Appreciate if you could comment on what I wrote.

  260. Just to reiterate, I’d be most interested in reports of sites that appear to be trying to game Google’s rankings via paid links that flow PageRank. I appreciate the many responses that we’ve already gotten; the feedback and data that we get will be helpful as we take another look at this issue.

    Matt, out of interest, why does Google publish the PR of URL’s? A few have suggested that this has invited at least part of the problem. Would Google consider not publishing it anymore?

  261. Dave (Original)

    BSolveIT, I see you are now “struggling” with Matts posts 🙂 He already answered that

    Martin Avis and Neeraj, I’ll pass that suggestion on, but lots of people who aren’t webmasters enjoy seeing the PageRank bar, so I wouldn’t expect that to change.

  262. Why don’t your people not clean up the house first, before trying to ban
    paid links which is the bread for many webmasters which work many hours in making pages which have very good content, but also need some income.
    Have a look at: http://www.fuckgoogle.org and tell me why are you placing adwords on this site?
    Check out http://www.ctv.es/USERS/ross2/mueble.htm and tell me, why your fine robots can’t detect as much hidden text?

    And the list can go on and on. DON’T BE EVIL !!

  263. Matt

    “Just to reiterate, I’d be most interested in reports of sites that appear to be trying to game Google’s rankings via paid links that flow PageRank.”

    Power to you and to friends at GOOG quality team.

    Question: honestly, Matt. Have you expected so much “frustrations” from the paid links fans and from the paid links industry as a whole. Aren’t you surprised of the repsonses on TW, for examples 😉

  264. Dave, it’s always the way isn’t it? The people with the least to offer have the most to say.

    I’m aware of that comment, which isn’t actually an answer to the question. It’s a throw away comment/rebuttle – even if it is perfectly true. I too enjoy being able to see the PageRank of pages I visit, but is that the sole reason that PageRank is published? If it is, then presumably somewhere along the line someone will need to weigh up whether the benefit outweighs the cost, in terms of those that attempt to manipulate the system. What was the original thinking behind publishing the PageRank system though? It always struck me as an utterly brilliant marketing strategy, as it would inevitibly encourage people to track it and try to improve their score – even to become obsessed with it. And many people do seem to be. No other search engine publishes such a thing that I’m aware of, although my understanding is that they likely do have some such scoring mechanism, of sorts, that they use internally.

  265. Thanks for the opportunity to help us clean up google matt! This really is great news. A lot of my competitors have links from directories which all offer paid links. Now i will go and report all of them to google. I will have to automate it of course, its far to much work to do manually. I think maybe some perl would come in handy.

  266. Dave (Original)

    That’s the answer Matt gave to the same question as you asked, like it or not. Why you feel the need to keep repeating it is anyones guess. I guess some will keep asking until they hear what the answer they want.

    The people with the least to offer have the most to say.

    Apparently 🙂

  267. Dave

    Neither Martin Avis, or Neeraj actually asked the question I asked at all. Perhaps you could check and report back? I would appreciate it actually if I could send you my comments prior to posting them on here so that you can correct my mistakes, point out my errors, and keep me on the straight and narrow.

    Matt did make a passing comment about it, and quite possibly thats as far as it will go – although I am still curious to know the answer. It’s likely Matt actually doesn’t know the answer, but if he does… you know?

    I must say, we are all so lucky that we have you here as Matts spokes person. You do a bang up job, and I really enjoy your wit – well half of it anyway.

    🙂

  268. Hi Matt,

    My first post here and an interesting subject.

    My question would be this.

    I have partnerships in place with various sites, where my site a will link to their site b, and my site b will link to their site c.

    How will google know if this is a paid link or not? I honestly don’t see how you can make this work, but I’m all ears. 🙂

  269. Google effort to clean it’s serps and gain control of it is legitimate.

    I am afraid of two things:

    1. The people who will suffer most will be these mum & pop sites that were requested to sell links buy cheesy webmasters and thought that it would be nice to have an extra income. They probably have no idea what is going on here.

    The one’s that depend on selling link and build a career out of it will definitely find a way to overcome this, as they always do.

    2. I hope that what ever action Google will take against link sellers, it will not be applied to link buyers as this will cause webmasters to buy 1$ links to their competitors on http://www.destroy-your-competitor-on-google.org

    Link buyers will be effected anyway without direct action since their bought link will not credit them anymore and that is welcomed.

  270. I do think that if Google is trying to find paid links to be able to ignore those when ranking sites, I don’t have any problem with that. Not as a site owner nor as a Google user.

    The question you should ask yourself is; If Google could eliminate all paid links while calculating SERPs would the SERPs be better or worse?

    The only penalty aginst paid links I’ve heard Matt mention is just that, the link would not benefit your position in the SERPs. As paid links are “artificial” that seems just the right thing to do. Look at the SERPs as election results, should the site buying most votes win or the site that most people voluntarily votes for?

  271. Matt,

    Thanks again for answering.

    Feel free to use my site in you post. I have lost all my targeted keywords except for one area of the site. By lost I’m at the bottom of the results.

    I have tried everything from keyword density to reinclusion request and have not been able to get out of the bottom for my main keywords.

    Thanks again for reading this and I look forward to your post.

    Bob

  272. Very intheresthing discussion, I think the SEO sea will be more difficult to caught fish, even with the tools.

    I will follow the threads

  273. Oh my. Simply tooooo darn funny. What a great thread and a very “revealing” thread.

    If everyone is soooo up in arms with this, why not simply use javascript links if you are selling links? LOL What’s the big deal anyway? If you are really selling links because of the traffic and new customers a site may get from your website, what is so hard about making those “paid” links in javascript so the problem is immediately solved?

    Or maybe you know darn well you are only selling the links to others, knowing they know they may get a boost in Google for that link as well?? hmm.

    That’s the point people. Why would Google, or any search engine worth their salt want to reward websites just because they have some money to buy a link? Google wants to minimize the impact of this link buying stuff and for very good reasons. Go with it. Live with it. If I were Mr. Google, I’d be doing the very same thing.

    If you are a site wanting to get relevant visitors to your site; what’s make the difference where they come from and how they come? Why would you care if the link was “direct” or thru a redirect or thru a javascript link? Are you not buying that link for the great and relevant visitors, or are there other reasons you are buying that link? hmmm? 🙂

    As far as all of these text link sellers goes; their “only” reason for having a site is to SELL links for Google. I know and you all know why they exist in spite of what they may say. A few of them were mentioned early on in this thread. Guess what? They can simply start selling javascript links….. problem solved.

    I love the new way of reporting paid links. Nice job. This will help Google immensely in many ways.

  274. A few people have mentioned the paid directories already, but I would like to specifically point out a few to make a point.

    1. You can pay Yahoo a couple of hundred dollars and have your site reviewed and indexed in their directory. This was one of the first SEO practices recommended to me when I started webmastering, because Google respects Yahoo so much that it reflects very well on your site. Will links from yahoo’s directory be limited?
    2. Similarly for PRWeb.com, a great Press Release website which you pay to produce a press release for you. The whole process of submitting a press release with them revolves around SEO and producing the ultimate search engine friendly article you can. Now of course the goal of that is to also make that press release itself search engine friendly, but no doubt the links from that article to your own site are incredibly valuable (coming from a highly reputable website and an incredibly content relevant article)

    3. The converse: Free Website Directory submission. Now there are thousands of directories out there, and I can start working my way through them all, submitting my site to every single one of them. Free. And no return link. Aren’t these links even more artificial than paid links?

    Thanks for your dilligence in your replies, I appreciate all the work you are doing here!

    Shane

  275. Google wants to know which sites buy links…?

    I have a list of 2000 paid directories..

    each must be having at least 50 unique sites listed..

    thus the list has 100,000+ sites that have bought links..

    should i forward the entire list to Google?

  276. Matt Said: “Just to reiterate, I’d be most interested in reports of sites that appear to be trying to game Google’s rankings via paid links that flow PageRank. ”

    Powerful stuff Matt!

    But you still haven’t explained the relation between the “paid” part and “gaming Google” part.

    You can’t say that if there is no “nofollow” used that it therefore is trying to game Google.

    Doug Heil said:
    “If everyone is soooo up in arms with this, why not simply use javascript links if you are selling links? LOL What’s the big deal anyway? If you are really selling links because of the traffic and new customers a site may get from your website, what is so hard about making those “paid” links in javascript so the problem is immediately solved?

    Or maybe you know darn well you are only selling the links to others, knowing they know they may get a boost in Google for that link as well?? hmm.”

    The big deal is that Google shouldn’t be dictating what people do on their websites. In their logic for example, a newspaper isn’t allowed to charge or even place ads in their newspaper because it makes companies that can afford it look more popular. This is rediculous. A company that wants to determine how popular companies are should simply decide which factors they include in their calculations. They have to decide if they use ads in newpapers or not. But they can’t tell a newspaper how to show what is an ad and what is not.

    Some paid links are obvious ads, other paid links are not. Google’s ability to detect it is THEIR problem and not the webmasters problem. They can’t dictate how a website codes a link. And it seems they want to punish websites for not doing as they dictate. That´s dictatorial behaviour and I hope I don’t have to explain how wrong that is.

  277. Peter

    “Some paid links are obvious ads, other paid links are not. Google’s ability to detect it is THEIR problem and not the webmasters problem.”

    Wrong..very wrong assumption. Manupolating PageRank by paid backlinks is affecting both Google and the majority of webmasters who aren’t able to pay those high rates for paid links.

  278. Dave (Original)

    Sorry BSolveIT, you’ll have to play semantics solo.

  279. Dave (Original)

    Powerful stuff Matt!

    But you still haven’t explained the relation between the “paid” part and “gaming Google” part.

    I would *guess* they want what “you” interpret as “gaming Google”. This is test data, so no doubt they want a brooooooaaaaaaad range.

  280. I have re-read this entite post and as Matt clearly stated:

    “there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank)”

    So I think, speaking as a mon and pop site, this is a fair and clear objective for Google to want to dis-incentivise buying/renting links on high PR sites – just to “gain Pagerank”! (Sad).

    .My worry was “am I doing wrong submitting to directories” – and I think now – having read all this again – thats ok ala the “Webmaster Guidelines”. Of course it must be very easy for Google to indentify a directory listing and classify it as it see’s best.

    I also think it is unfair to criticise Adwords – which is structured in an obvious and transparent way and does not give a “link” anyway.

    Google will not be daft enough to try create a monopoly that risks cutting off the hand that feeds it!

    So, I’m fine with all this!

    I’ll also carry on gifting links to worthy sites and seeking relevant links in my niche. No problem there!

  281. Dave (Original)

    The big deal is that Google shouldn’t be dictating what people do on their websites.

    Not from what I’m reading! IMO, all Google is attempting to do is NOT pass votes, in the form of PR, to bought links.

    The only ones that SHOULD REALLY worry are those who are piggy backing off Googles PR and stuffing up their method of ranking pages (knowling).

    Those who have bought links for PR will likely end up round-about where they were in the SERPs pre the link buying. Assuming they ever got the boost they paid for.

    This a GREAT thing……………..for the ALL Google users and the overwhelming majority of site owners, especially mom & pops!

    Give me a level palying field every time!

  282. Dave (Original)

    Great post Ray Burn! Common sense & logic is not dead after all 🙂

  283. Matt,

    Thinking about the user control options a little more, I want to offer the following additional thoughts.

    When one reads something like I quoted below, you realize that a fight against paid links will probably always be a losing battle. As I noted earlier, if you announce a war against paid links, those who pay for links will simply do it more covertly. Hence, instead of banning it, legalize it but give users an option not to include it in the search results.

    Six out of 10 marketers are planning to increase both their paid search and natural search budgets over the next 12 months (http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/363080/search-returns-still-high-but-google-power-spells-risk.html)

    As an alternative to distinct “views” or “categories” you could have a 1-10 Confidence Sliding Scale. If the user selects 10, she will see results with all your filters at full throttle. At a 7 she might see things like paid links included. At 1 she will see the mish-mash of everything you’ve ever spidered.

    With this approach Google does not need to de-index any sites, which could affect and have adversely affected legitimate small businesses through false positives. In addition, with this approach you do not have to justify or explain what criteria are used. Users will be able to view the result set in Google’s preferred view of the world (10), and they will also be able to view the result set as they would like to see it.

    I think this approach will also defuse a lot of the contention that you and your colleagues have to deal with. If sites want to slug it out in a dollar fest for the #1 SERP, wish them well and let them fill their boots. They will have a home somewhere on the sliding scale where they can do that. In addition, you won’t appear to be dictating to webmasters what they can and cannot do. In fact, with this approach they can do whatever they like. Their sites will always be indexed but will just not be shown depending on the end user choice.

    I believe that these “choices” need to be very visible on the main Google page. They will serve very little purpose if tucked away on an Advanced Options page. You could preselect the recommended setting that you believe is most appropriate for the average user.

  284. Dave (Original)

    RE: “those who pay for links will simply do it more covertly”
    ====================================

    I believe that would be half the battle won.

    I like your sliding scale idea though. Not it would be viable though??

    I think by identifying paid links and not counting toward PR, will be viable…..if Google can pull it off. Give me a G..O……!

  285. Google cannot completely eliminate paidlinks, and I’m sure they are as aware of that as the brown-trouser brigade.

    What they must be aiming to do is:

    1. Make it clear to all that paidlinks are not White Hat SEO.
    2. Destroy the open market in paidlinks.
    3. Ensure that it is not so widespread that new webmasters think ‘it’s ok’.
    4. Reduce its effect on the SERPS.

    If they get 75% of that, then they have done a great job for search engines, honest site owners, searcher, and The Internet.

  286. I think this will encourage the bad competitors to abuse the authenticated spam report?

  287. The big deal is that Google shouldn’t be dictating what people do on their websites. In their logic for example, a newspaper isn’t allowed to charge or even place ads in their newspaper because it makes companies that can afford it look more popular. This is rediculous. A company that wants to determine how popular companies are should simply decide which factors they include in their calculations. They have to decide if they use ads in newpapers or not. But they can’t tell a newspaper how to show what is an ad and what is not.

    Not that I necessarily agree (not that I don’t either), but I do like this analogy.

  288. If Google implements something like this, it will be a web-two-dot-oh-ified version of Google that puts control of the search results in the hands of the end user.

  289. Google is constantly faced with a dilemma. On the one hand it is a commercial enterprise that has every right to responsibly do whatever they like. On the other hand it performs a vital community service by being the launching pad into the web for more than 60% of web users.

    The average user expects to see in the search results a relevant selection of the entire inventory of web pages out there. We know that is currently not the case because there are millions of web pages that Google deindexed. Hence, the only choice that users have today is a relevant selection of a Google-selected subset of the web. From the standpoint of their right as a commercial enterprise that is fine. From the perspective of their community service that is not fine because they are not making all web pages searchable and findable.

    Indexing everything and giving the end user a choice of what to include or exclude nicely serves both their commercial rights and their community service.

    In addition, I have always asked myself, “How does Google expect my site to accumulate natural backlinks if it includes only the main site page in its index or does not include it at all?” It’s usually the deeper content pages that contain the keywords and content that will spark interest in a site. I see my suggestion as a potential solution for this issue as well.

  290. Why was my comment from last night deleted? In short:

    It would seem the easiest way to stop people from buying links simply for PR is to stop making PR for sites publicly available. This is a genie that Google let out of the bottle, and one that can be bottled up again by simply not releasing PR.

    We all know that PR goes up and down, so after a few updates to the google algorithm, nobody will know what PR they really have, and selling links strictly for PR will dry up.

    Any link sales will then be based on traffic, which I don’t think Google can tell webmasters they don’t have a right to purchase. People have web sites to sell products and services, and Google would have a hard time telling webmasters that they can’t try to sell those products and services to the largest audience possible.

    As I said last night, we all know that there are PR6 and PR7 sites that get no traffic, and PR2 sites that get thousands of visitors a day. No webmaster really likes paying for a PR7 link that sends no traffic. Stop publishing PR and you will stop high PR/low traffic links from being sold, which will benefit the majority of webmasters.

    Why shouldn’t paid links (for traffic and not PR) not hold weight in Google. The Internet is long past the days of being non-commercial, and I would guess that the majority of links between websites are the result of advertising or link trades, not out of simple goodwill from a fan of a site. The Internet is business, and by ignoring those links, Google is truly ignoring the real nature of the Internet.

    If I want to know what the most popular brand of soda is, I can tell from tv ads that it is Coke and not RC Cola. If RC Cola had a product that many people found to be likeable or useful, they would have higher revenues and be able to sink more money back into advertising. It’s a self-reinforcing system…better product = higher revenue = more advertising = more visability. Again, the system starts with having a good product that generates revenue not with the advertising itself.

    Maybe Google needs to consider that sites that are able to advertise are relevant on the topics they advertise on.

    Sites that have bad products or services that people don’t necessarily find useful may try to buy links to advertise to make sales, but if that initial burst of traffic doesn’t convert, they won’t generate revenue and the advertising will stop and the links will fade away. Maybe Google should place more weight on how long links are up, even commercial links, to measure the relevancy.

    Again, my 2 cents, and I hope this comment is deleted as well.

  291. This is bizarre. Can anyone think of another form of paid advertsing that will negatively impact your existing business?

    If placed a newpaper print ad for my gas station, the ad wouldn’t affect my standard walk-in traffic. However, if I buy an internet text link from the same paper, my internet traffic will cease? Google is really out on a limb here.

  292. [quote]Why shouldn’t paid links (for traffic and not PR) not hold weight in Google[/quote]
    They do and they should. Do you think they don’t? If you don’t think so, pay for a few links in the “quality” directories out there. I can think of just a few of them:

    http://www.goguides.org
    http://www.joeant.com
    http://www.gimpsy.com
    http://www.yahoo.com
    http://www.websavvy.cc

    Those are “directories” that you pay for a link. I can guarantee you that they will help you in search engines.

    So now you ask; What’s the difference between paying for a link in a “quality” directory and paying for a link with text links ads.com?? Why gee; it seems quite obvious to me.

    You cannot compare a good quality directory who happens to take some monies for a “review” by HUMANS before they list you, and other sites out there who simply take your monies automatically and list you somewhere. To do so is very naive.

    This is all really, really simple.

    Sell links for the great and relevant visitors your client will receive and use javascript or nofollow or both when doing so.

    Buy links on relevant pages in order to receive the great and relevant visitors you will get from those bought links.

    You do either/or and both of those things, and you will be very, very safe from any link buy spam reporting.

  293. Friends lets keep focus on the main issue in all this.

    Paid Backlinks Merchants are reluctant to add rel=nofollow to those backlinks.

  294. Although I like Google and their products and services I think that the anti-paid-link policy will not serve its intended puprose. I personally have never either sold or bought links.

    Still I think Google has to be careful about marking practices that are not obvous spam as spam. If one manages to create a good enough non-spam site and puts some irrelevant payment links on it – well I guess they are free to dilute their contnent. There are better and more reliable ways to evaluate content quality – the newly widely implemented click tracking for example or journey data from the Google bars.

    And of course Googlers have to remember to do no evil . What will you do when you get a report:

    google.com and all its content partners are selling links; here’s a page on adwords.google.com that demonstrates that”

    “www.google-adwords-customer.com isbuying links. You can see the paid links on http://www.google-adwords-customer.com/path/page.html

    Punish them for spam? or drop them from the index althogether. 😉

  295. Doug Heil, you wrote:

    “You cannot compare a good quality directory who happens to take some monies for a “review” by HUMANS before they list you, and other sites out there who simply take your monies automatically and list you somewhere. To do so is very naive.”

    My point was that if PR wasn’t a factor in link sales, and sales were based just on traffic, you effectively would have an amount of human review determining if a site was relevant.

    If I start a website that sells a product or sevice, and it’s good, visitors to my site will make purchases. I may try to give my site a kick-start by purchasing links that send me traffic. If my site is good, and the rush of visitors coming to my site through purchased links find my site relevant to whatever I’m offering, I’ll make sales and will be able to afford long term advertising, meaning my purchased links will probably stay up for a long period of time, if not perpetually.

    It I start a website that sells a product or service, try to kickstart it by buying links for traffic, but that rush of traffic does not like what I offer and does not convert into sales, I will not generate any substantial revenue, likely will not want to shell out any more of my money for advertising, and my paid links will disappear.

    My point is that if my paid links exist for a long period of time, it is because visitors to my site through those paid links found my site to be relevant and useful, which is why they made purchases which continue to allow me to advertise. They are the human reviewers, who review my site en masse, and provide me the means through their votes for my site (through sales) to continue advertising. I would trust their votes showing my site is relevant more than a single directory owner with unknown motives.

  296. Brad; yes, I agree with you totally. I’ve been screaming at Google to get rid of the silly PR Bar for a very long time now. LOL

    All your points are good ones, but I do believe Google and other major se’s “know” which directories exist for good reasons like for the betterment of the internet as a whole, and which exist for google adsense and for the lining of the pockets of the directory owners, and for a boost in Google. It’s pretty easy to review a new directory or any directory and decipher if you want to pay to be listed in it because it’s of “quality” and you will get quality visitors.

  297. Hi Doug Heil,

    you say: So now you ask; What’s the difference between paying for a link in a “quality” directory and paying for a link with text links ads.com?? Why gee; it seems quite obvious to me.

    Well thats what initially concerned me – cos I don’t want to do bad stuff re: directories – but won’t (can’t afford to!!) pay for a “PR” link.

    Then it stopped concerning me – as per my two earlier posts:

    It’s simple as I see it – if a “quality” directory has a category for your niche then list – it helps the web as a whole understand your niche and the Search Engines may grant/ not grant/ or ignore weight to that listing for PR – but surely not penalise it!

    However – if your “widget” site “crops up” on a “totally not about widgets site” – that happens to have a PR7+ – does this:

    a. add value to the web?
    b. Stike you as a relevant link?
    c. Be a rightful candidate for being ingnored for ranking (PR) “votes”

    Or, to put it another way – rightly or wrongly – I would value 10 links from relevant sites with little or no PR that were “bang on” my niche than one PR8 “widget link” from a totally “not about widgets site”.

    Also, this post got me looking around – don’t really juicy sites that now have “not so juicy” links appearing look less appealing than they did before?

    PS Dave (Original) – cheers!

  298. Matt says:

    Let’s say for example, that I am a new local car dealership and I have the largest collection of new cars in town. My website is brand spanking new, and is created with a limited, yet honest, knowledge of SEO. I don’t have time to write reviews for every car ever made, because I’m too busy outside polishing what should be your next dream car, so link building is difficult. The problem is, you never found it because I purchased some links to help give my start up website a little boost and now my site is dead because my competitor, that has one tenth as good a selection, but has been around since the model T and has had time to build links naturally, is feeling threatened and is looking for every excuse he can to hurt my business.

    Can you say “HIPOCRITE”? So take links out of the equation…that same cat can signup with adwords and do the exact same thing through google and get the same result; at the top of the results. Only difference, the money goes to google pockets.

    It’s all about money. “Better results”??? Oh please. Get real. Google will be gamed as long as it exists. I think the majority of link buyers put links on sites similar to their own, so its no different than paying for Adwords, except they don’t get the money.

    Doug Hell states you can pay a directory because “HUMANS REVIEW THEM”! Mr. Hell, I would suggest you catch a clue because places like TLA also have HUMANS that review links. You’re a hipocrite and a brown noser I would assume.

    Google’s new motto, “In Evil & Fear We Dictate” ?? Catchy.

  299. I think it is a great idea. I will start reporting every site with AdSense on there starting today 😉

  300. Does this mean that link directories offering the ability to pay for a featured spot will be a thing of the past? Obviously it seems we can still sell ad space on our site – so long it is scripted – so that the robots don’t see it.

    This is surely a confusing thing! Thats for dang sure!

  301. I’m happy to see so many people disagreeing. Maybe this will help make a change in this (in my opinion) excessive policy.

  302. Seriously, Matt. That’s not a good idea.

  303. What does this mean for sites such as ReviewMe, PayPerPost, Blogative, etc.? They are not necessarily selling links primarily for SEO value, but they are most likely getting this as an added bonus.

  304. As a publisher who is supposedly selling links to others for the traffic they receive, let me give an example as to what NOT to do:

    accessify.com

    Scroll to the bottom to view the “paid” links there. That is the very type of publisher that se’s should be targeting, etc, with the links NOT counting at all. It’s total BS. The links are not there for the sites visitors and not even meant to be seen or discovered by the site’s visitors. Gee; what are they there for? And why did those sites buy the link? And why is that site selling the links??

    What “not” to do.

  305. Matt this is the biggest complete pile of crap Ive heard. I hate Google and their monopolistic actions with a PASSION. This is a double standard. If Google doesn’t like the way paid links influence search results, then eliminate Pagerank once and for all! Google is just a search engine. Links are not evil and payment for links is not evil. The Web is based on links, link-trading and advertising, which of course is payment for links.

    How does Google make money? PAID links. Now you guys bought Double Click and what happens to the publisher info and privacy concerns? “Your slogan of “Do no evil” is becoming old news.

    I seriously despise monopolies and I certainly I am tired of Google dictating what constitutes business practices since they are self serving to Google’s bottom line. I pay $10,000 in Google paid ads every month. I am seriously going to give you guys zero cents if this monopolistic, anti competitive, self serving stuff continues. I am sure more people will follow.

    Google will NOT tell me what to do Mr. Matt and how to run my websites.

  306. Matt,

    Human nature is to try and game the system. Buying links is easier than exchanging links with competitors. The trouble is one way links are fickle and have little meaning. A link exchange between competitors is an exchange of trust.

    It used to be hard for scam sites to gain respectability, dishonest webmasters found it hard to build a link exchanges with other sites as they lack integrity and tend to delete links. Now they can just buy instant Googability.

    Steve

  307. Hi Matt, I´m form Argentina, sorry for my english

    How will google know if some link is a paid link or not? I have some websites nautical tourism and I have too many links to Instructors, boat constructor, maintenance. Some links are FREE because are friends, others are CHANGE for service or backlinks, OF COURSE have some of them than PAY ME !!

    I need this money, I live with my websites revenews, IT¨S ADVERTISING; pay for ads in my site. WHATS THE PROBLEM with this links ? How can Goog find the difference among a link of publicity, one friend link and another paid link with SEO SEARCH intention or spam?

    PLEASE I try understand all this messages, my english create more confusion but today for my it´s a day of BAD NEWS, because many clients can tell me ” I no longer want to announce in your website”

    and now……. grrr grrrr

  308. Matt
    I am a bit disappointed you have not answered my specific concerns–

    #1. I gave you data of a BLOG — you personally endorse. I raised some questions –you ignored. I am not giving the URL here –because I don’t want to see you embarrased on a public platform like this — showing all the people how Google knows nothing and just make judgement. I have definite proof that –that site/BLOG is involved into something which you are trying to stop and why this long page is all about!

    Why? Are sites known to Google’s big-shots have special treatment?

    # I also said – I personally buy paid links for my sites!

    How?

    I pay donations to some of the most renowned sites ( according to Google’s parametres- PR). In return they give me link backs. How are you going to deal with this? They are not selling links — they are just showing gratitude for my contributions by giving me link-backs. If they don’t give link-backs -there will be very few contributors and whole thing will suffer.

    I have also been collecting backlinks stats of PR9/8 sites — and 99% of them are involved in link selling –some way or the other.

    How is Google going to deal with these points?

    Or is it Google taking this step because they want to monopolize the whole link market/ ad market? Is that the policy behind this destructive policy? That is the discussion going on among webmasters and some have already switched from Google AdSense to Yahoo or others out of disgust!
    Google will loose more than gain with this move and I can see a Grand-Handshake for the Google guy who first proposed this move to the board in few months time! 😀

    I hope you answer to my first two points raised. Or more better would be to show the people of how Google guys live in a dream world of their own –by posting the evidence here of a site endorsed by you as Good involved in same Game. Or do I send it directly to Mr. Larry Page?

  309. Gotta admit that I don’t like this idea although not for the reasons stated up above but I feel it would be a waste of time. I already send in complaints about splogs with Google Adsense on them. Those never get dealt with by Google’s staff.

    Of course I just spent 4 months trying to get Google Adsense to approve me for their Adsense program. I’m deaf and can’t use a phone but no one there could understand that that was an issue.

    I think Google’s time would be better spent on dealing with the issues that they have inhouse. ie Splogs with Google Adsense on them, all the splogs with the search database, the problems with blogger.com and all those splogs and hackers and security issues, and customer service.

  310. This is blatantly a call on users to contribute their time in order to further establish Google’s monopoly on internet advertising. Paid links are the most basic form of online advertising and what Matt is suggesting here is that we should go and report on people who sell advertising on their website in circumvention of Google’s coffers.

  311. I am afraid webmasters or site owners will abuse this feature of google and they will report their competator of selling text link to through them away from the SE battle arena.

    Why selling text link or even buying text link is not good, why google trying to stop webmasters to make some cash from selling some ad space in their site? Does google consider them as threat to adwords?

  312. I hate snitching, but do think that something needs to be done. For one thing the difference between paid ads, displayed in prominent places and links, that are nothing more than ads disguised as information links need a clear line. It would seem, however to be an impossible task to make the distinction between the two in some cases. The thing that troubles many of us is that” Jim” may have a wonderful idea, that is buried deep in the search results, and will never be seen, while “John” has a really stupid one, that is seen by the entire world, because he bought some links for the purpose of gaining page rank, which increases his ability to earn money from ads, and his ability to buy more links,etc. John goes higher, Jim , lower.

    I have often wondered if we need revolving rankings, to give the guys at the bottom a chance to be heard!

  313. I dont think it can be tracked. How come Google or anyone who wants to report can determine, either link is paid or just a link exchange.

    If this happens i think it will be very dis-appointing for guys having high PRs and making good money now.

  314. Matt,

    Just let us know when G stops ranking:

    Yahoo for “autos” – 99% Paid Links
    Amazon for everything – Affiliate links are paid ads
    Proflowers for anything flower related – Internet powerhouse with 99% paid ads
    Any site “advertising” on ClearChannels Network of Sites (very expensive btw)
    Netflix
    etc

    By the way, it doesn’t matter if those site are 100% relevant for their search terms and deserving of their ranking… Their link power is paid for, plain and simple.

    In fact, if G really, truly, wanted to avoid “paid for links”, simply pick out the top 100 internet companies, do a simple backlink analysis and see if their links are “legit” or paid for in some way. And crackdown on the “sources” of those links.

    On a side note, Is Google advertising, err, sponsoring a Pontiac Car commercial spammy or just not relevant?

  315. In my opinion Google should focus in other ways to improve algorithms. I don’t think that improving the link value will bring any additional improvement to user queries. What has a better service, the bank with no advertising money or Wachovia? Nevertheless you only hear about the great service provided by Wachovia. Why? Because money in any industry is important. Links should be bought for the purpose of Page Rank… well, links are being sold and will continue to be sold for PR. Adobe has paid for links… are they going to loose their Page Rank because of the changes in the new Algos?

  316. I honestly think that Google has lost it’s edge… We don’t even try to market to Google anymore because it’s wasted effort. This might bug you… but honestly… from our perspective… other search engines provide better results overall… it’s a rare day when I can find what I am looking for easily from a keyword search anymore except for videos, blogs, images, etc.

    The crazy amount of sites that are listed in the top 10 (for lots and lots of searches) that have auto-installing spyware or worse is appalling and then I read this conversation… 😛 I think that Google needs to get back to basics and quit worrying so much about the stupid ranking algo and worry more about what it’s ranking… after all.. you constantly hammer that it’s about value content but you rank garbage sites so much that the search has grown unreliable in my opinion. I am not saying the results have no value… there are still relative results… however, the results are poisoned by garbage that does not derive from paid links… In this context… I think that you are barking up the wrong tree. Stop what you are doing and fix the spider… I see all kind of porn sites on .edu domains for example… I don’t have a problem with porn sites… but the ones I have been finding on .edu domains are installing fake codec trojans. Since when is a porn site ok on a .edu domain?

  317. What happened to “Do no evil.”?

    Is this really Google’s ideal or are you just testing the waters?

    This makes me so damn mad I can hardly see straight. Disclaimer: I have some paid links on some of my sites. But that’s not the point.

    The point is that Google STILL has not found something to replace linking that makes a big part of ranking sites. WTF is wrong with your programmers? We don’t have hidden text as a usable method, why do we have links? TAKE THEM OUT OF THE EQUATION, PLEASE!!! They can and are being used to manipulate search results.

    DON’T start trying to police who is using questionable linking methods or (GASP!) buying and selling links. If you do you will be hurting many sites that are NOT buying or selling links and therein lies the danger and the evil.

    The whole (semi-static) ranking concept sucks anyway!!! Other sites ROTATE search results that “rank” the same based on content. I don’t know why the Hell Google and others are not already doing this? Rotate the results and give a small amount of weight to clicks. This is fair and while it will end the link sales industry as well know it, we will all be better off in the end.

    And I’m STILL waiting to hear about Google offering a “flat-rate” advertising option. Site target was a great start, but fraud is still massive and flat rate ads will remove that slime-infested mess as well.

  318. God, I tried to read all of this and just couldn’t. Being a new, small site with no advertising revenue, I think that this is good for me… Of course if I was a popular site with a lot of traffic, I would hate this. I have to say, I see both sides, but Google owns the search, so they can do what they want.

  319. Hah! Very good point about all those directories and search engines that require a payment for being listed. I guess we need to report those and all those pay for placement listings in Yahoo? Oh, that’s right, there’s no way to tell which ones those are…

    Google created the paid link industry. Doesn’t it make sense that THEY should find an solution and not bother us? Take away the incentive for linking that goes beyond the original idea of getting traffic from the sites on which your link is listed.

  320. Matt. I love you, but you guys have lost your mind. Turing Web masters into paid informants of paid links is a little too close to Google having their own Internet spy agency. The kind of culture your creating with this type of thing is counter productive to the Internet. Your only going to encourage more of the negative behavior that you are trying to prevent. And additionally, you guys trying to mandate to the entire Web that no one can pay for links because it screws with your algorithm, comes across as exceedingly arrogant to many parties and really undermines the kind of branding of your company that you have fought so hard to try to create (aka, Do No Evil). One begins to wonder what kind of BRAVE NEW WOLRD you guys are trying to create with this type of program and where it might lead. I understand the legitimate business concerns that are involved here, but I don’t believe that this is a good solution. Since none of my clients pay for any of their links, this program really doesn’t affect me personally, the company I work for or our clients, however, I don’t like it on the principle that I don’t believe Google should use its enormous power to control the way the Web works just to improve its search results. Rather Google should improve its search results based on the way the Web works. Just my 2 cents Matt but I really don’t like this program.

  321. How can Google police something like this though?

    Some times you link to a site because you like it or you’ve read something and sometimes you might get paid (although not often enough) but regardless of the reason surely Google can’t determine that reason as good or bad … as it’s up to the individual.

  322. I believe Google’s decision to look at this information more closely will potentially have the ability to create higher quality rankings for the viewers to use, and more accurate information for the end users if Google uses it correctly, and the way I would assume them to.

    I would normally do more research before speaking, so correct me if I’m wrong here Matt, but I don’t imagine Google is going to try to monopolize all of the paid ads, which would seem to not be a smart business move in the long term for themselves, and Google strikes me as doing intelligent business. (I mean, we all know that people put up with monopolies as long as they are fair, if not, they find new solutions …) My guess would be that they just might rank them differently in their algorithms. You know, for a basic example: an informational link gets a score of 1, a legitamite paid link gets a score of 2, a website that is set up with garbage ads on it for the sole pupose of links gets a score of 3, and free links that are garbage gets a score of 4.

    I think Google is smart enough to realize it helps their business to let other businesses promote themselves.

    But in my own competitive research analysis, I have found many examples of websites that seemed to have been set up for the sole purpose of boosting a company’s link rate, and appear to have been created ONLY for that purpose. They are duplicated over and over again under different pseudo names, and don’t appear to have any new content in them or they simply rotate the names of the websites listed there. Others are fake websites that just have paid ads placed there. Most of these would not seem to have any real content viewers(unless they also somehow have some system set up to automate clicks on them or they dupe people into clicking on them by advertising as if they are real sites). I haven’t said anything so far to anyone yet, but I did think it could create an environment that is unfair to honest businessmen who are want to promote an ethical and moral way of doing business online, and gain their reputation fairly. It also seems unfair to the viewers out there who are searching and want to find an honest company to help them or provide their services, someone who has truly gained their reputation and not someone who made up a pretend one and figured out how to trip the system.

    Whether legitamite paid links should be rated differently is up for a whole nother discussion and I will refrain from posting my opinion on the matter at the moment. I do think there are a lot of issues to think through before making a move like that, and should be done very intelligently if done. There are a lot of things to be taken into consideration, and fairness on all sides needs to be considered. Matt, you can contact me if you want to flesh the idea out further, or get more feedback, but my guess is Google has some great minds looking at it already, from what I’ve seen of their work so far.

  323. In my opinion, USER EXPERIENCE is no longer represented in by the number and weight of links and we all know it. It used to be so in the earlier days when people linked to your site when they liked it. Until here I can agree with Matt. Now, after 295 comments on this subject, may we conclude/agree that it will be very very hard (if not impossible) for Google to find out what is paid for and what is not? If you agree then link-based pageranking is nearing a dead end.
    In my opinion it is about time to go back to the roots and use USER EXPERIENCE again(?) for ranking. With so many google toolbars installed it should not be too difficult to substract user experience for each website!! Am I wrong?

  324. 1. Nothing is wrong to buy links for referral traffic from other websites. It’s exactly same as buying or bidding on link positions on Google Adword.

    2. Google’s ranking method basing on link popularity of sites is 50% or more out of date as ecommerce grows. In eaary years of internet, yes, if one liked a website, one would link it from one’s own website. There was no money concern then. But now internet has been ecommersized, and an ecommerce owner won’t send one’s traffic out by linking to other site. There is no such thing that I like your site and then link to it in ecommerce world at all.

    3. Don’t stuck yourself on link popularity but look for new ways to rank websites, especially to rank ecommerce websites.

  325. Catfish

    “The kind of culture your creating with this type of thing is counter productive to the Internet.”

    Talking about “counter productive” ……

    Tell me about your backlinks 🙂

    Site Created by BusinessOL.com: A Search Engine Optimization Company
    http://www.anatechusa.com/thin_film_coating/default.html

    Web Design By BusinessOL.com: A Search Engine Marketing Firm
    http://www.masterspring.com/request_for_quote/default.html

    Site Created by Business OL
    http://www.smith-systems-inc.com/products_and_services/application_specific_design/overmold_protection/

    Site Design by BusinessOL
    http://www.acidesign.com/products/ACI_showcase/default.html

    Site developed by BusinessOL.com: Internet Marketing Company
    http://www.kaltenbachusa.com/about-us/default.html

    etc.. etc…

    Oh well 😉

  326. I for one love the idea. Call me strange, but I think the Web is more about content and information rather than link farms and Adsense showcases for content scrapers. I would rather wipe out those who who set up 20 crappy blogs and websites that are there for no other reason than making money. I could care less about those people and their efforts.

    I would rather some form of ethical standards come into play, and Google is stepping in the right direction. It will save them money, protect their brand from becoming associated with poor quality content and spam, and make their primary business of search more efficient. If it becomes impossible to wade through a sea of crap because of their own advertising offerings, then their search will take a hit.

    I’ve already quite using Google and Yahoo for search except in rare cases, and I know I am not alone. I’ve had others tell me they are tired of Google and Yahoo’s focus on ads and irrelevant and otherwise poor search results. That’s specifically why so many small niche and vertical search companies are sprouting up. Ads are secondary to search if you’re Google, and though it makes them a lot of money, it will also bite them in the rear if they aren’t careful.

    This will make SEO and SEM more efficient and weed out those whose idea of SEO is simply spreading scraper sites across the net. As to those worried that this will hamper business models because ‘what if ads in message boards are considered violations’ and so forth… If Google’s army of PhD’s can’t figure out something reasonable and that makes use of common sense, I would say their company is doomed anyway. Either way, I’m not worried about it. The only people who really should be are those who don’t have the foresight, ability, or inclination to produce quality content or to create a business model with multiple revenue streams.

    I for one hope they stick to their guns on this one and don’t wuss out.

  327. Is Adsense in such a state of decline that you are now reduced too scaring webmasters so they will not sell advertising themselves? Thats what this seems like, at least in my opinion.

  328. the com in .com stands for commercial.

    The webs growth and existence was built on a free market economy where anyone could start up business with some HTML knowledge. The web wouldnt be what it is today if people couldn’t make money using it? Since when is a hobby or laymens opinion (content) more valuable than a professionals?

    There is nothing wrong with commerce, the web is used for business. There is nothing wrong with paid advertising or paid links.

    No other medium works without commerce, look at newspapers, magazines, radio, television – all media is delivered by commercial interest, theres no reason to punish a website for being commercial, especially if its a dot com!

    Every commercial search engine sells links! Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, ad infinitum. I have bought links on Google, Yahoo and MSN – am I in trouble now?

  329. Let’s not forget that Google’s algorithm is based on the human review of listings. Against these reviews webmasters charge a fee. Is this paid links? Because the webmasters/directories will no longer make money and Google will not benefit from human edited links?

    If this is the case Google is dreaming of an ideal world where they are making money and webmasters who provide the content should not benefit from the organic search at all.

    By the way, when is Google going to deal with real spam like link exchange and then offering a link somewhere else, get away with one way link etc…? Because if directories will not work then 3 way. 5 way …15 way links will be hot.

  330. You have a website (google) and you put ads on it (adwords) to make money.
    I also have a website and i want to make money through ads ads. Why you have a problem with that?

  331. Well, the problem is that not every paid link is being bought to manipulate Google. People do pay for advertising and many of those advertisements do help with Google rankings as well. Are we no longer allowed to buy or sell advertising?

    Mike Dammann

  332. Nearly everyone gets some form of advert or link income but especially the big three, of which Google is the biggest.

    The currency for text links is often the slow to change, old sites are best, measure called “PR”, which, change by change, is slowly moving away from (in my opinion only) relevance. This seems to have changed as older and public sites now seem to stuff the top search slots in my town, while new boys are ignored, so how can you do it without high visability ads that can generate real traffic. Maybe its all designed to be adwords or bust, or maybe they should admit that PR is part of the problem.

    Steve

  333. Mike wrote:
    “Well, the problem is that not every paid link is being bought to manipulate Google. People do pay for advertising and many of those advertisements do help with Google rankings as well. Are we no longer allowed to buy or sell advertising?”

    hmm. I think some have missed all the points made in this thread. Of course not every link is bought to manipulate Google and no one said they were, did they? Please read all the posts above. If you are “paying” for advertising, why do you care if the link is a direct link or a javascript link or a nofollow link? You shouldn’t care about that if you are buying quality visitors, right? I don’t get the problem with any of this.

    Before Google, sites linked to other sites just because they liked the site and were “voting” for that site, right? That IS/WAS what the web is all about. So what’s the difference now? Don’t blame Google for the link crap monger mentality. Blame yourselves for thinking that you just have to have all these incoming links from any and all sites who fall for the same trap. Buy a link like it was always meant to be bought since the beginning of time. Sell a link in the very same way. You do that and you will first off; Sleep at night; and second; do extremely well in Google for your troubles.

  334. What about the sites that have ‘Sites I Like’ sections where they just list 10 or so text links in the left/right module under their menu? Are they okay if they aren’t bought? You say they should put nofollow tags on them? Why, if they like the site, it deserves a ‘vote’ to strengthen pagerank and thus strengthen serp positioning. And if you still stay that is penalty, can’t we just put links to Wiki and Google in those ‘Sites I like Section’ to make it seem like they are also bought links? This whole issue is such a gray area. And in order for white hats to compete we have to walk the line of the gray area without going over to black, then you guys change the gray area. It’s not fair. As far as I could tell you guys were going in the right direction and your serps, I thought were producing very good results, but this latest move is an enigma to me.

  335. Here is what I predict: Link sellers and buyers will report other link sellers and buyers and this will turn into one big “snitch fest”. Just like the Google Spam Report where the reality is that people don’t bother using it unless they think they can get a competitor out of the way.
    There is too fine of a line here. If Google doesn’t give a lot of people the benefit of the doubt, many innocent bystanders will get hurt.

    Sure, the hardcore link buyer, I can see Google wanting them out. If you spend all your energy on buying links while your site has no value, you have no business being on top.

    But generally speaking, a lot of new webmasters try stuff and follow somebody’s advice. And many of them will flood the forums wondering why the heck they can’t get ahead in G (and God knows we have enough of that already … )

  336. Actually, after I wrote the above post, I checked out their tool to see for myself what they were asking for. They are not in fact asking people to report on regular paid links at all. They are asking for people to report spam links!

    This is a list of the pages they are asking people to report:

    Hidden text or links
    Misleading or repeated words
    Page does not match Google’s description
    Cloaked page
    Deceptive redirects
    Doorway pages
    Duplicate site or pages
    Other (specify) (site that is misbehaving)

    This doesn’t sound at all like the snitching operation or a hostile takeover that was being written about. It’s just due diligence, quality control. I’m a little surprised by the emails I got on it today (the first time I heard of it,) even moreso because this is an industry that thrives on both analytics and research. We are all the time looking at what other users are doing, as well as spending our time in research so as to correctly gauge a given situation.

  337. I don’t know why my last post was erased, but look at the thing inside. Google specifically is only asking for the spam links to be removed!

  338. Matt,

    Wow – it’s coming up time and again. Whilst we can all see the desire to protect the algo/PR system, given it’s apparent importance, the only way to achieve it is likely to be unfair, at least to some – if not many, and some feel even immoral – or at least flying in the face of generally accepted convention.

    Also, I had to smile and nod to myself at the suggestion of “A BRAVE NEW WORLD”. Largely in the same way that you, Matt, were pleased that someone had already submitted 34 (Do what!!!!??) reports. Someone must have been in their element!! hehehe

    Rather you than me. I don’t know that I would cherish the support of the monster raving loony party, even if they did agree with me.

    😉

  339. Google can not live without links. Google exists because webmasters provide links and content.

    Some webmasters need rankings because they provide a quality website. Good content, useful information and links into their website. These webmasters should never be compared to big companies that have all the money in the world to pay per click but they do not necessarily have a quality website.

  340. Well, here is even more evidence that Google Sux! When one company is allowed to have ALL THE POWER this is what happens. Greed, Corruption and stupid A$$ decisions! I will be sure to add this article to http://www.google-sux.com

  341. Wow, 300 replies..

    THIS. IS. SPARTAAAA…

    😉

  342. Doug Heil Said,
    April 17, 2007 @ 3:35 pm

    Mike wrote:
    “Well, the problem is that not every paid link is being bought to manipulate Google. People do pay for advertising and many of those advertisements do help with Google rankings as well. Are we no longer allowed to buy or sell advertising?”

    …Before Google, sites linked to other sites just because they liked the site and were “voting” for that site, right? That IS/WAS what the web is all about. So what’s the difference now?

    Basically it is a 2007 versus 1985 but the main difference now is that there is 1000x1000x1000x1000 more websites out there.
    Dough Heil, are you saying that brand new site with a great content will get more than 1 visitor ( 2 if you married) without any advertising?

  343. I think this will do more harm than good.

    I was looking for scraper sites linking to mine, I found my link in the footer of several sites and I have no idea why it is there. The only thing I could think was when I paid my seo guy as a share of adsense, he must have added links to my site. I’m not sure how to get rid of them, but thinking about it getting me in trouble I thought, heck, why would I get penalized? Surely worst case scenario they just get not counted as positives.

    Many, many webmasters are likely getting punished for a lot of things they are ignorant of. I hate to think you are punishing people and their websites because their life doesn’t revolve around seo and google and what is or isn’t okay.

    Focus on the ones you know are doing wrong, and are doing it blatantly. Many of them are using adsense because it’s easy to do and quick. That’s a big list, but it would be a good starting point to look for the bad guys…

  344. It never fails…soneone gets power, and sets about abusing it. They usually become the experts on what everyone else should do to conform to their own view of the “world”

    Google has diligently set about fulfilling this model by setting themselves up as the internet “police”. Do things the way they say they should be done, of face their consequences, which are….

    Sort of the online “Patriot Act”…with unpaid “anonymous informants” thrown in for good measure. Hmmm, I think the real world police use “anonymous informants”, too, don’t they?

  345. Hi Matt, long time reader first time commenters (Sounds like a radio call)

    Anyway I don’t usually like a lot of stuff that Google try to make the webmaster do (or not do) in the name of SEO (and in parentheses I agree with most people here that there are double standards involved). However I have to admit I don’t understand the fuss about this.

    Paid-Links don’t have value to the end users, they are there because somebody paid for them and got nice keyword rich link text so that they can get some nice SEO support. We are not talking about real Web Directories like Yahoo here, we are talking about that School Newspaper, nice PR Wiki link supported niche content sites (and can not really make money out of Adsense anymore), Widget sites and things like that. Please do not make that case about Google says Adwords, Yahoo sells directory listing etc.. argument, I don’t think you believe in that even while you are posting.

    In the SEM community all of us know that, yet why we are making this a Freedom of Speech subject, I don’t understand. I guess there is just too much at stake, maybe that. Or.

    Maybe Paid Links became the ultimate SEO tool for most professionals. So they feel like if it is gone, will be like going back to arrows from gun powder. I don’t know, but I can not understand.

    Of course I am not saying we should also spy for link sellers, but just like any other SPAM , there is no harm in reporting the SPAMer. I will just be happy if Matt you have people in Google that checks those SPAM and reinclusion requests once in a while for a change.

  346. Amateur,
    That is quite extreme. The fact is Google provide a service, and they are abused if that service isn’t great, and when they put an idea out for a way to improve that service, they are abused. If you don’t like the way they do stuff, then stop using their service. Its simple. They can’t set themselves up as the internet police any more than I can.

  347. If you don’t like the way they do stuff, then stop using their service. Its simple. They can’t set themselves up as the internet police any more than I can.

    I hear you, but given their dominance and the reliance that so many of us have on their search traffic – it’s really not that simple. Therein lies the problem you see. Who among us can afford to say stuff it to Google and it’s search traffic? Who would want too? We are all at the mercy of their policies, which in fairness are there to genuinely improve the service – it’s just the implementation of this latest idea that worrys a bunch of us on some levels.

  348. The word penalty is used a lot. I don’t think Google will penalize us for using links. They probably will just not count those links in their formula.

  349. That sounds like a great way to confirm antitrust claims by Microsoft and others.

    hmmm

    Step 1 Acquire DoubleClick so that Google takes a majority market share of the marketplace

    Step 2 Compile a database of customers and competitors that do business outside of Google

    Step 3 Act on database using the might of the largest internet advertiser in the world to squash competition

    Step 4 Rake in the money for years

    Step 5 Start fighting off the anti – trust claims in 10-20 years

    Step 6 Buy off a presidential election and bring one of the Bush daughters to the White House to appoint an Attorney General that will provide a favorable settlement to Google

    Step 7 Send the Bill Gates a Christmas card to his vacation home on the moon, thanking him for the business strategy advice

    Step 8 Remove that line from the Google Cache and mission about doing no evil

    _________

    Now to be sarcastic, where do I report the sites (including my own) that are running Adsense again???

    _–__–_-__

    To go back to being serious. Have you run this concept by your legal department??? As a Google Shareholder I don’t like the smell of this and don’t want to see a devaluation from a class action or an anti-trust suit.

  350. This is the nature of the beast that is the Internet. Company A comes along with a great service, everyone jumps on board, Company A soars.

    Just when Company A is convinced they rule the world and stops responding and starts manipulating, little old Company B comes along and the followers join that bandwagon.

    How many companies has this happened to? AOL, Infoseek, AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, Go, Netscape, MS (depending on your point of view).

    When Google starts enacting policies that the majority of webmasters find intrusive and counterproductive, other companies offering competitive products with better terms of service will pick up supporters.

    Google came out of nowhere, and there’s nothing stopping a superior competior from doing the same. When Google starts losing searchers, paid ad displays will drop and Google revenue will suffer. Plain and simple.

    How many people thought that Infoseek, AltaVista, Excite and Lycos and all of the others on the search engine scrap heap would die as quickly as they did?

  351. Dave (Original)

    Turing Web masters into paid informants of paid links is a little too close to Google having their own Internet spy agency.

    They have had Spam reports for a long time, this is just adding yet another black hat method to the mix. Also, I think you should actually read what Matt has requested. It’s test data for a “new idea” and not what you elude to.

    The kind of culture your creating with this type of thing is counter productive to the Internet. Your only going to encourage more of the negative behavior that you are trying to prevent.

    On the contrary! Ensuring SEs return the most relevant results in an objective manner is a GOOD thing.

    I often liken ranking in the SEs to playing cards with your mates for money. If I see someone cheating, I aint going to turn a blind eye.

    And additionally, you guys trying to mandate to the entire Web that no one can pay for links because it screws with your algorithm, comes across as exceedingly arrogant to many parties and really undermines the kind of branding of your company that you have fought so hard to try to create (aka, Do No Evil).

    From where I sit Google are ONLY mandating in regards to their business.

    Anyone can still buy or sell links as they see fit. However, if you sell links for PR don’t expect Google to favor you in their SERPs. If you buy links for PR, don’t expect to get what you pay for.

    One begins to wonder what kind of BRAVE NEW WOLRD you guys are trying to create with this type of program and where it might lead.

    I would guess a level playing field, objective and unbias search results.

    I understand the legitimate business concerns that are involved here, but I don’t believe that this is a good solution. Since none of my clients pay for any of their links, this program really doesn’t affect me personally, the company I work for or our clients, however, I don’t like it on the principle that I don’t believe Google should use its enormous power to control the way the Web works just to improve its search results.

    Google IS the Web?

    Rather Google should improve its search results based on the way the Web works.

    That’s EXACTLY what they are trying to do! By identifying links bought to game Google’s results they can ensure no PR is passed for these links.

    This IS good for ALL Google users and 99.9% of Webmasters.

  352. Matt, interesting idea with the links. I have been under a penalty from google for over a year and I am wondering if it was incurred in any way by links? I don’t link to bad neighbourhoods, or participate in any link farm/schemes, however there are 1000’s of spam/link farm sites that scrape my content/titles/info that I fear might be hurting me.

    I would be grateful for any input into this, how it may be affecting MY penalty, and/or any advice you can share with me. Unfortunately, no one on any of the major forums has any idea why I am penalized, however perhaps it’s links somehow!

    Thanks for any advice in advance.

  353. “Ray Burn Said,
    April 17, 2007 @ 6:38 am

    I have re-read this entite post and as Matt clearly stated:

    “there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank)”

    wow,. that must have taken a couple of hours,. 🙂

    But if that is what Matt said somewhere, then I am very happy about that. But I most certainly hope that it means there is no obligation to use the nofollow.

    Maybe this whole issue has been blown out of proportions, though I have to say that Matt and Google aren’t trying to prevent that. But maybe that´s also a marketing technique. 🙂

    Somewhere else I read that Matt also said that the only “penalty” on a paid link is that it won’t count. I hope that is also true.

    By the way Matt, why is an exchanged link not so agressively hunted? Does it really matter wether you pay dollars for a link or pay with a link back?

    I hope, Matt, that these tests at least make it possible to not rely on “nofollow” anymore. If you can achieve that, (and publically say: We will ignore “nofollow” from now on) you may be as proud of that achievement as the Google founders may be on the development of PageRank.

  354. Fuck Google!

    Your no-sense algorithm sucks.

    You force Internet people to advertise with your Adwords!

    You are the Evil in itself, what you do is a disguise of an Evil!

    I love Yahoo!

  355. There are two points I wouldl ike to make.The first is that its perfectly normal for webmasters to build links to improve thir web sites ranking on the search engines and Google recognises this. I dont see anythig rong with this either. wHAT i do have a problem with howeve is the automatd submissions of link spam that I get to my forum and to my directories. Could we not mkea distinction between link spam and link building?

    Scondly PR is a sick joke. Everyone knows its an artifical measure Google use to to fuel Google Mania and this is what has twisted the onrous task of lnkbuilding out of shape and what has given rise to link pimping and the credibility to corrupteditors on “authoriy” sites like Dmoz.

    Google could easily pop this link pimping by turing the industry it has become on its head and endorsing an emerging skills empowerment programme where individals are ENCOURAGED to charge fo reviewing sits submitted to their directories and whre they are accountable for the lisings they maintain.

    And no its not impractial. It could be made to work………..with the right attitude.

  356. My comment here was starting to get too long, so I posted it in my blog at http://www.rehuel.com/2007/04/18/is-google-going-to-penalize-paid-ads/. I don’t like leaving my link this way in comments, but this is the only way I can get my opinion through.

  357. Dave (Original)

    There are two points I wouldl ike to make.The first is that its perfectly normal for webmasters to build links to improve thir web sites ranking on the search engines and Google recognises this. I dont see anythig rong with this either. wHAT i do have a problem with howeve is the automatd submissions of link spam that I get to my forum and to my directories. Could we not mkea distinction between link spam and link building?

    Google has never been about individual wants and needs (particularly Webmasters) and has always been about delivering objective, unbias and relevant results from a level playing field.

    “link building” is nothing more than a euphimisim for link spam. Both are pursued to better ones SERP positions. Neither make a page more relevant to a said topic.

    Links should be ONLY be pursued for click traffic, or the site is new, to also be indexed by SE’s. If your site is really what users want, it will likely naturally be on page 1 of the organic results and will get there with the help of TRUE link votes.

    Organic results and fertilizer (paid links being counted as votes) simple doesn’t add up.

  358. First I don’t care if this comment gets post or not, I just want the Monopoly Master…I mean Google to know what a regular small business owner and web surfing fanatic has to said.

    A lot of people was telling me about Google bad business practices, and I didn’t want to believe it… So, I did my own research on every step that Google has made and keep making for about 6 month, and my conclussion after that generated the new name for Google, the “Monopoly Master”

    Which is actually the name of the free report created by me, 10 college teachers, and 25 college students that reveales to everyone how to take your business to the top and then how you can use that power to try to tell you customers or users how to run their life, or what time you want them to use the toilet… Which is exactly what Google is trying to do, they are telling you how they want you to run your business, soon they may tell you that in order to achieve to monopoly engine ranking you need to change your business name from “Main Street Crapy Video Store” to “Main Street Google Video Store”

    Microsoft was a good monopoly school which was put on check by their mistakes. Google is the Monopoly Master, simple because they fool people and the media with new tools, new betas, new software, new maps, etc… but, keeping their monopoly related policies on a low profile.

    I thought the government was the only organization that can said how our business can be run not a computer full of codes… After the research I saw the best web search tool still the one that was number one a while ago.

    Now Google is going into the Microsoft mode, where a lot of those monopoly master plan are turning into their worst mistakes.

    You just a search company not the goverment, not a chamber of commerce, not even a non-profit organization trying to help someone, not the IRS, not the President of the US or any other country…

    You want me to report what?????? A few more years and we are going to be reporting are income to this people, or even worst how many times we when to the bathroom on that year. Come on!

    Now about the links issue… there is no issue! Matt and his team did a good job on writing a post that puts the word Spam together with paid links…

    But, what Matt is trying to said is: We want to become a number one Monopoly in the world, and to do this we need to cut are competition, with the help of the users, remember that’s what the all Web 2.0 or social networking is all about.

    Come on this smell like a MONOPOLY all over….

  359. oh well, they sell links from adsense ))

    this can bу a very bad idea. you can raise a storm that can bury someone ((
    and almost every site have a paid links in some way. you can prove that some one SELL link only if you see the money.

  360. This idea is ridiculous. Paid links are a form of advertising. Are you saying Google is the only place you can advertise on the Internet?

    my main concern is advertising in directories.

    If i was to buy a paid advertising link in a relevant directory what would happen?

    Would every link in the directory be devalued or would every link to my site be devalued, whether paid or not.

  361. Matt:
    [QUOTE]“Example.com is selling links; Google.Adsense that based there – is a paid links. You can see the paid links on http://www.example.com/path/page.html” [/QUOTE]“

  362. “link building” is nothing more than a euphimisim for link spam. Both are pursued to better ones SERP positions. Neither make a page more relevant to a said topic.

    Wow Dave, I can tell you’re pretty qualified in all this.

    I hope someone has told this to Eric Ward, he doesn’t seem to be as knowledgeable in this area as you. Or to Matt, where he endorsed Eric’s work with the following quote:

    “Eric follows the right link building approach. He’s interested in links that are given based on merit, and those are the links that stand the test of time —Matt Cutts”

  363. There are no absolutes in this world and to try and pretend there are is just being naive and impractical. At the risk of repeating all that has been said before Google is a business like any other business and Google created the mess it now wants to clear up. As such it should be looking for real wold solutions and if it cant come up with more than the big stick maybe they should save us all the time and bother and close their doors now rather than later.

    Webmasters have always built links for one reason or another and Google does not have the perogative to dictate what we should or should not be doing . Intead what I am saying is that they should take the initiative and turn the market on its head by undercutting all the link pimps. All the have to do is to recognise a few genuine directories that charge a nomial fee for a review and the maket will implode all on its own. Problem solved.

    The only reason anyone still pays any attention to the Dmoz myth is because its being propped up by the fact that a link from Dmoz carries so muh more………..So why cant they rather divert that faith and dirty money into the emerging market and the pockets of webmasters who work hard and maintain credible lists?

  364. Dave (Original)

    Wow Dave, I can tell you’re pretty qualified in all this.

    I hope someone has told this to Eric Ward, he doesn’t seem to be as knowledgeable in this area as you. Or to Matt, where he endorsed Eric’s work with the following quote:

    “Eric follows the right link building approach. He’s interested in links that are given based on merit, and those are tEric follows the right link building approachhe links that stand the test of time —Matt Cutts”

    Care to link to where you quoted Matt? You appear very confused by the CONTEXT of which Mark Allen used the term “link building”. That isThe first is that its perfectly normal for webmasters to build links to improve thir web sites ranking on the search enginesI believe the context Matt has used “link building” is when a site links to another based on the merit of the sites content (a true vote). Not link exchanging, not by buying links, not by email spam requesting a link etc.

    BTW, we all know sarcasim is the lowest for of wit, but there is no need to prove it.

  365. Dave (Original)

    Oops, got the tags wrong.

    Wow Dave, I can tell you’re pretty qualified in all this.

    I hope someone has told this to Eric Ward, he doesn’t seem to be as knowledgeable in this area as you. Or to Matt, where he endorsed Eric’s work with the following quote:

    “Eric follows the right link building approach. He’s interested in links that are given based on merit, and those are tEric follows the right link building approachhe links that stand the test of time —Matt Cutts”

    Care to link to where you quoted Matt? You appear very confused by the CONTEXT of which Mark Allen used the term “link building”. That is

    The first is that its perfectly normal for webmasters to build links to improve thir web sites ranking on the search engines

    I believe the context Matt has used “link building” is when a site links to another based on the merit of the sites content (a true vote). Not link exchanging, not by buying links, not by email spam requesting a link etc.

    BTW, we all know sarcasim is the lowest for of wit, but there is no need to prove it.

  366. Dave (Original)

    At the risk of repeating all that has been said before Google is a business like any other business and Google created the mess it now wants to clear up

    No they didn’t. The link mongers did. All they did was devise an algo that returned the most relevant results of any SE. It is the link mongers who have exploited this.

    To say Google “created the mess” is like saying Henry Ford created fatal car crashes, or Samuel Colt created relover shootings.

  367. i own 8 sites and i am going to use the one site thats PR4 and the oldest as an example.
    on the site (sexual health site) i have 14 site wide links in a block that is titled “visit our friends”
    the links:

    link #1 PR6
    a site i worked for as sexual health advisor for 3 years, and still write for today, (unpaid) 20 articles with my sites link on each, i place this site on my close friends list and will always support it. so given a link to it. (no payment either way)

    link #2 PR0
    Infertility, IVF, Women’s Health, a site i looked at and thought worthy of a link as it deals with some of my sites content and other natural options of pain relief for pregnant women. i was asked if i would have a link to it and paid a token sum, the site offers more options than i do so felt it was a good site to allow association with my site. (reviewed site accepted token payment added link)

    link #3 PR0
    paid for link enough said.

    link #4 PR1
    a hosting site that provides me with free hosting for 2 of my sites. (link free to say thank you to a friend)

    link #5 PR4
    a friend in canada that has a huge site on dogs, link to a friend. (free)

    link # 6 PR4
    HIV site, i think that speaks for its self with my sexual health site, (free)

    link #7 PR4
    a friends blog on pregnancy (you meet lots of people online in 6 years) (free)

    link #8 PR0
    a site i bought for my girlfriend to put her stories on, (free)

    link #9 PR2
    sexual health, (paid link)

    link #10 PR0
    my new site for women only, (free)

    link #11 PR4
    a Dr i have known for 4 years, being a nurse we have built up a friendship and exchanged links over the years he deals with mental health and that covers some sexual health issues too. (free)

    link #12 PR3
    health for the over 50’s that covers some sexual issues at that age, (free link)

    link #13 PR3
    a friend that looks after my sites updates and tech side of the site, i use his scripts (free link)

    link #14 PR4
    female lifestyle and health, great site i use myself when i look for something new to read, it’s like Cosmo online, it has my vote (free link)

    unless i told you what sites paid and what sites i own and what sites have some special meaning and intrest to me, can you please tell me how Google can sort out what is paid and what is not?

    i write 20 articles for a site i worked for for 3 years and have my sites link in them, and i am still a member of that site and i place a link on my site as my vote of approval, yet you will accept anyones spam report saying i have paid links or been paid for writing the articles when i worked for them from 2002, i find this a little strange.

    i think google might be trying to control who gets paid for links and ads, and it’s no-one but google than can take payment for links.

    thats how i feel
    sammie

  368. Dave (Original)

    sammie, I think you’ll find Google simply wants to see that paid links provide only direct click traffic, not PR.

    Most that are screaming are either very confused and/or buy/sell links for PR.

    IMO it’s all a storm in a tea-cup.

  369. “Ash, there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank). At http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ I mention a couple ways to sell links that Google would have no problem with.”

    I think there is no problem in selling links for PR either for anyone except Google. This is a Google problem, and I don’t see why webmasters should have any interest in solving it.

    Links are generally bought for both reasons, and adding nofollow tags is adding form before function – it’s bad HTML.

    Work with what there is, Matt, not what you would like there to be.

  370. Sammie wrote;
    “unless i told you what sites paid and what sites i own and what sites have some special meaning and intrest to me, can you please tell me how Google can sort out what is paid and what is not?”

    They don’t have to. You state “site wide”. Why would you do that? First off; linking out to others as “votes” means you want to incorporate links into your content on the page, and not have them in a spammy footer at the bottom of your page. A huge red flag under any circumstances. NO ONE should put outside links down there at all. See my example in a post above. I would simply discount “every” link in that box. No need to decipher which ones are paid as they are all suspicious because they “site wide”.

  371. real nice!

    should only google be the advertising site #1 ?

    all sites, who have costs in relation to the count of visitors, must add advertising content. Why not. And why not text link ads ??

    “To indicate” sides at Google and to exclude therewith out of the index meant,
    that Google wants to censor (like chinese pages) now also the whole (internet) world.
    That corresponds to the typical “world-police” jobs of the bush-government !

    And it is Interference, utilization of the monopoly position and promotes Denouncement !!

    Yups: “Don’t be evil” !!

    ti

  372. Dave my site is 4 years old, 3 years as a .com site, the link #1 hosted my site as part of their site while i worked for them for the last year, thats how i feel i still have a close relationship with them and still write for them. how is google going to work out what is paid and unpaid, what is worthy of a link and what is not?
    i think google need to have limits set, and look more at the big boys, who have the mega bux to spend on links, where the little guy (girl) like myself is spending time and money (hosting) on a well made site, and can not afford to buy links, i bought 1 link in 4 years and i felt guilty about it and have never paid for a link since.

    i have a few paid links that come to $100 for them all for a year, that covers the $99 a year hosting, i make $1 wow lets party.

    google wont allow adsense on a sexual health advice site, they class them as adult content, when clearly they are not. so how can i cover my costs?

    if i was making a living from selling links i would agree, but i am clearly just covering costs.
    my worry is how is google going to see links that people report as paid links, when the only people that know 100% for sure is the 2 site owners.

    i have ads space on my pages for sale, i have not sold one yet in 3 years.

    now i have made 7 other sites than adsense will allow me to use on them. so maybe i’ll just worry about being banned from adsense more than links now.
    sammie

  373. I’d like to report all the sites using adsense.

    I know what you’ll say they don’t count towards rank, fair enough but they do allow google to make money.

    Is no one else allowed to make money? it’s a dark road your on here, one that started in china.

    It used to be
    “All websites are equal”

    “but now some are more equal than others.”

    Google has lost its way here Matt and to think of you sat there with your cat contemplating world domination just like a baddie in Janes Bond is a far cry from where this all started.

    Whats next ? Only allow history you like, or how about report a terioist site, your not far from witch burning here.

  374. Why does Google have to publish its PR? Remove it fom the tool bar and surprise surprise its problem solved.

    I build links to get my site seen. Its hard work. Its takes time but I am diligent and stick to it because I am serious about what I am doing. I am also very aware of my obligations and the responsibility I have to the wider community. Why does Google resent this?

    Why have you totlly ignored the suggestion I made? Is it really that dumb? What I said if you didnt hear me the first time is that Google could turn this whole thing around and ensure that the lists that are out there are credible without getting themselves and everyone else into a blind twist. All they have to do is open their eyes and look for a simple solution that grows our internet experience.

    Have never liked the big stick nor the type of people who constantly lick their lips.

  375. Dave (Original)

    Matt has answered the Toolbar PR question before, in this post too.

    build links to get my site seen. Its hard work. Its takes time but I am diligent and stick to it because I am serious about what I am doing. I am also very aware of my obligations and the responsibility I have to the wider community. Why does Google resent this?

    They don’t.

    Have never liked the big stick nor the type of people who constantly lick their lips.

    Neither of those are being conveyed by Google.

  376. Mark Allan – spot on.

    There has to be a better way to determine the quality of a site than links. Seriously downgrading the emphasis on links can only help improve the web. The whole link business is manipulated. People are now paying others to blog for them or to vote for them on social networking sites. I bet a large percentage of social networking is now done by webmasters.

    Can Google find a way to measure the time people spend reading a site and which pages they read? Surely that it the real determinator of quality.

  377. Jose Luis Reyes

    I don’t support paid links, but this idea is generating a storm.

  378. Dave (Original) — I think I missed where Matt spoke previously about suggestions to stop making PR visible. What was his reasoning for not doing that?

    That would seem to be a much easier solution than turning every webmaster into an undercover agent reporting their competitors.

    And we all know that will happen. Someone will be upset that their competitor shows up 2 spots higher in the rankings and will report their site because they use 5 words to many in their meta tags (which probably are worthless anyway), or their alt tags are a little long.

    You can look at virtually any website and find something that is reportable. It’s unlikely that a random web surfer will take on the role of reporting violations. It WILL be webmasters doing opposition research who can personally gain if those they report lose their listings.

  379. actually link selling for PR is big business now…many sites earn much more revenue from selling links than from advertising.

    look at all those bid-for-position directories coming up nowadays.

    I agree with brad S… a normal user is unlikely to report any kind of violations…only webmasters report them..

  380. How much of this plan to identify “paid link sites” is financially driven vs. quality driven?

    Wouldn’t the #1 offender to Google’s stakeout be Yahoo?

    In the b2b environment, it’s very common to have to pay for links (aka advertising) on industry directories run by traditional trade publications, associations and other organizations. Those links are valuable and important to the advertisers for the purpose of reaching an already-defined audience.

    So does your plan make those companies choose whether to buy links that specifically target their markets or get good position in Google? That doesn’t sound like a plan to improve Google’s index – it sounds like the way you run every potential competitor out of business.

  381. This is great. I can go to Google and find the definition of a monopoly. I personally think this is an effort to find a way to push competitor media advertisers out of the way. Or more to the point, a way to get rid of all other forms of advertising besides Googles way of advertising, so Google makes more money. They are just doing it sneakily saying “I’m just giving people what they asked for”.

    Paid links are in direct competition with adwords and if Google devalues paid links then they are in fact monopolizing the media advertising market. Paid links would be virtually useless.

    I dont wanna hear about click through traffic, thats BS. Noone goes to one site in an effort to find another site. They go to Google to find the site they are looking for, not from Google to another site to another site.

    On the flipside, I understand Google wants to find a way to rank sites without manipulation by site owners. This cannot be done without real artificial intelligence or Human edited results. Instead of getting people to change thier sites by adding nofollow tags or finding ways to devalue competition and other such nonsense, find a way to make your algorithm better.

    Define:Monolpoly

    Any commercial process in which one seller controls prices and supply of a product.

    When a single company controls a market to the exclusion of all competitors, it is said to have a monopoly on that market.

    A market in which there is only one supplier. Three features characterize the market. First, the firm in it is motivated by profits. Secondly, it stands alone and barriers prevent new firms from entering the industry. Thirdly, the actions of the monopolists itself affect the market price of its output – it is not a price-taker. …

    the domination of a market by a single company. More frequently in contemporary capitalism, monopolies over specific markets are held not by a single company but by a group of companies acting together to standardise technologies and techniques, and to fix prices. …

  382. And we all know that will happen. Someone will be upset that their competitor shows up 2 spots higher in the rankings and will report their site because they use 5 words to many in their meta tags (which probably are worthless anyway), or their alt tags are a little long.

    I got news for you…that’s already happening.

  383. @Matt
    >”Carsten, I’ve said before that when you compare people to Nazis, I don’t feel inclined to respond to you. That also applies to your holocaust post you did a few weeks ago.”

    Is my English really that bad or do you read my stuff always at bad times?

    No, seriously. I was yelling at the jerk (Mark) who was comparing Google to the SS. I showed him that he has no clue what he is talking about at all, when I said, that IF he “has to” refer to the 3rd Reich in this debate, the Gestapo would have been it and that the SS is completely off topic. It also demonstrated his poor knowledge about history. If you do stuff like that, you better get your history straight.

    The SS was formed to “protect” Hitler and was directly under his command and not under the Wehrmacht, Police etc. The members of the SS were making an oath to only obey to the “Fuehrer” and to die for him, if they have to. If Google is the SS, who is the Fueher? We are talking about people talking other people off for something they might did not do and might get in trouble and punished for no or wrong reasons. It creates a atmosphere of mistrust and fear. And that was the Gestapo responsible for in Germany. It was the secret service and was hunting opponents of the system down, often with the help of denunciators who also used the atmosphere to tell of some people they did not like and accused them of high treason.

    It is a bad comparison, because it is a bit too strong, but the same principles are at work, so it would have been a bad comparison, but at least not off topic.

    With things like that am I very serious. I could have just said:

    “Mark, you are an idiot to compare Google to the SS. That is not very helpful for a debate that tries to solve some problems. Please restrain yourself and watch your language”, but didn’t, because I wanted to teach the guy a lesson as well. You don’t just go around and use words like that, if you don’t know jack what it means.

    Like using the word “crusade” in combination with sending western (christian) troops into the (Islamic) middle east. They were used, unfortunately…. different story.

    I should not have put guy his place, but you did not respond to the tasteless accusation by Mark. Only Sebastian and me did. You might want to check the comments again and search for ” SS ” (leading and trailing space)

  384. There are a lot of people kicking up a fuss here but surely this will only affect the people who have actually bought links??

    Paid links for PR gain go totally against what the Google algorithm is all about so I’m all for this clamp down.

    If you want to rank well in Google then play by the rules or move on. There are other search engines out there….just not as good as the big G.

  385. I got news for you…that’s already happening.

    I’m sure it is, especially with things like hidden text, copying trademarked words for keyword spamming, etc.

    But I don’t think other webmasters should be given the power of trying to determine if a link on a site is one that the site owner personally endorses, one that the site owner put up to help a friend, or one that the siteowner sold. I’m pretty sure most webmasters will just assume that links on competitors sites were sold and report them.

    Don’t forget, there are millions of mom and pop webmasters builiding sites with out of the box software like frontpage, that no nothing about no-follow. If they sell a few links to cover their hosting costs, to another mom and pop site that is just looking for a little boost, should they really be penalized?

    God forbid one of those mom and pop sites somehow jumps over a pro in the rankings, and their site ends up reported.

  386. That was the other Mark you are talking about I hope. But why has no one bothered to slag me off for suggesting that Google would ever consider acknowledging that its the architect and thats its still the principal player in the links spam market? Why has no-one pointed out that Google couldnt give an damn abut the emering market and is not the least bit interested in mentoring third world users and particularly those running directories that they perceive as being a threat to their global monopoly?

    I thought it was an interesting idea and one worth considering.

  387. Matt,

    Was a little stuck on the Math problem, eventually figured it out. You see I have one finger on each hand….rest fell off through snitching on my competitors.

    It appears to me that Google is trying to redefine our business models. Hmmm!!!! that is what happens when one opens Pandora’s box!!!

  388. It is hard to read motivation, even Googles motivation, but there seems to be two distinct sides on this issue, and neither seems to have actually read what Matt said. One side SEEMS to be motivated by the fear of loosing page rank due to losing traffic from paid links. The other side seems to be hoping to gain traffic from the others who lose it. If my site is getting better search results in an artifcial way, it deserves to go lower in the ranking. If it is using links to gain that popularity, it has become like the kid in junior high school, who tries to become popular by associating with the popular kids. If you are doing this, by advertising on the popular kids site, that is fine. Just make sure that everyone can distinguish between the two. Matt obviously struck a nerve, and it must have already been a tender spot for a while!

  389. Somewhere else I read that Matt also said that the only “penalty” on a paid link is that it won’t count. I hope that is also true.

    Yes, I remember that too. Can we have that confirmed please? I agree that Google should do that, it is totally logical.

    In my understanding of this I think Google wants to separate the links that are ads (paid) and the links that are votes (natural recommendation). There is however another factor to this and it is the viewpoint of the visitors. Does the link provide any real value to the visitor? I think that is the most important question in all of this as we make the sites for the visitors.

    So what about a link that brings good value to the visitor (relevant, high quality) which really deserves a vote but it was also paid for? At least I will not place any undeserved nofollow on such a link.

    I think the real problem is when money is used to bypass the editorial check of link quality, relevance and added value to the visitor. Those links should be marked as paid to visitors as well as devalued by the search engines as those links does not deserve a vote IMO. If Google have a problem detecting such links and want us to put a special code (nofollow) on those I see no problem with that. But to require people to submit a SPAM REPORT on web sites that do not use this code on ads I think the line is crossed.

    How many web site owners know about the nofollow attribute? 1%? Probably not even that. People were buying and selling links even before Google existed.

    I also want to mention that Google should adjust itself to the web and not adjust the web to Google.

  390. Is this a joke?I have reported yahoo directory.Lets see what happens

  391. Who came up with this idea? let me guess.. was it the people who cant afford to buy paid links and they arnt doing so well for their keyword.

  392. Hello Matt!

    This is my first ever post in your blog. I am NOT a pro SEO but I do know a thing or two about it. Google has a lot of money and I am pretty sure, soon, we will see Google having a monopoly on the internet advertising/search. So I guess there is not a lot that we can do to stop Google from doing this. Might as well learn how to go along with it.

    My question: How do you (Google) differentiate between a Paid Text Link and Non-paid text link?

    Thanks
    Zee

  393. In principle this is actually a good issue to try to tackle. Google’s principles are set against artificial link building. The value of a link should be held because someone has decided to link to your page for good reason. Paying someone to link to you is artificial and bias towards the big guns in the SEO world with large marketing budgets…it doesn’t help the searcher/customer.

    Putting it into practise is going to be extremely difficult and that it what everyone is actually moaning about – not the principle…

    …but why do you think Google are using an existing tool and flagging up reports? …so they can see what sort of activity and information is out there/how they may handle the reports and follow things up/how competitors may try to take advantage etc etc etc.

    Well done Google. Let’s hope you can learn something from the feedback and deliver some good results – a robust method of reporting this feedback and clear guidelines on how it may be applied.

  394. Matt, if a site owner mustn’t trade links, and we know people won’t just link if you ask them to any more, our selection of sites we can buy links from without worrying is now reduced (I mean – what if they’re using nofollow but remove them later, or something?), can’t get links from any small webmasters because they do just ‘use frontpage’ and have no idea of nofollow or javascript, can’t accept links from friends in case it implicates us or them, can’t link drop in forums or blogs because we immediately delet or nofollow her and call her a spammer. Can you suggest how they might get some of those links which you have to agree are vital to rank in Google?

    Not in detail, we’ve all had those discussions. Just what type of thing should I tell someone like Auntie Flo to do? Should she video herself topless and hope it goes viral on YouTube? (is geriatric porn a payment in kind?) , spam Digg with her own blog article about the menopause? Ask the WI to start a webring for members?

    How does the combined marketing expertise of Google suggest new websites about not very exciting but still useful things now make sure people know about them, without damaging the Google algo? It does seem to be linkbait or, erm, linkbait nowadays.

  395. Consider this case.

    I have a PR7 website about computers.I know a guy who just made a new website about computers. I think this new website is really cool and it should be first site in the list if I search “computer” on google. So I give a link to this site so that he may get some PR and do nicely on google search. This guy was very haapy to get link from my website so he gave me 100$ as a token of appreciation.

    should I be penalized?

  396. Gurtie said: How does the combined marketing expertise of Google suggest new websites about not very exciting but still useful things now make sure people know about them, without damaging the Google algo? It does seem to be linkbait or, erm, linkbait nowadays.

    This is an extremely important question for many webmasters. Not all sites lend themselves to linkbaiting. Not even all sites lend themselves to acquiring natural backlinks, but because of the Google algo those webmasters are forced to somehow acquire backlinks.

    I run a site that I know for a fact will attract very few natural backlinks. My site is buried somewhere on page five-million-plus-some. The only option I have is to drive traffic to my site with AdWords. One of my direct competitors has purchased several site-wide links. Not even covertly, the sites where they purchased the links advertise the fact that they sell text links. Their website is #1 in Google and has PR6. Without those paid links, their site would have been right next to mine on page five-million-and-one-plus-some.

  397. Mr. Cutts,

    Your writing is very interesting and it makes me to think about every aspect of the S.E.O. techniques I know and use. Please permit me to ask you the followings:

    1. Those sites which sells links [on their or on other sites’ pages] offers a non Google-friendly service? How Google relates to these sites? A well-known example is http://www.text-link-ads.com [which intermediates link sales].

    2. How appreciates Google the web directories’ role in the S.E.O. practices? To put it in another way: what is Google’s opinion about link building through the web directories?

    3. How should a S.E.O. professional think about S.E.O. in order to his S.E.O. activity to be 100% Google friendly and ethical? He/she should NOT offer paid links [which results from link trading] for his/her clients?

    Thank you!
    Respiro
    http://www.RespiroMedia.com

  398. Matt, please confirm your are speaking as an official representitive of Google in this discussion.

  399. lol they are getting a little out of hand…

    first they use the ref=nofollow = no pr for you… on this section of google to avoid passing sites any pr

    http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/gallery?keyword=Entertainment&hl=en

    where if you notice the little check marks means google checked these sites out then added them here….

    but you need a google account… like this isn’t hard to create a false one

  400. Matt,

    by all the respect that I always had for Google you guys seem to be going for your very end right now.

    Your algo concept has proven to be not able to secure the best available content on top. You are requiring “informers” to help you right now what is an obvious proof to the big failure of your concept.

    Google will only remain on top, if you can ensure the best available content on top.

    At this time any junk can rule your No1. position for any relvant keyword and that is why you seem to believe in “fighting paid links”.

    This world and the Internet is way too complex to get framed into any of yor algos.

    Human beings with proper education and morals are required to define what is the best available content are required. All you algo experts have ZERO chance against any IT savy Grandma when it comes to define the best
    sites for a keyword.

    There are a million smart heads out there to manipulate any of your results as loads of examples do proof.

    Google would obviously do better when hiring “HUMAN INTELLIGENCE” to sort out, what deserves to be on No.1 rather than leaving it to algo experts.

    Not only I could send you loads of examples where your rules violating “Junk” is sitting on top of your suggestions whilst quality sites are cut off from Google traffic 100%.

    Your algo based on links and “report” paid links policy” is a dead end street.

    Hope you will have the guts not to delete my statement and to discuss it with your top ranks.

    Anyway, I have a great respect for Google, but this has to be expressed.
    Be honest and say bye to your algo concept at least for the first few result pages.

    Buck F* Wild

  401. Well after a good read I thought I would see what my members on my forum thought about this, and looking at it they all thought it was a very daft idea and it would never work

    http://www.mkpitstop.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=3962

    Have to say one member did go a little of the trolly Matt sorry lol

  402. I run a site that I know for a fact will attract very few natural backlinks. My site is buried somewhere on page five-million-plus-some. The only option I have is to drive traffic to my site with AdWords. One of my direct competitors has purchased several site-wide links. Not even covertly, the sites where they purchased the links advertise the fact that they sell text links. Their website is #1 in Google and has PR6. Without those paid links, their site would have been right next to mine on page five-million-and-one-plus-some.

    And what’s even worse, is that even if your site stays totally focused and is optimized perfectly for what may be a very specific and unpopular topic, you’ll still remain at PRO because you have no backlinks.

    And higher PR sites that have absolutely nothing to do with your topic, but might mention 1 or 2 keywords or phrases similar to you, will end up way above you in results for your exact search phrases.

    Small sites on unpopular topics will never be found without paid links.

  403. Brad S. said: And higher PR sites that have absolutely nothing to do with your topic, but might mention 1 or 2 keywords or phrases similar to you, will end up way above you in results for your exact search phrases.

    The competitor’s site is #1. The manufacturer’s site is #2. The rest of the sites on page 1 are mostly cookie cutter sites that display a product image and a login button, with almost zero text. More paid links.

    All the sites promote an affiliate product. Mine is about the only one that is completely customized with my own marketing copy of considerable length, contains none of the duplicate content found on the other sites that are ranked so high, and I spent quite a bit of time on the on-page SEO of my site. Logically, by relevance, it should rank very high, but it doesn’t. And logically, those cookie cutter sites should have even fewer backlinks than my site. Yet, when you analyze their backlinks it numbers in the thousands.

  404. Have to agree, this is a pretty slippery slope and the collaterlal fall out is going to be massive.

    If I buy a link for advertising on a site that is directly related to mine, and they don’t use the nofollow, then if I’m reading this correctly at most I won’t get any value other than traffic from the site. OK, so what is the problem with that. If I do get some extra value then it’s a bonus.

    The reason Google is asking for examples is because they cannot accurately figure out what is and what is not a paid link and since the beast they created depends on links and has actually spawned an entire industry , they have a problem with no real way to fix it.

  405. Anyone remember Vaction? Sorry folks, the parks closed, the moose out front should have told you so.

    Matt tends to stop commenting on these big posts after a day or so. (see old cloaking discussion) I believe he’s said his part.

  406. Why are’nt we calling a spade a spade here. There are large link selling networks selling links to improve Google rankings. I have seen some of the e-mails these guys send out its pure spam. They should not be doing that. It is against Google guidelines and it gives an unfair advantage to sites with deep pockets. If I were Google (I wished) I would absolutely be trying to find ways to make these links ineffective. These sites do not deserve to rank higher than sites with better content and no link dollars. This whole deal is not about hard working webmasters who try to do everything right its about link mongers who have destroyed organic SEO and made it virtually impossible for a decent site with no money to rank for even a remotely competitive term.

  407. And another thing what is all the fuss about they have been saying for a long time that they were going to render these links ineffective did everybody think they were kidding or something!!!. Every SES I have been to for two years Matt Cutts has said “dont buy links” and the link mongers snigger and say “No way they can never catch us” They have wall to wall PHD’s if they say they are going to do something they have the brain powere to do it.

  408. Very good Fionn!

    It amazes me that very few saw any of this coming two years ago when the nofollow tag was introduced. I saw it. I know of a few others that saw it as well. Why is this all the sudden some kind of big issue with many others? It’s all common sense and something that Google has had from the very get-go, and are just now starting to use what they’ve had for two full years now.

    I have to post this. I hope Matt allows it as it’s very revealing as to what is “now” happening, and what many of us knew would eventually happen. It’s not even a stretch to understand totally. Why would Google want to give a boost to “any” site just because they have some monies to buy links? Come on everyone; I know you all can sit back and truly think about the big picture. I know you can.

    The forces of nature are at play. Someone above posted about Mom and Pop and how some sites cannot simply get “votes” from other sites. That’s BS. If you site is “good”, you can acquire links to it. Period. No need to buy them at all. Here is a thread from “two” years ago that discusses nofollow and the link buying thang. It actually tells you what will eventually happen, and IS happening right now….. long overdue.

    http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17582

    It is an interesting read. Notice how things are being discussed “for the future”…. and the future is now here.

  409. i apologize if i’m repeating prior sentiments, but i could not read through all 350 responses carefully. i agree with Aaron Nimocks that there’s a different between purchasing paid links (static links) for seo vs for traffic. i’ve purchased static sponsor links for traffic, but i also buy adbrite links for the same traffic…how can you possibly differentiate the intent if it’s assumed i bought the static link for seo?

    and i also agree with Joseph who asks “Why would anyone want to be a rat for Google? An unpaid rat at that…” The only case I could see this being worthy of my time, is if I’m ranked #2 for “women’s shoes” and I gather all back links of my #1 competitor and report all their paid links. any large competitor can knock out all their competition if they have a large enough team reporting competitor links. but again, some of those links could have been bought for traffic purposes…

    food for thought…i know matt prob won’t even read this whole comment

  410. As it has been mentioned earlier, this is now getting beyond stupid.

    Google basically tries to hold onto its failing PageRank algorythm, and along the lines tries to control link buying industry that it generated.

    Hypocrisy lives on. So if one creates a Britney Spears website with nude photos, there will be plenty of links. But if one sells Green Widgets, simple green widgets that everyone buys weekly but nobody cares to gossip about, he should go out of business or by AdWords. I guess this is the official version coming from an outfit that just bought a competitor and now controls 80% of internet advertising.

    “Report paid links” – I report. Google.com is selling links. Yahoo! – ditto. AOL – both buys and sells. Any shopping comparison engine – merchants buy it. Directories, blogs, forums. Etc. etc. I bet you will be hard-pressed to find a site that doesn’t buy or sell links (and I use the term loosely meaning not only monetary, but other compensation as well). Those will be in the “disconnected” cluster, I presume 🙂

    Matt, seriously, stop this nonsense.

  411. Dave (Original)

    That would seem to be a much easier solution than turning every webmaster into an undercover agent reporting their competitors.

    Matt said

    Martin Avis and Neeraj, I’ll pass that suggestion on, but lots of people who aren’t webmasters enjoy seeing the PageRank bar, so I wouldn’t expect that to change.

    I would say people report each-other all the time already. If it’s geniune, then that’s a good thing. If it’s not, they are simply wasting some Google employee time along with their own. Regardless I bet EXTREMELY few sites get banned as a result of legit spam reports. I would guess 95%+ of spam reports are things they have been seeing and dealing with since their advent.

    I would guess Google’s existing algorithms neutralize most spam to keep the playing feild level and their results objective. Google does want to ban or penalize a perfectly relevant page when they can simply neutralize any spammy elements. It makes no sense.

    That would seem to be a much easier solution than turning every webmaster into an undercover agent reporting their competitors.

    Rather dramatic take on things! ALL Matt requested (because Webmasters asked for it) is some data to test a new idea Google has. Like most spam, they will no doubt deal with it on an on-going basis via their algo.

    But I don’t think other webmasters should be given the power of trying to determine if a link on a site is………….

    They haven’t been given any powers.

    Don’t forget, there are millions of mom and pop webmasters builiding sites with out of the box software like frontpage, that no nothing about no-follow. If they sell a few links to cover their hosting costs, to another mom and pop site that is just looking for a little boost, should they really be penalized?

    Who said they would be penalized?

    Most here appear very much victims of their own run-away imaginations. Why not all calm down and apply some common sense & logic?

    IMO;

    Google’s objective organic results are likely being compromised by those buying links for PR.

    At present Google likely cannot determine algorithmically (at least not to the degree they want) the difference between a bought link and true vote. The former shouldn’t pass PR while the latter should.

    Matt requested some data to test “some ideas here at Google to augment our existing algorithms”.

    If they can pull this off, those who buy links will no longer have those seen as a vote (neutralize), if they ever were. No penality, no ban, no late night door knocks, no black helicopters, no jail time etc etc.

    Then, in time, those that sell links for PR will no longer have a viable service or product to sell.

  412. Doug Heil,

    True enough. It was inevitable; popular or not.

  413. Dave (original),

    Is it true that your now manufacturing ” I Matt C ” T-Shirts, with “I also love the sound of my own voice” in small print on the back ? hehe

    Most of your posts, and lets face it there’s too many of them, don’t seem to be any form of discussion of the issues, more a defense of any and everything Matt Cutts has ever said.

    We have a TV program in the UK called “Mastermind”. The contestants answer questions on general knowledge, and also on a specialised subject of their chosing. I can just imagine you on that show:

    “Dave, your specialist subject is ‘Every Word every uttered by Google Engineer, Matt Cutts’, and your time begins now…”

    What are YOUR feelings and thoughts on these issues. And by the way, right or wrong has nothing to do with it.

    Seriously, are you able to sit back, take a long deep breath for a moment, and just openly discuss your thoughts without making reference to anyone else? I’m sure thats something I would enjoy reading, and I know you’ve got tons to say. But at this point, if Matt said “Black is White” or “Night is Day”, you would be here shouting the odds defending it. I bet Matt has a really good chuckle at us all from time to time, but even he must be baffled by some of the fanatical behaviour – entertaining as it is.

    Sorry, I don’t mean to pick on you, I just wish you would consider a fresh approach, as you clearly do have passion and plenty to say.

    All the best!

    🙂

  414. I ‘d agreed for the most commenting here, and what is Matt said to us just put the rel=nofollow for each paid links we have. cmiiw, like what Matt do for the comment’ link here.

  415. True or not, inevitable or not, I don’t think this is necessarily well thought out.

    Like Fionn said, there’s a bunch of smart people over there. Why don’t they find another route other than having everybody nark on one another? This will only make an uglier situation uglier. There is no honor code. People will rat on people for doing stuff not they’re not doing. And paid links, or advertising, is a part of life. Don’t tell me those patches on NASCAR suits are for fashion!

    And like Gurtie pointed out, what does that leave us with? Are we going to start seeing National Enquierer style headlines in the SERPs now?

  416. I think this is a great idea. I’ve fallen way down on several of my key words because my competitors are buying write-ups in blogs. They aren’t just buying links or ads, they are full page sponsored write-ups.

  417. I never should have told Dave about blockquote. 🙂

  418. Dave (Original)

    I also keep getting the “uo” back-to-front 🙂

  419. MidnightSunbeam

    First place you should look, is the adult category at dmoz.

  420. MidnightSunbeam

    Oh ! Silly me! No-one can prove all the 1000’s of quality, unique, content rich porn sites listed in dmoz are paid listings. Better forget it then!

  421. Dave (Original)

    Those with half-a-brain and some common sense, that want a good laugh, watch the youtube rant below.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdNA2OZmaUk

  422. FIne then, i will just spam everywhere, this is out of order, you have gone too far.

  423. Dave (Original),

    “IMO it’s all a storm in a tea-cup.”

    I agree – if you read what has been actually been stated – thats obvious!

    “I believe the context Matt has used “link building” is when a site links to another based on the merit of the sites content (a true vote). Not link exchanging, not by buying links, not by email spam requesting a link etc.”

    Dave, regarding “link exchanging”. I agree to an extent but would like to comment on this by way of example:

    1. If you sell “widgets” in the UK and get enquiries from US customers but don’t export – you can add value for your visitor by having a page of “US based widget sellers” – likely a reciprocated link ‘cos the US based widget seller gets UK enquiries from time to time.

    2. If you sell say “recycled wigets” you might swap a link with the guy that sells “recycled teapots”.

    3. And in and amongst you might have one way links out on the same page – to relevant stuff such as your trade assocaition.

    I have such links on my site – ‘cos they are relevant to my visitors.

    I don’t really care if they count as a “vote” from the SE point of view, or if they cancel each other out, but to my eyes I am “voting” or at least “vouching” for the other guy, and vice versa – so don’t think the “nofollow” is appropriate in this instance.

    I would be concerned if this was viewed as “link spam” though – surely not all reciprocated linking is bad!

    If I removed those links altogether I would be removing stuff my visitors find helpful.

    Totally agree though that sites with links pages stuffed full of irrelevant reciprocal links are naff and spammy.

    One thing here Dave

  424. Oh dear google are becoming highly retarded and this’ll hurt the webmaster community who have supported google since it was a tiny company. Its obvious that G is turning into the new M$ and its pretty sad that I can’t sell links to pay for my hosting anymore!

    If paid links are such a big deal why doesn’t google just scrap PR, would be the sensible thing

  425. Dave (Original)

    would be concerned if this was viewed as “link spam” though – surely not all reciprocated linking is bad!

    I doubt most “reciprocated linking” is viewed as “link spam”. Probably just the opposite if the 2 sites are related in content.

    About the only time it maybe seen as spam, is if the site being linked to is considered a “bad neighborhood” by Google. Even then, unless you are part of the “bad neighborhoods” link scheme you likely have nothing to worry about.

    In a nutshell, link exchanging is a good thing for all when done with your site visitors in mind and NOT search engines. If in doubt, use nofollow.

  426. Dave (Original),

    Thanks for your slant on this, thats how i read it too.

    I just love this entire thread – if any mon and pop site wants to understand the best way to launch a site, get it indexed and thrive honestly then everything you need to know can be found on this page and cross referencing Google’s “Webmaster Guidelines”.

    You just need to put your “hysteria filter” reading glasses on first!

  427. I think instead of reporing paid links Google should stop considering backlinks to determine the PR 🙂
    It will be helpful for the Publisher’s like me for whom purchasing these links is not affortable…

  428. Where has Matt Cutts gone? Has he stopped replying? Come on Matt this debate is much more important than your latest posts. You have opened up a can of worms and people are asking you a lot of very important questions.

    Why has a site like text-link-ads or linkmetro not been banned yet from google, all of this makes no sense at all.

    I think you need to clarify the position for everyone.

    Thanks

  429. My first comment here,

    Not a good idea at all mate,

    Who is Google to tell people what they can and can’t do, people just WANT TO MAKE MONEY just like Google does.

    And maybe some like me, who don’t actually make money from there site just want people to enjoy what I have created.

    This is a dirty tactic. Disgusting.

  430. It all sounds so difficult to implement in practice and those in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones unless they are willing to pay the consequences. I wonder how many SEMPO Circle members will continue with the $5000 fee if they are not going to get the page rank benefits form that all important home page link.

  431. Yea, Google pays me to put their paid text link ad on my site, so I should drop all google related ads, and delete google from my toolbar ???
    Man first Windows now Google , I’ve never used windows because they would not submit to industry standards but try to dictate them…
    I’ve acutually been deleting Google from toolbars for a while, when the do not list all searched sites but filter them with their suppmential index.. Which would make them Judge ,Jury and executioner..
    I’ll make sure I remove this data from any previous clients and any future clients. Thanks for the heads ups…..

  432. “…- Sign in to Google’s webmaster console and use the authenticated spam report form…”

    Thats great Matt.. but how do I go about finding out if the links are paid for or not? Inquire with every sites accounting department?

    And if so, whats the etiquette for asking such a question to find out if it’s a paid link for PR or SE purposes? I doubt your avg advertising department employee is that savvy to know.

  433. Who is matt? lol

  434. This whole thing of “paid links just for traffic” is nice and understandable, but there is one issue that nobody seems to care about.

    A link is a link and that it transfers pagerank is not the webmasters fault or responsibility. Just like Google is not responsible for who ranks in the top 10. (their only commitment is to ranking the best sites for a query in the top 10)

    So why obly webmasters to make sure the link doesn’t transfer PR? How can that be the responsibility of a webmaster? It may sound weird, but actually most webmasters haven’t got a clue about PageRank. Most webmasters don’t know it even exists, just like most users. Knock on a random door and ask people to show their browser. In most cases you won’t find a Google Toolbar.

    Sure there are people that buy links for PR purposes only. But most advertising is done just for advertising reasons.

    The only conclusion is that only Google can take care of their own problem.

    By the way, in my opinion, Google already has improved the PR algorithms to a level that just buying a link in a high PR site is pretty much useless. You need to make sure a link is related, has the right anchor text, etc. etc. etc. Adding it all up and you´re basically forced to do it the right way if you want any search engine benefits at all.

    This also happened with HTML code when Google just started. In the old days you had to create special pages for search engines. Then Google came along and the result was that all you really have to do is build a great site for the visitors and Google rewarded your efforts. (It does help to have an SEO help you with using the right tags, do some research as to what people actually search for, and help to optimize the focus of a page.)

    Google even forced the other search engines to pretty much apply very similar algorithms. In fact, the Yahoo! and MSN SERP’s pretty much look like copies of Google SERP’s. (but that´s just my opinion)

    The only thing Google needs to get rid of is the idea that webmasters have to tell you what’s a paid link and what is not.

  435. LOL I see you haven’t changed any Peter. 🙂

    My response is:

    Huh?

  436. I am shocked. This is pretty out there for Google to come up with. I don’t understand how you are even begin to stop competitors from falsely reporting sites, determine what is a paid advertisement from a paid link, and does this mean Web Master’s should not longer offer to sale text linking off their web site? As a small business owner, this sucks! I have worked for 12 years to build traffic on my community oriented web sites, with the business model of being able to capitalize off from selling relevant linking/ad.text ads off my site to clients sites. So basically you are going to now stop me from offering this on my sites or ban my sites?

    I agree with another poster above, the Google Adsense program is THE EXACT SAME THING as I see it. SO I see this as a potential move by Google to take away all right to offer the same service they are to a client or suffer the consequences on not having a listing on Google worth having. It is not right. So will I be penalized for running AdSense text ads on my site that are basically as I see it the same thing? Come on Google…

    Just my two cents worth and I really hope you read this and care about the little companies that made Google what it is today. Just my two cents worth and PLEASE this is a really bad idea.

  437. Dave (Original)

    RE: “The only conclusion is that only Google can take care of their own problem”
    =========================================

    That IS what they are doing. All they have asked for is test data so they can take care of it. This WAS by request of Webmasters.

    Keep in mind also, that Google’s problem of black hats gaming the SEs IS also the problem of ALL others. The black hats ONLY profit by cheating at the expense of ALL others.

  438. Dave (Original)

    RE: “A link is a link and that it transfers pagerank is not the webmasters fault or responsibility. Just like Google is not responsible for who ranks in the top 10. (their only commitment is to ranking the best sites for a query in the top 10)”
    ==========================================

    Of course Google is “responsible for who ranks in the top 10” and you have said as much in the next breath. Google develop the algo to determine which pages are listed and in what order, nobody else.

  439. This one should be fine
    http://www.10000directories.com
    as it doesn’t really affect the SERP’s unless you happen to be looking for me. Maybe you should just review the policy on anchor text, not whether a link is paid for or not.

    What is the stance on sites that also use adwords?, going to ban them?

  440. What is the significance of being able to report paid links vs. unpaid? Is this to place value on paid vs. non? Thanks

  441. hmm, what happened to the ihelpyou forums? Did you all lose your passwords 🙂

  442. Doesn’t Google have enough money? No need to penalize hard working bloggers.

  443. Webmasters asked for this??

    Ok how about the webmasters that are un-asking for this.

    Just look at the overwhelming negative response to the idea of taking away our precious TLA revenue. Adsense sucks.

  444. So, essentially, Google needs to determine the intention of the purchaser. Unfortunately, I’m an honest person, so I will be punished. I want to admit that I paid for my yahoo links for the SEO, not just for the traffic. What’s more, I occasionally (read, before a dance) pay $300/month to sponsor my site, in hopes that it helps my pagerank further (which is does).

    There, I said it.

    Now, if my *intention* had been to buy it for traffic, then it would be fine, and if only I’d kept quiet then my site would pass unnoticed before the eyes of this emergent gestapo, but because I’m stupid enough to put my foot in my mouth, Matt should now summarily reduce the pagerank of my site to zero.

    Of course there *is* a permanent, real, solution to this problem. Google (the entity, not the people) doesn’t (can’t?) really understand it, or rather their business model is creating this problem and they (again, the entity) have no idea how to dig themselves out from under it (yes, it will get worse, and worse, and then a competitor will come along that undermines them and doesn’t need a hundredth of the money they have to do it – just like they did when Google started).

  445. So should I be reporting Google for all its sponsored links? 😉
    Paul.

  446. Dear Matt

    I was astonished to see your post on paid links. Your entire business runs on paid links, but apparently if I do the same I am an evil spammer.

    The paid links on my site are clearly labelled sponsors, and I think google is displaying breath taking arrogance by asking me to specially code them for you. I dont care about page rank, because I think it measures nothing at all. My community site is large, full of useful information ( do take a look ) and has been up for over a decade, but last time I looked it had exactly the same page rank as a silly little site I put up to sell a bit of software.

    However, why shouldnt I try and recoup the hosting costs by selling links ? No one is being conned or mis informed.

  447. Dear Matt,

    I see a lot of times the name Text-link-ads popping up here. As far as my experience goes, they are one of the few link brokers that actually provide links that match your site unlike some other where I have to interfere a lot because they seem to deliver a lot of crap, which I filter out as much as possible. On top of that as a publisher you get the demand from Text-link-ads to actually make sure that the links are well placed so that they can deliver traffic. And they have asked me this since day 1 when I started working with them.

    I am a publisher like so many others who has made his hobby site earn a bit of money with adsense, paid links and so on. I would find it sad that we would be targeted as well with this, as we provide own content in which we invest daily a lot of time and energy.

    I think that Google will have to make a difference when it comes to paid links between well placed targeted links and links which are really garbage both in placement as in targeting.

    Just my 2 cents since I always have looked to deliver quality links to my readers and it would be a pity to see this extra way of financing a site gets thrown away due to some cowboys in the field…

    All the best,

    Bernard

  448. Matt, I hope you don’t post this comment.
    I’m writing because of an email we received from someone that was declined a listing in the above directory site. She did not fit the profile of a hand crafted site and was not charged for a review. She threatened to turn the listed site in for selling links based on this thread and included a link.
    The site is run by my wife and some of her friends and was never considered a money maker. After Katrina, the donations for a listing were all given to Habitat for Humanity.

    Does the http://www.craft-festival.com/ fall under what you describe as a link sell site rules. If it does she will drop the donation request and move on, we just don’t want to trip any kind of new filters that are being used.
    Thanks for your time.

  449. Hi!

    Selling cannabis is not OK.
    Selling a cigar is OK.

    Selling links is not OK.
    Selling SEO services is OK.

    Who decides where is the limit?
    That’s the problem of the World Wide Web : we are still in a World Wide Jungle, where the strongest decides on life and death of the smallest.

    I’m not sure if I will live to see World Wide Justice – and I’m young 😉

  450. Google… the next Microsoft?

    Google sees competition in the link market. Google doesn’t like people not using AdWords to promote their sites versus buying a link from a high ranking site. Google changes algorithms to get rid of these buying sites. Google squashes small competition. Google wins.

    Just a thought.

  451. Is it too early to report Yahoo! and Business.com?

  452. Who do guys think you are, Microsoft.

  453. Here’s an example that’s not a good user experience, it’s artificial, and it’s in everyone’s interest if search engines can reduce the effect of stuff like this:

    http://www.brianwhite.org/2007/04/20/interesting-link/

  454. That’s not fair!Google is making millions but we can’t sell a link!?!?

  455. That’s funny.

    Last time I checked Google makes millions of of paid links. So now the little guy can’t even make a few bucks selling or buying legitimate high quality links?

    Gimme a break.

  456. Just a few random, alarmist thoughts:
    1. If sponsored links are JavaScript only, won’t users just put on their tinfoil hats and turn off JavaScript every time they surf? Won’t Google Analytics and Website Optimizer yield less interesting data in that sort of world?
    2. How will visitors using screen readers / cell phone browsers / toasters to surf the web see advertisement links? Will their lives have less pizazz without advertising? (Yes, it sounds like a scary world)
    3. It seems like the only change this would make to the industry is more sneakiness. Instead of telling potential buyers what site their link will appear on, vague descriptions about the site will be given instead. I don’t think this change will end link buying, just force it underground more.
    4. How can one “Matt Cutts” answer all of these postings every day? Are you actually three people, and they send the friendliest-looking one to SES?

  457. Still there Peter. 7 years strong now.

    I just feel the need to stray over to this blog to help out with all the naivety I read about in here constantly. Matt and Adam and a few others can’t do it all. 🙂

  458. That’s right. I can’t speak for Matt, but I’m too busy being cool.

  459. Let’s get real! Is Google really so paranoid and arrogant to think that everyone who buys advertising on someone else’s site is doing it to game Google???? There are plenty of sites that buying a link on will drive a lot of traffic, whether the search engine’s even recognize the link for ranking purposes. Come on, guys! Google isn’t the only place in town to get traffic.

  460. Dave (Original)

    Is the sky still falling?

  461. Alan Partridge

    I’d like to report a site.

    It seems to have millions of paid links. At the top of the page in a colored bar. And down he right hand side in little boxes.

    These paid links appear whenever I type in a search.

    Site is http://www.google.com

  462. Hi!

    Matt, I think this move will become a safety for your opponents.

    Not for this Machiavelli like call to denunciate.
    But for the try, to damage advertisement in the internet which doesn’t go the Goggle way.
    And now, instead going forward, you are willing to roll back large and long time developments.

    This attempt is like to expel satan with a demon.

    It shows to me, that Google has great problems with their PR-regulating link-system.

    So it seem to me, to be a much easier solution:
    to integrate a link announcement tool in the webmasterconsole,
    which I suggest here further.

    Google said often: our detectives are able to find click fraud.
    now this is a very dynamic problem,
    paid links are more a static problem,
    so you only have to rank all the announced links and add them to the PR-rank as you do before this bad idea.

    But I think the problem will be:
    your offer will work for you nice,
    for some time
    and then it will become more and more a weapon,
    used against each other.

    Greetings Karl

  463. naw. You cannot use this against your competitor. Why you ask? Because you will be logged in to Google, so reporting to Google about a site will also put your integrity in the spotlight as well. Don’t think for one minute that you will be able to fool Google by simply reporting sites for the sake of reporting them.

  464. This is the worst idea ever.. Who the hell are you to tell me how i can and can’t advertise? You seem to be under the impression that Google own the internet Matt, Get off your high horse.

    I guess we have something to replace PR as “Google stupidest idea ever”

    naw. You cannot use this against your competitor. Why you ask? Because you will be logged in to Google, so reporting to Google about a site will also put your integrity in the spotlight as well. Don’t think for one minute that you will be able to fool Google by simply reporting sites for the sake of reporting them.

    Yeah, And signing up for another Google account is impossible… oh, wait…

  465. Shouldn’t you concentrate on sites that demand reciprocal links first, before you attack those that sell links?
    I know sites that demand recip’s that are now PR6 becasue of that, and their results are all over the serp’s.

    If seems to me that paid links provide the most relevent results as they generally say what it is the website actually does and Google results are already the best because of that.

    Why attack something that has put Google where it is? just because of a few comments at a meeting in London???
    There are a lot more voices that are against this change then there are for it.

  466. Google says it wants to reduce spam on the Web, but does not realize that one, if not the biggest source of spam, is due to its Adsense program. If you were more careful as to who you allow into the program, there would be much less sites going online.

    You allow spam sites to have Adsense accounts because it benefits you, but you disallow other sites to maximize their revenue streams. One day, this double policy will backfire.

    It is good that Google people try to do their best to improve their search engine, but going so far as dictating what webmasters can and cannot do is too much.

  467. Reporting others is at most a “feel good” action and won’t affect the SERP’s. But you do want to be careful with reporting others, for paid links or the usual hidden links type of reporting. The reports work great for Google but not always for you as a tool against competitors.

    I have seen one instance where somebody reported a competing site for hidden links and hidden text, and sure, the site was removed,….. for a while. Then the webmaster of that site cleaned up all the hidden links and the site came back higher in the SERP’s than it was ranking before with the hidden text.. Good for Google of course, but not so good for the guy that reported the hidden links and text in the first place… 🙂

    Obvious search engine spam that Google is very good at not noticing sometimes, especially if it is in niches, is easy to report and gets removed fast, but if it is a normal site that is just doing some (uneducated) stupid things, you wanna be careful with reporting.

    In my opinion, competition through trying to make your competition look bad is a very dumb and often expensive business. You´re much better of using that time and money to be and look better yourself.

  468. This bothers me. Sort of trying to create a bunch of little “tattletales.”

    Figure it out yourself.

    I think I’ll start using MSN for my search.

  469. How can you find out if your site has been wrongly accused, and you are paying the penalty for it by having your pages delisted or seriously dropped in the serps?

  470. Dave (Original)

    I see selective reading is still very much the flavor of the month for all the conspiracy theorist. They certainly wont let common sense or logic get in their way either.

    All I can say to all those with over-active imaginations is……Good Grief!

  471. I have 51 websites many subject that are unrelated to eachother.I tend to give my new pr0 sites a link from my pr6 sites.I own all these sites and not paying myself I swear .So when my pr7 technology sites gives my pr4 health blog a link how will you determine if it is paid for or not?by the way i have a server in canada and one in usa and all my domains are registered privately.
    I am more concerned with googles intention if they find unrelated link on a high pr and high traffic website.I dont buy links but i do buy high pr domains just to give MYSELF the pr links.
    If you ever owned a pr2 or less website you know it is next to impossible to get a link trade.I have a 13,000 page pr0 website , I sure hope google appreciates my efforts next update.

    Judy

  472. Sorry for asking, but isn’t this illegally?! isn’t this called discrimination ?! why to punish a guy because he only try to get some extra revenue by selling some text links?! Also people don’t do SEO just for Google, they also do seo for Yahoo/MSN … ,etc

  473. what the heck!!, I dont think this is a good idea 🙁

  474. Anyway … you didn’t tell us, will we get punished in some way for selling/buying links ?!

  475. It’s kind of funny how those into online advertising tend to not releate theirselves to the rest of the advertising industry. If you were to take the glance in which they are taking, and relate it to the tv commercial industry. Every network would get reported because they air commercials. Paying for an advertisement is the same exact thing as paying for a commercial. You are getting the word of mouth out there, in the exact same way. If an image has a hyperlink attached to it, it’s a link. So basically you are saying that some of these websites can not charge a fee for displaying an ad. Letting a search engine dictate how we can sell our ads is a little extreme. For those brains out there, it’s now time for you to create a search engine that does support these methods. We don’t want the internet to become yet another Sirius Satellite radio, with no commercials.

  476. I, for one, applaud Matt and Google. As a previous poster said, if you don’t like it, go to MSN–maybe MSN will increase its market share with disgruntled SEOs, because it’s certainly not having much luck with real users.

    What Google is doing is preserving the integrity of what made Google successful in the first place–typing in a keyword and getting a useful page, instead of a page that’s whored itself to the highest bidder.

    Remember a great search engine called Altavista? Remember when we all discovered that repeating a keyword 1000 times in white text could get us to #1 in the search results? Wow, that was great. Until the search results were so useless that customers stopped using them–and went to a new search engine called Google.

    If you’re a true SEO person, try this. Come up with great, original content. Design fun and innovative applications that people will link to. Push the Web forward, instead of just gaming the system and giving Web searchers more and more garbage.

    I really thought link brokers were going to be the thing that makes Google “jump the shark”. I’m happy to see steps are being taken to counteract them.

  477. Hi Guys,
    This is my first post on Matt Cutt’s blog. Well that does not mean I am unaware of him and his blog. But I never posted before at his blog.

    This post is really getting interesting over time. I see lot of people opposing to Matt’s views. My apology to critics but I feel google has always been taking up steps to provide real data. And there is no doubt that webmasters try paid links for the shake of PR.

    I have been oberving that same questions are repeated again and again which makes me wonder weather people actually read the blog or just love to post.

    Basically what I conclude about his statement is as follows:

    1. Site engaged into trading of paid links would be penalized. (Dont ask him why is it not included in their algorithm. If its not there today then tomorrow it might be there. Indeed feel thankful that he is discussing openly. Also dont forget that google webmaster guideline always discourage link trading so I am sure those who are banned because of this reason are no innocent people)

    2. There is a simple rule for paid links. Text adds, banners, adwords, adbrite links etc. are not treated as paid links because they are meant for traffic and not for page rank because they are always inside a script which the crawlers would never follow.

    3. A link from a paid directory would also not be treated as paid link if it is with nofollow or withing a script which the crawler can not follow.

    Well I can write many other points but I am sure no one would bother to read a long comment.

    We can conclude that a link paid for traffic is safe and link paid for crawlers is spamming.

    Hey Matt, this is what I understood by reading your post. Please correct me if I am wrong and also please enlighten me if i am missing some point.

    Regards
    Dwarika

  478. Hey Matt,
    I have a small doubt after reading your another post :

    You said
    “The other best practice I’d advise is to provide human readable disclosure that a link/review/article is paid. You could put a badge on your site to disclose that some links, posts, or reviews are paid, but including the disclosure on a per-post level would better. Even something as simple as “This is a paid review” fulfills the human-readable aspect of disclosing a paid article. Google’s quality guidelines are more concerned with the machine-readable aspect of disclosing paid links/posts, but the Federal Trade Commission has said that human-readable disclosure is important too:”

    I just wanted to know that if a paid link page displays human readable disclosure then is it ok with google?

    Regards
    Dwarika

  479. Please forgive me, but this is a freakin riot!

  480. Matt,

    What would happen if I decided to post original articles from this point forward. Would this result in my blog being indexed again?

  481. f we are reporting paid links then are Yell.com and all the other directories that many web users find so useful now going to go out of business? After all, these are essentially just paid links so how does Google differentiate between the two? Both are designed to drive extra traffic to a paying customers site and both increase the number of links to the site so where exactly is the line to be drawn?

  482. Dave (Original)

    Unlikely IMO. You should start over from scratch and then request a re-inclusion via the right channel.

    BTW, I pretty sure Matt has given up answering questions in this post. Too many simply don’t read them and only read what they want to read.

  483. I run a couple of directories and charge $1 for inclusion which keeps them spam free, are they now under threat?
    (I still have to review everything that is submitted)
    Should I just make them FREE so I don’t have to add the no-follow tag and then sit here deleting spam all day?

  484. Dave (Original)

    There is no “threat” as you put it. Why not simply use nofollow?

  485. Honestly – this is beyond reason.

    Ok its exciting to tweak your algos – but you do have no right whatsoever to continue your dictatorship on what a webmaster can do and what they must not to fulfill your policies.

    1. There is no way an algorythm could track payed links. Results (algo or submitted) would be faulty by more than 50%.
    2. Your interfere in business noone invited you to in the first place.

    Once again – youre asking people to report other people. Jeeeeeesus.
    Now what – are your algos that bad or do you simply wish to repeat one of histories most common faults ?

    A a webmaster I do have the right to sell anything on my website to whomever i want to – in any way i want to. What makes you think you could prevent that ? Who gives you the right to even think that ?

  486. Hey Matt,

    Is buying a review for a possible inclusion in a directory (e.g. Yahoo, BOTW, …) also considered SPAM?

  487. Very good posts Steve and Dwarika!! You too Dave!

    I also truly believe that most in here do not take the time to actually read what Matt said, or to actually read what many of us are writing. Why don’t ya all actually read the posts in here? Common sense and logic is very much lacking. I’m getting quite the shites and giggles from reading many of you.

    BTW: My firm is going to start “selling links” as well. It’s not implemented yet in our new website. Do you think I will be worried about “anything” at all with this new Google link thang? Not even an afterthought. I won’t be worried whatsoever. Zero reason to be.

    As Dave said above;

    The sky sure does seem to be falling.

  488. I run a couple of directories and charge $1 for inclusion which keeps them spam free, are they now under threat?

    Money doesn’t keep directory sites spam free…owners keep directory sites spam free.

    If you’re that worried about spammy submissions, put a CAPTCHA up. You won’t kill all of them but you’ll kill a good portion of them.

  489. I’m curious too about Google’s take on the yahoo directory. I’ve always thought of that as a good investment for the traffic but mostly for the association. If I were making an algorythm for search, inclusion in a directory that is edited and has a fee to keep out some riff raff seems like as good a quality indicator as anything.

    What about a blogroll. I have lots of friends sites in blog rolls, none of them compensate me. Could I be secretly undermining them?

    Lastly, are you sugesting that Google may penalize sites for buying links, or merely disclude purchased links from a given site’s link profile?

    (sorry if these have been asked / answered. I read the first couple hundred posts but then I skipped and just read what you said Matt.)

  490. @ Multi-Worded Adam,

    Sorting through 200 spam submissions per day takes time to see what is spam or not, sorting the few that pay takes moments.

    If I offer free links and you decide that you want to be listed above the other sites already listed, why shouldn’t you pay for that?

    There is ZERO SEO advantage to be gained as you could have just had the free link anyway?? I could even give you several if I want.

    For all I care, you could have a half page ad if you pay enough! It would be no different than the one free listing in terms of SEO gaming.

    To say that owners keep the directories free of spam is a really LAME reply, I would hide if I had posted that.
    I already do enough for charity, it sometimes leaves me enough tme to make a living.

    Apparently Captcha is not user friendly for visually impared individuals, .. so I heard.
    ___________________

  491. I did not see any mention of penalizing a site, only that you might be spending money for the wrong reasons.

    Meaning, you will get no search engine value for the link and if that is why you bought it, then you just wated your money.

    You won’t penalized but if you site is held together by bought links, you might surely drop once those links are discounted.

    By the way, MSN and Yahoo still love links. So if your disounted for them in Google, the other two eat them up.

  492. classifieds, that was extremely well done on your part. You managed to come up with the argument in all of this that shows just how flawed the paid directory business model is. For the sake of illustrating a point, I’m going to assume yours is a general directory, although the same logic applies to any niche directory.

    You say it reduces spam, and that may well be true (I don’t doubt it is for a second). But take something like Aaron Pratt’s site for example (his SEO Buzzbox one.) Would you deny him a listing solely because he didn’t hand you a buck? How about Matt? Would you deny him a link because he didn’t fork over a buck?

    Therein lies the problem with the paid directory business model…it creates economic bias and eliminates the listing of sites that would otherwise deserve but cannot, do not wish to, or should not have to afford to purchase a listing. The dollar amount really isn’t important…even a penny creates a certain bias.

    And by your own admission, your decision to charge still leads to spam…so it doesn’t keep your directory spam free. You have to go in and do something anyway. You have to do a lot less of it, but you still have to do it. So you, the owner, keep your directory spam free…or at least make efforts to.

    You can charge $100, $200, $300, $1,000,000, and eventually you’ll get a spammy request. The amount of requests will probably drop considerably, but they’ll still come in.

    As far as purchasing an advertisement goes, that’s a whole different animal. If I purchase an ad, I want to be able to measure my ROI as an advertiser. This is where search engines do need to improve…if they give an advertiser any SEO benefits, it to some extent skews the ROI measure for said advertiser since the traffic cannot be accurately measured. Personally, I’d be okay with a nofollow being used here (although I’d like to see rel=”advertisement” or something to accomplish the same purpose.)

    As far as CAPTCHAs go, they can be made accessible. Register for a Hotmail account and you’ll see an example (albeit not a very good one) of how to do so.

    So I stand by the remarks I made, and I’m not going to hide for saying them…there’s no reason for me to. You’re just upset because it has the potential to negatively affect you, and your bias is starting to show.

  493. Dave (Original)

    Classifieds,

    There is no “threat” as you put it. Why not simply use nofollow?

    Is your aim to make a good, useful unbias and objective directory, or a lower quality one that invloves less work on your part? I’m NOT saying there is anything wrong with the latter BTW.

  494. @ Multi-Worded Adam
    Thankyou for your reply.
    If all directories were only to be free then surely they should all just list every site on the web, except filter out the spam first? something that even the mighty Google cannot do.

    Regardless of whether we are talking about paid/free directories filtering out useless websites (aka Spam) takes time and drains resources (this is where the exchange of currency is introduced)

    I don’t understand your “different animal” surely ALL links are advertisements whether paid or not? If I re-phrase my question into a list perhaps it will be easier for you…

    1) You can have a link on my website for free.
    2) That is a standard direct link that would pass PR (if I had any!)
    3) You would like to pay to have it in a more prominent place on my website, possibly with more words or even an image.
    4) Then why on earth should I have to apply a no-follow tag just because you paid?

    (please answer no4)

    Free link >> Passes PR
    You pay for an enhanced listing >> Doesn’t pass PR

    …..that’s just plain madness.

    I have no bias on this, I am just questioning something that is PLAINLY absurd, maybe Matt was “sleep-typing” or someone hacked his PC and posted on his behalf 🙂
    ______________________

    I concur with this quote from a forum….
    “Google results pages are currently regarded as the best, SEO’s currently try to game the results, obviously to some degree of success or they would all be out of business, therefore my opinion is that gaming the results and SEO actually aids Google’s results.”

    Applying no-follow to links that are paid, clearly reduces serious advertising down to the level of spam, we will all have to hustle around trying to game free links…. just like spammers.

    A better move on Google’s part would be to remove any importance of ANY LINK to or from a blog (the ultimate gaming machine)

  495. For Matt or Dave (Original),

    I’m far from a conspiracy against google merchant but can either of you just answer the simple questions below for me, so I know where I stand.

    Thanks in Advance.

    1. I know of sites where paid links are, but on the same site, there are links which are not paid for, so how will google know which are which?

    2. I have a few My site a will link to his site b, and my site c will link to his site d, deals, effectively one way links – how does google know if these are paid links or not?

    I’m baffled by how google will introduce this system, but if you could answer point 1 and 2, I would be grateful.

    Regards

    Paul

  496. Do no evil eh? Mmm. This all sounds rather as though the only paid links we can have are Google AdSense links. Monopolies come to mind?

    What’s ethical is that where advertising occurs we are aware of it. Newspapers have clear boundaries – so you would think – between advertising and editorial. But it is hugely blurred. Much of the information in newspapers leads to commercial outcomes (it’s not “news”). Yet it appears as “news”.

    It’s the same in movies – product placement influences what we aspire to and buy. Yet the film doesn’t have a warning saying “this bit is paid for”. Neither does the PR in newspapers and magazines.

    Google’s ethical stance on wanting to make an obvious difference between paid for links and the free links is all very honourable; but it’s not real world.

    True, where it’s advertising it should be obvious – but there’s a great deal of advertising outside the Internet which we are not made aware of as advertising. So why should people who want to pay for links be expected to behave differently online? They won’t.

  497. Matt and Dave are really learning from everyones comments here.
    They should be paying for all this feedback.
    But …. already infected by the greed of Goooogle

  498. Dave (Original)

    Hi Paul

    I have no idea how Google will determine paid links from true votes. I can assure you however that Matt, or anyone from Google, will never tell us.

    I also think we can rest asssured that Google cannot afford to NOT differentiate between them. They have the geek power, money and the most important factors of all…. determination, need and a driving passion.

  499. I have long been worried about the issue of buying links etc. Its great to boost your site up if you have just launched, without the years of wait.

    Now that goog has added value and unwittingly commercialised link building, independent operators with small budgets cannot compete with big time spenders, and there should be some way to monitor and penalise completely unethical link buying.

    But the way to enforce this has to be equally ethical.

    Take for example: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=buy+links&meta= There are hundreds of link brokers who sell links and link strategies that work.

    Goog stands to benefit from the drop in link buying, by their adwords programme probably getting more budgets, and that is unavoidable. In which case, instead of planning to penalise link brokers, why not put together a range of “buying links” guidelines. The page http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 doesnt give a clear view on link buying.

    Maybe encourage and finance an independent link brokerage review group or licence. The group will be responsible fo a “guild” of link brokers that follow set rules and regulations (eg the maximum links that a site can “buy”).

    I know that the suggestion above isnt ideal, but may add towards a “cleaner” policy towards link buying.

  500. Hi Paul; Dave is right. What you should be asking yourself is this:

    Am I linking out to another site because I think the site is useful to my visitors? Is that other site linking to mine for the same reason, and it also brings me good visitors?

    Or;

    Are we linking to each other because of other reasons as well?

    Believe me; Google wants to answer those same questions about your site and linking. They certainly are not going to tell you how to link out and why, but rest assured they want to figure out your reasons for doing so.

    Ask yourself those questions and then you can figure out whether or not your links will actually count.

  501. http://www.braintrove.com

    It seems like a pretty lame idea. If people can’t setup links between sites without fear that their Google rank is going to fall through the floor–then what’s the point?

  502. Dave (Original)

    Goog stands to benefit from the drop in link buying, by their adwords programme probably getting more budgets,…

    Only in that their SERPs are unbias and objective. Those who are now below those who buy links might be using AdWords. When Google level the playing field those may stop using AdWords.

    I’d say it would roughly even itself out.

  503. Doug, Dave and the others that are trying to become Matt disciples,

    Here´s a quote:
    [quote]
    1) Google is “perfectly fine with people buying and selling links” but prefers them to use the nofollow attribute when doing so.

    2) It is difficult for Google to identify a web site selling the odd link, or a blogger adding a contextual link, in exchange for payment.

    3) Google looks for are patterns that suggest money is being exchanged for links. A casino site buying a link from a blog about gardening, would raise a red flag, said Lasnik. As would an influx of links in a single day.

    4) Links from one relevant site to another, would not likely cause a reaction from Google

    Penalties for Link Buying:

    1) Punishments for buying and selling links vary.

    2) Sellers that offer lots of links for sale, could find their outbound links filtered on a page level, or site-wide.

    3) Buyers, purchasing links from dozens of locations, could trigger Google to filter out the value of their inbound links.

    4) In the case of linking schemes,the link seller to have their ability to pass PageRank stripped away.
    [/quote]

    If you read that properly, you will find that Google has no problem with the buying and selling of links and just prefers them with nofollow because it makes their live easier.

    It also says that relevant links are unlikely to be devaluated, paid or not paid.

    if you wonder where this quote comes from,…. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/adam-lasnik-of-google-on-paid-links-nofollow/4473/

    Seems to me that Matt and Google made it all look worse than it really is.

  504. @ Multi-Worded Adam
    Thankyou for your reply.
    If all directories were only to be free then surely they should all just list every site on the web, except filter out the spam first? something that even the mighty Google cannot do.

    Not necessarily…they would list those sites they deem to be worthy and ignore the ones that aren’t. In other words, the democratic nature.

    I don’t understand your “different animal” surely ALL links are advertisements whether paid or not? If I re-phrase my question into a list perhaps it will be easier for you…

    1) You can have a link on my website for free.
    2) That is a standard direct link that would pass PR (if I had any!)
    3) You would like to pay to have it in a more prominent place on my website, possibly with more words or even an image.
    4) Then why on earth should I have to apply a no-follow tag just because you paid?

    (please answer no4)

    Free link >> Passes PR
    You pay for an enhanced listing >> Doesn’t pass PR

    Man, Dave, you were right…give someone enough rope, and they will hang themselves. Lookit this guy danglin’!

    First off, classifieds, you’ve managed to reveal a mild case of PageRank Protritanopia. Please consult with an optician who can prescribe treatment at once.

    Second, most people purchasing advertising are purchasing it because they want to show up ahead of their competition in the eyes of users. Most of the time, they don’t even care whether search engines are involved or not. So it’s actually to their benefit not to have the link followed because it gives them a more accurate measure of their traffic…you know, the whole reason ads are purchased in the first place.

    If you still want to “pass PR”, give the advertiser the same free link he/she had beforehand and add the ad in as well. That takes care of both scenarios and is of more benefit to the advertiser since it places the link in two spots. It’s also reasonably user-friendly as well, as some users may only want to see free listings so that they know they’re not getting influenced by money, some will look to the sponsor listings first, and some will do a hybrid of both.

    Consider Google as an example…they run sponsored ads, and organic SERPs. Sometimes the SERPs will contain listings that match the sponsored ads. How many people would complain about that? I’d suspect very few…most people wouldn’t even notice.

    I concur with this quote from a forum….
    “Google results pages are currently regarded as the best, SEO’s currently try to game the results, obviously to some degree of success or they would all be out of business, therefore my opinion is that gaming the results and SEO actually aids Google’s results.”

    Okay…so because some people out there try to spam, manipulate, and screw with SERPs for their own self interests, they’re actually aiding Google? That’s like saying criminals coming up with new tricks aids the police in their jobs. This is just asinine, and whoever came up with that thought needs to give his/her head a shake.

    Consider the amount of time wasted by someone like Matt, who has to deal with all the spam reports and come up with ways to deal with the idiots who are trying to serve themselves at the expense of the user vs. coming up with ways to better serve the end user, such as improving the algorithm and making SERPs more relevant. Which would you rather see a Google engineer do, spend a week coming up with ways to block the latest contextual link spam exchange du jour or fine-tuning the algorithm in such a way as to make it more and more relevant?

  505. Dave (Original)

    Do no evil eh? Mmm. This all sounds rather as though the only paid links we can have are Google AdSense links. Monopolies come to mind?

    Who has ever said that? You can buy as many ad links as you like. However, if you are buying them for PR you will likely no longer get what you have paid for. So, the link monger is the ONLY one screwing you, nobody else. “Evil” would be to ALLOW their SERPS to be skewed toward the highest bidder.

    AdSense/AdWords has never, likely never will, pass PR.

    What’s ethical is that where advertising occurs we are aware of it. Newspapers have clear boundaries – so you would think – between advertising and editorial. But it is hugely blurred. Much of the information in newspapers leads to commercial outcomes (it’s not “news”). Yet it appears as “news”.

    So because other forms of Media sometimes blur the boundries, you think Google should turn their heads to it????

    True, where it’s advertising it should be obvious – but there’s a great deal of advertising outside the Internet which we are not made aware of as advertising. So why should people who want to pay for links be expected to behave differently online? They won’t.

    They may not, although I suspect most would, or do already, do the right thing. Why would anyone pay for PR if you longer get what you pay for?

  506. Dave (Original)

    Matt and Dave are really learning from everyones comments here.

    Not sure about Matt, but all I’m learning is the vocal minority have little or no common sense and suffer from severe overactive imaginations.

  507. @ Multi-Worded Adam
    If you still want to “pass PR”, give the advertiser the same free link he/she had beforehand and add the ad in as well. That takes care of both scenarios and is of more benefit to the advertiser since it places the link in two spots.

    Heh, that was just reply I was digging for. Glad you mentioned it.

    Keep the free link and add the paid one too….
    Should I still add “rel=advertisement” to the paid one? 😉

    So your basically saying paid directories should offer a paid link AND with it you get a free link, having two links kind of defeats the object of blocking the paid links in the first place doesn’t it?

    Theoretically it would also be easy to just run a blog alongside a directory, specifically thanking the sites who paid to advertise/support the directory and ping it round all the social networking sites, again defeating the object of blocking paid links.

    Which would you rather see a Google engineer do, spend a week coming up with ways to block the latest contextual link spam exchange du jour or fine-tuning the algorithm in such a way as to make it more and more relevant?

    As mentioned before, I would like to see a penalty for sites that demand reciprocal links & also all blog links (in and out) removed from the index.

    Thanks for the feedback Adam.
    Regards,
    James.

  508. Do you want to apply this paid links for all Google search engine (all DNS)

  509. Dave (Original)

    I would guess most directories (free and paid) can be identified by Google and simply don’t pass PR anyway.

    I can think of no reason why a site that submits to the most directories should become more relevant with each submission? It’s simply a form of self-promotion & advertising just like forum signatures, paid links, banner ads etc.

  510. @ Dave (Original)
    Hi Dave,
    I agree to an extent, but you can add blogs, digg, myspace and all the rest to that statement. The very nature of the web is self promotion via links, paid or not. Either that or all links are useless.

    I think directories are great…
    “the search engines list the top websites and if your website doesn’t make it into the top 1 or 2 pages then chances are your website will not get seen. So some wise-spark decided to take all those sites that don’t do so well and put them all in a directory which suddenly started to appear above all those previously better ranked sites.
    Picture this: You have a website that sells telephone batteries but it doesn’t do so well on the search engines, why not list your telephone battery website on a directory that focuses on telephone accessories and gets 1000’s of visitors every day?”

    [quote]I can think of no reason why a site that submits to the most directories should become more relevant[/quote]

    They SHOULD be more relevent with each submission because generally they are listed in a relevent category for a relevent topic. I have never had a problem finding something on Google when I need it. Therefore I guess it is working just fine?, note: I don’t search for viagra so I can’t be sure about that one. 🙂

    If you ask me they are a great resource much like some blogs focused on one subject can be (unlike ones just filled with peoples useless random ramblings which also pass weight)

    Maybe Google should take it’s top 50 or 100 results and just shuffle them randomly on each search. That would certainly take the stigma out of trying to be on page 1. ??

  511. Dave wrote:
    “Not sure about Matt, but all I’m learning is the vocal minority have little or no common sense and suffer from severe overactive imaginations.”

    hmmm. I actually think in our industry it’s the “vocal majority” that seem to have no common sense. LOL

    It’s totally amazing how people just can’t seem to get it. The huge amounts of email spam I get from so-called SEO’s and “link mongers” chasing PR is totally out of control.

    And here we have this thread that started out very innocent with some very basic common sense steps that Google is taking to make “their serps” more relevant, but some out there just don’t get it. I’m totally dumbfounded about why this seems to be so hard to understand. If you actually build a great site with great content people will actually link to you. There is NO NEED to buy a link because of Google and NO NEED to exchange links either. You can certainly trust me on that as it’s a “fact”.

  512. So your basically saying paid directories should offer a paid link AND with it you get a free link, having two links kind of defeats the object of blocking the paid links in the first place doesn’t it?

    Not really, no. You can still have the paid link…remember, it’s a link for the benefit of the advertiser, and it doesn’t interfere with the overall meritocracy of what a directory site should be. It helps both users and SEs, since it separates what effectively is two sets of content.

    As mentioned before, I would like to see a penalty for sites that demand reciprocal links & also all blog links (in and out) removed from the index.

    I agree completely on the first, but not the second. There are a number of blogs out there (this one included) that provide useful content to the end user…why should they be removed just because a relative few idiots decide to use them for spammy purposes?

    And here we have this thread that started out very innocent with some very basic common sense steps that Google is taking to make “their serps” more relevant, but some out there just don’t get it. I’m totally dumbfounded about why this seems to be so hard to understand. If you actually build a great site with great content people will actually link to you. There is NO NEED to buy a link because of Google and NO NEED to exchange links either. You can certainly trust me on that as it’s a “fact”.

    Sure there is, Doug. Obsessive-Compulsive PageRank Disorder. You forgot about that. 😉

  513. Doube D, (Doug and Dave)

    It amazes me how you guys are completely ignoring the quote I showed. You guys say that others are selectively using evidence but you´re worse your selves.

    When a GOOGLE EMPLOYEE says that Google has no problem with buying and selling links, you completely ignore it because it doesn’t fit your line of thinking. The quote even mentioned the fact that a relevant link does not get penalized, even when it is paid. Even that gets ignored…

    Please do everybody a favor and go back to your forum. You´re obviously not here to have a discussion but just to feel good about your selves.

  514. Why are trying to punish people for trying to make a living, this is supposed to be a free capitalist market right?

  515. I think reporting paidlinks is not a problem, even maybe a good thing to help good play with the algebra; but I think penalising a website for selling links is rediculous in any economy. It’s especially silly when the paidlinks are relevant and may just have easily been published if unpaid. Whether penalisation is enforced or not, I hope that Google’s humans manually check each reported site out, because, for example, my site’s ‘sponsored features’ are not for sale but may appear to be at first glance – and they’re relevant to my content so could just as easily be under a non-sponsored section.

    Now, if Google AdSense implements links on people’s sites saying things like ‘Advertise on this site’ then surely there’s a confusion of principles somewhere along the line?

  516. “Martin Avis and Neeraj, I’ll pass that suggestion on, but lots of people who aren’t webmasters enjoy seeing the PageRank bar, so I wouldn’t expect that to change.”

    Normal user trust page rank more than enjoying, and page rank extremely easy to manipulate, infact it influences most people who buy online. Isn’t it a misleading factor and good to be stopped (visual PR). Especially it does have anyother purpose as far as I know.

  517. Peter wrote:
    “When a GOOGLE EMPLOYEE says that Google has no problem with buying and selling links, you completely ignore it because it doesn’t fit your line of thinking. The quote even mentioned the fact that a relevant link does not get penalized, even when it is paid. Even that gets ignored.”

    Again; that would be a ……. “HUH”?

    So Peter; pray tell me where I stated in this thread “anywhere” that Google had a problem with it, and whatever about a link being penalized or not?

    Goodness Gracious. Have you read anything in this thread?

    For the record and for the purpose of trying to be even “clearer” than I thought I was prior:

    Google has NO PROBLEM with buying and selling links. You can buy and sell links all you wish. Period. My firm will be directly selling “links/advertising” in the future. For the record as well; I highly doubt a firm would be penalized for selling links “even if” deemed to be link spamming. Links “will be” discounted/ignored by Google though.

    In other words:

    STOP buying links “for Google”. STOP selling links and using Google for your reasons to sell links.

    This seems so easy.

    Yeah Adam; I forgot. I must have had a brain fart or something. 🙂

  518. Why this interest in paid links? There are so many spam sites out there and they are all raking in Google AdSense dollars.

    Check out my post:
    http://advertising-for-success.blogspot.com/2007/02/and-make-positive-contribution-to.html

    You do not need an algorithm to find these, a simple text search will do it.

  519. See Doug, you complain about others assuming you said things, but at the same time you assume that everybody that buys links does so for the sole purpose of PR.

    I never cared for having the highest PR, I care for high rankings. Buying links is not a strategy, but if you’re looking for good places to get links from (something Google encourages) you often get the reply: “Yeah, it will cost you $xx per month.” So now what? Don’t pay because Google doesn’t like it? I’ll never get links for Google, but I sure as …. won’t say no to a link because Google thinks dollars for links are bad. If I believe the link is good for a website (that means it is a place where it is likely that the visitors fit the profile of the site I work for) and the marketing budget allows it, then there is nothing wrong with buying a link.

    This seems so easy.

    And I don’t see why a link like that isn’t allowed to transfer PR. I´m sure Google’s intentions are good, but they present this one in such a weird way. It really gives the idea that Google is against honest advertising and then the obvious conclusion of many is that they want websites that want to sell ads in their site, should use Google Adsense. (not my conclusion by the way, but I do understand it when people think like that.)

    And it really makes no sense to hide these links in javascript, nofollow, etc. Why on earth is that necessary? Aren’t we suppose to never do anything just for the search engines? Hiding links in javascript, flash etc. because we don’t want to influence the SERP’s is completely the opposite of what Google wants.

    Maybe its difficult for Google to detect paid links, but they shouldn’t care about whether or not a link was paid for. What they should care for is relevance. And dollars say absolutely nothing about the relevance of a link.

    Let me repeat it again: “Dollars say absolutely nothing about the relevance of a link.”

    This seems so easy.

  520. Dave (Original)

    I agree to an extent, but you can add blogs, digg, myspace and all the rest to that statement. The very nature of the web is self promotion via links, paid or not. Either that or all links are useless.

    Yes, the “etc” would no doubt include these.

    IMO a vote is a one-way links from a simliar sites content page. No, not sitewide ones and/or those in the footer. I mean those in the actual content of a content page.

    They SHOULD be more relevent with each submission because generally they are listed in a relevent category for a relevent topic.

    I dissagree. Relevance can only come about from the content. Importance can only come about by votes. The 2 combined make a relevant and important page that should do well in the SERPs. Why should the one who buys some auto-directory submitter be deemed as more important and/or relevant? Why should the one who has won lotto and spends ten of thousands of dollars on paid submissions be deemed as more important and/or relevant? A non-relevant, poor written, and perhaps outright wrong article, should stay that way until the content is improved.

    IF Google deemed the 2 examples above as being more relevant, their organic results could never be touted as objective, unbias and coming from a level playing field. I also believe they would have sold out to the higgest bidder, whether for money and/or mass directory submissions.

  521. Hi Matt, this thread was way long, im not sure if this came up. A site in my industry is running a promotion

    A Bloggers Grand Sweepstakes – Win $4999

    1.) Post an entry on your blog that is at least 150 words long.
    2.) Enter these 4 words/phrases into your post: “…..”, “…..”, “…..”, and “…….” Place each of them in a different sentence.
    3.) Add a link to your post that directs your readers to ……….
    4.) Fill out form when entry is placed
    1/28 chances of winning

    Send a spam report?

    Best

  522. Dave (Original)

    When a GOOGLE EMPLOYEE says that Google has no problem with buying and selling links, you completely ignore it because it doesn’t fit your line of thinking. The quote even mentioned the fact that a relevant link does not get penalized, even when it is paid. Even that gets ignored

    Yes and that is very much inline what I and others have been saying. I.e Google likely wont penalize or ban a site for buying links, they will likely discount them.

    Peter, you really should read what I and others have been saying. WE are the ones trying to put the common sense back into the “Google is dictating…”, “Google will penalize…”, “Google will ban…”. Please read and not ass-u-me.

    And I don’t see why a link like that isn’t allowed to transfer PR

    You don’t see why a paid link advertisement should pass PR (a vote)?? Please, tell me you are joking.

  523. Peter wrote:
    “Maybe its difficult for Google to detect paid links, but they shouldn’t care about whether or not a link was paid for. What they should care for is relevance. And dollars say absolutely nothing about the relevance of a link.”

    hmm. You can’t be serious Peter?

    No further comment is necessary about that statement. Goodness.

  524. It will be interesting to see how this pans out as there is so much to cover, but then what of free submition sites?

  525. Matt, thanks for the heads-up, but I think Google has gone a little too far on this paid link and reporting thing. It appears as an older Communist country. Very scary.

    At this point I think you have become a little too powerful and I will be closing everything Google in my life (email, analytics and such) in addition to using alternative search engines as to not support the Google God. I hope (and know) others will follow.

  526. “Maybe its difficult for Google to detect paid links, but they shouldn’t care about whether or not a link was paid for. What they should care for is relevance. And dollars say absolutely nothing about the relevance of a link.”

    OMG! The whole reason (IMO) that google would like to discourage this behaviour is to improve the quality of SERPs. Buying links is a manipulation and abuse of these.

    Earlier on I mentioned a regulated paid link industry… I take it back.

  527. Don’t help GOOOGLE!!!!!!!!

  528. No no no.
    its ok. the only one who is able to make money with selling links is google. nice adsense/adwords system. nobody else should do that, thats right.
    yes should we ask the w3c to take the -tag out of the validator, because we can manipulate our pages with that tag…putting keywords into it, as the headline.. tztztz no one should be able to use it… google should be able…

  529. Interesting, and long discussion….

  530. I don’t think it will be possible to detect all paid links especially on sites that offer real content with a few paid links (ex. – sites working through adBrite)

  531. Matt, I found this post after I had already sent an email to your .edu address regarding a related matter.

    I can understand where you come from on the paid links position, and correct me if this statement from you captures such sentiment:

    ” there are lots of creative ways to let people know about a site other than paid links, from providing useful information to a new idea on a service. techmeme.com was registered less than a year ago, but think about how quickly it has become daily reading. Aaron Swartz use to run the #1 ranked site for [google blog], then he decided to go off and make this little site called reddit.com. Of course not every site is going to be a reddit.com or a techmeme.com, but there are lots of sites that do well by finding a creative angle or hook.”

    I live part of my time in Silicon Valley so I can get a feel of technology trends and just because I love California, but the rest of my time, I usually spend it traveling or living in less technological places like Orlando, FL or San Juan, PR. This gives me a diverse appreciation of the behavior in different types of populations. The behavior you describe above goes more in line with what would happen if a website falls into the liking of the Silicon Valley type of user.

    In my opinion, I can see the real value of paid links for specific reason although I tend to be in line with most of your thoughts on links. However, in dealing with paid links, I suggest that you create a specific attribute to identify such, and not leave it to a javascript or rel no follow. Why? Because you want as much information as possible from the net.

    If you encourage dressing a paid link with javascript, Google goes blackout on what that link is about. If you encourage rel no follow, then there’s inaccurate information as well – Is the no follow because they are talking bad about it? Is the no follow because it’s paid?

    Encouraging a new attribute a la – “rel paid link”. You understand explicitly that it is a paid link! And, philosophy on paid links aside, this is a real market that will continue on. A specific attribute to it would most definitely be the fairest way to disclose and allow any search engine to choose the value to assign to it.

  532. This sucks! Spam Google’s report form and see how they like that! Who does Google think they are they are becoming a monopoly it’s time for congress to step in.

  533. Quote> “OMG! The whole reason (IMO) that google would like to discourage this behaviour is to improve the quality of SERPs. Buying links is a manipulation and abuse of these.”

    Nah, they want to make the serps WORSE to improve the relevance of adsense… more clicks for them. Soon there will be 20 adsense results on the first page (one of the perks of having shareholders) and we will all be fighting for page 2.

    heh.

  534. Dave (Original)

    I gather you mean AdWords not AdSense?

    How do you know that someone, who is currently being shunted to page x of the SERPs (due to most above them buying PR), will not STOP using AdWords when/if all the link buyers above him/her drop back to where they SHOULD be? It seems very clear to me that AdSense revenue would pretty well remain static due to Google not passing PR for paid links.

    As I keep saying, some common sense and logic would go a long way to stopping the tin foil hat brigade marching out constantly on false alarms.

  535. Simple question…
    What’s the difference between a legitimate advert/paid link and a google ad?

  536. “I gather you mean AdWords not AdSense?”

    No, I mean adsense.
    Adwords is what you sign-up for if you want to have your business listed in the ads. Adsense is what’s displayed on the page where webmasters and Google make their click money (so I gather)

    If they make SERPs less relevant, then the adsense that they display will look even more inviting.

    “How do you know that someone, who is currently being shunted to page x of the SERPs (due to most above them buying PR), will not STOP using AdWords when/if all the link buyers above him/her drop back to where they SHOULD be?”

    You have a paranoia that everyone ranks where they are because they purchased a lot of links 🙂
    Yes they may well stop, but the others would have to start buying 🙂
    Don’t buy links, buy ads. (I think this takes us right back to square one)

    Maybe it’s all become a storm in a teacup. I think the chances of Google being able to implement this across the entire web are very, very slim.
    It would take about 5 seconds to track down some of the top link selling websites and delist them if they really wanted to. Can you imagine how many man hours Google would have to use if you filed in a report against each one of your competitors?

    They still haven’t come to terms with following up on adsense abuse/click fraud…. !!

    “Hey, I think this guy may have purchased a link for a dollar” hmmmmm…….

  537. I only managed to read about 100 of the comments, and all I have to say is:

    Matt – You Rock!

    I learned about this whole thing in some SEO e-mail newsletters. You’re getting flamed left and right. Everyone is trashing you. Despite all these attacks, your responsive comments are as cool as a cucumber, and very clear.

    Seems to me that a lot of people who read your blog are heavy buyers and/or sellers of paid links, and you just poked ’em where it hurts.

    Makes me wonder if I should’ve been buying (or selling) paid links all this time. Oops. Too late now. 🙂

  538. It looks to me that most people here are seeing this as a black and white issue, I’m afraid I don’t see it that way at all.

    In this post:
    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links#comment-102402

    I mentioned a craft directory site that does not fit the mold of a link seller. The charge for a listing served one main purpose. It was to filter out the chaff, period. The donation could have been one dollar and it would still have stopped the submissions of sites that did not fit the requirements.
    I did not hear any comments from Matt or anyone else on that comment so we removed any mention of a donation for a site review.

  539. This is an awful lot of noise about paid links. I tried to go through the whole conversation, but could not focus my eyes any more. Of course, if you want a link from a good, well-raking website, and not one that is on a page which never even gets cached, much of the time you have to pay for it. Now – is that just thrown-out money?

    I’d much rather spend time writing content for my website. I found, however, that my content gets me nowhere in ranking – as a matter of fact my website got dumped into the 8th or 9th page (from first) of Google for “toronto real estate”, and am unable to figure out why. Wouldn’t we all be better off without spending time on exchanging links and buying links? Isn’t the content that really matters? If you look at the results of Google search recently, it is awfully hard to find really relevant sites. Now this is something that Google should, in my opinion, get fixed. I know it is hard, but links, especially the paid and exchanged ones, but also the ones that are posted for free, rarely are objective. And, knowing that the ones that are not reciprocated drain your PR, I am scared to link to some sites that I would actually love to make available for my visitors. After all, I depend on my website for business…

  540. I think google is it extreme point to go again the lowest point. Thats why they want to implement such a bullshit idea.

  541. Are Affiliate links comsidered paid links?
    Sites with affiliate programs have found a new way to “hide” the links to their sites as being affiliate links. I quote: “Clean links are simply links that are untagged ie they do not contain any AffiliateID tags. We can track affiliate referrals without the need for a query string (based on the URL of the referring website). Search engines see clean links from relevant source as having a higher value than a ‘dirty’ affiliate link.”

  542. Dave (Original)

    I did not hear any comments from Matt or anyone else on that comment so we removed any mention of a donation for a site review.

    It is B&W IMO.

    1) If you sell links use nofollow, or any one of the many other methods.

    2) If you buy links, don’t pay for PR or any SERP rise. In others words, pay for *click traffic only*. If you do pay for PR or any SERP rise you will likely have bought yourself some snake oil, which is all too common in the SEO industry I’m afraid.

    All the rest is the usual noise from the usual suspects.

  543. Dave (Original)

    No, I mean adsense.

    Then why write this?

    Nah, they want to make the serps WORSE to improve the relevance of adsense… more clicks for them. Soon there will be 20 adsense results on the first page (one of the perks of having shareholders) and we will all be fighting for page 2.

    “on the first page” and “and we will all be fighting for page 2”

    Don’t buy links, buy ads. (I think this takes us right back to square one)

    You don’t seem to grasp what Google are attempting to do. AdWords & AdSense do NOT have a negative impact on the organic SERPs for any Google users. Buying links for PR etc does have a have a negative impact on the organic SERPs for ALL Google users.

    Google, or Matt has NEVER stated (or even hinted) that site owners cannot buy advertising and should only use AdWords/AdSense.

    This is NOT about getting more to join AdWords or AdSense. It’s about keeping Google’s organic SERPs organic, unbias, objective and being pulled from a level playing field. What I suspect may happen is this; Google’s organic SERPs will retain their relevancy, or get even better. In doing so, more will stay with Google and/or more will switch to Google. This will mean more traffic from Google which may *encourage* more to use AdWords/AdSense by CHOICE.

    Maybe it’s all become a storm in a teacup. I think the chances of Google being able to implement this across the entire web are very, very slim.

    Actually, I believe the chances are high. In fact, I don’t they can afford to not deal and succeed with it. You shouldn’t ass-u-me because you don’t know how, it cannot be done.

    It would take about 5 seconds to track down some of the top link selling websites and delist them if they really wanted to. Can you imagine how many man hours Google would have to use if you filed in a report against each one of your competitors?

    That would be putting the cart before the horse IMO. It seems common sense to me that the best approach is to automate a way to differentiate paid links from votes and not credit PR for the paid links. In doing so, they make the selling of PR worthless. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

    By going after the PR selllers they would be constantly chaising their tail.

  544. It is B&W IMO.

    1) If you sell links use nofollow, or any one of the many other methods.

    My point was it is still not a B&W issue. My wife could care less about Page Rank. She never thought for a moment that she was selling links, only reviewing sites for inclusion.

    I guess we could dig through the code to add nofolow tags to all of the links but not all of them have paid for a review, it’s a dynamic system. She likes every site she has listed or she wouldn’t have linked to them. Isn’t the nofollow thing used to state “I don’t trust this site”?

    I do understand what this new rule is meant to address but not all situations fit neatly into the link selling cuby hole.

  545. it cannot be done technically i think

  546. Dave (Original)

    My wife could care less about Page Rank. She never thought for a moment that she was selling links, only reviewing sites for inclusion

    And there is no problem in doing that. All that is being requested is to use “use nofollow, or any one of the many other methods”. If you *choose* not to, that’s fine. Google have *chosen* to keep their organic results…well…..organic and I applaud them for doing so.

    Like I keep saying (and you seem to keep ignoring), IMO Google will simply try to determine paid links from votes and not pass PR for paid links. By doing so, those that sell PR (for their own personal gain at the expense of ALL Google users) will no longer have a viable service.

    There is no “new rule”. Google’s guidelines have *always* been very clear on what one should, or should not do for best free ranking in *their* SE. Sure, the blackhats out there will constantly state they are wishy washy, grey, unclear etc, but they DO have a *vested* interest in spreading propaganda and keeping the masses confused. If read with common sense and logic they make perfect sense, as do all SE guidelines.

  547. This is not google, it’s Google’s monopoly speaking

    Do a search in google for ‘Buy Text Links’ and you will come accross a host of networks involved in the link trade.

    Take care of sites like http://www.text-link-ads.com first. Remove them from your index if you are so serious about paid links. If you don’t have the guts to do that, STOP writing such posts to create fear among the webmasters..

    Reply to this question if you really take paid links seriously. Why don’t you take down sites like text-link-ads.com out of index if you are so much against paid links?? I am 100% sure, there’s not going to be a reply.

  548. I think Google needs a few economists on the webspam team. These kinds of decisions have economic consequences more than anything else. This policy demonstrates Google’s lack of expertise when it comes to economics. Mullenweg is clueless on this too, good intentions aside. And no, when I say economics, I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about market forces that shape the internet. Here is an analogue. Most developed nations ban the practice of selling human organs. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Where human organ trade does occur, it is responsible for saving the lives of many while lifting others out of grinding poverty. Our political leadership do not understand this and neither do most people. It is relegated as a somehow seedy trade which pollutes society while it actually serves a very beneficial purpose. I realize these are two very different subjects, but they share some common ground economically. Note to Matt, hire some economists.

  549. Hi Matt,

    I have some question regarding affiliate links. I own many websites and all are on good position. Most of all websites are directories provide banner advertisement. We placed banners on our site from CJ and other affiliate provider. We have placed a simple link on the banner as well on text, now i want to know what is better, a direct link or java script link? I think java script link is good because i dont want Google to count affiliate link as outbound link. So, please let me know whats better.

    Regards,
    BHAVESH GOSWAMI.

  550. If what you are trying to point out is true and really a B&W issue then just take a moment to look at Googles own guidelines stated here:
    http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

    Right there, under When your site is ready:, you will see this instruction:
    Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

    Now I just checked the Yahoo! directory for an indication of a nofollow tag and there was no sign of one. I also went through the whole webmaster guideline section and didn’t see any “rule” that ties to this post.

    Sorry dude, no black or white issue here, just several shades of grey. I am NOT a SEO blackhat just as you are not a Google employee.

  551. Dave (Original)

    Conard, please pay attention and apply some common sense when reading.

    The fact that Google suggest submitting to those directories “when your site is ready” tells me it’s about being indexed, not getting PR. I have no idea IF Google do pass PR from Yahoo (don’t care either), but I do KNOW that Yahoo use yet another method that tells bots the links is in the Yahoo directory. I.e as I KEEP saying “…or any one of the many other methods”. Now, let me repeat that; “…or any one of the many other methods”

    Even without the JavaScript link (that’s “one of the many other methods” ) from Yahoo, I’m quite sure Google can identify it (and most others) as a DIRECTORY!

    Sorry dude, no black or white issue here, just several shades of grey.

    Only “several shades of grey” when no common sense is used.

    I’m sorry you don’t get it. I have tried and tried to explain and even spoon fed you. Despite all that, you still insist on listening to alarmist and proganda.

    Over-and-out.

  552. Original Dave, a site is “ready” when it’s at the point where it has genuine value for those who visit. What is there about that that’s so hard to understand?

    Another thing I can’t understand is why you don’t seem to be able to see the difference between *requiring* payment for a link (whilst ignoring the distinction between relevant, valuable links and just commercial, paid-for irrelevant links) and simply mentioning a *voluntary* contribution.

    Maybe you can tell us why you think those are the same thing. Unless you’re just making WFA noise, you should easily be able to tell us the difference.

  553. WFA = World’s Foremost Authority

    Unfortunately, there are far too many of those around, and they’re far too vocal in far too many places.

    WFA’s like to make “authoritative” sounding public comments. So – therefore – Oh Yeah, Sez Who?

  554. Hey Matt- This is the first time I’ve posted but I’ve enjoyed the discussions.

    I didn’t see anything regarding this concern.

    If Site A has a high percent of paid links (along with existing natural and reciprocal links), could you say there would be a net positive affect in removing a number of those (paid) ? (aside from fanatically tripping on PR).

    I must say this topic has legs.

  555. Can’t help but feel that this is the beginning of an attempt by Google to monopolise the internet advertising/linking market.

    Google is beginning to abuse its position as market leader are get greedy, its a shame to see a slip towards a Microsoft frame of mind.

    Still a fan of Google, but please stop moving towards punishing other advertisers.

  556. Dave (Original),
    I’m sorry that YOU don’t get it. I’ll try to make it simpler.

    Googles own guidelines state:
    “Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.”

    Now I read here that they are recommending 2 directories. I also read “Submit your site” loud and clear. Where else do you “submit” a site if not to a directory?

    My question was about a directory. Not B&W at all.

    I’m afraid you give much more importance to your opinion than I do. If you don’t work for Google, nothing you say will be taken as the whole truth and nothing but the truth by me.
    The first time Matt communicated to me personally he said “Take everything you read here with a grain of salt”, that my friend is just what I am doing now.

  557. Dave (Original)

    Original Dave, a site is “ready” when it’s at the point where it has genuine value for those who visit. What is there about that that’s so hard to understand?

    No, a site is ready when it has content, navigation and is uploaded. There is no fanciful prerequisite “where it has genuine value for those who visit”. Ones mans trash, is another mans treasure.

    Another thing I can’t understand is why you don’t seem to be able to see the difference between *requiring* payment for a link (whilst ignoring the distinction between relevant, valuable links and just commercial, paid-for irrelevant links) and simply mentioning a *voluntary* contribution.

    Sorry, no idea what you mean???

    Maybe you can tell us why you think those are the same thing. Unless you’re just making WFA noise, you should easily be able to tell us the difference.Well that’s kind of hard as I don’t subscribe to your assumptions.

    BTW, excuse me if I refrain commenting on your childish jibes, which by-the-way say more about you than anyone else.

  558. Dave (Original)

    That last block should be;

    Maybe you can tell us why you think those are the same thing. Unless you’re just making WFA noise, you should easily be able to tell us the difference.

    Well that’s kind of hard as I don’t subscribe to your assumptions.

    BTW, excuse me if I refrain commenting on your childish jibes, which by-the-way say more about you than anyone else.

  559. Hey Matt,
    Where are you? I know you are dead busy, but please respond to our questions because we all are desperate to continue the discussion and share our views with you and gain some insight from you.

    Regards
    Dwarika

  560. Rishi Lakhani

    Another thing I can’t understand is why you don’t seem to be able to see the difference between *requiring* payment for a link (whilst ignoring the distinction between relevant, valuable links and just commercial, paid-for irrelevant links) and simply mentioning a *voluntary* contribution.

    Realistically, IMO (and dont take this offensively Conard), there is only a slight difference. The site that you mentioned, carries out human editing and is a manually approved link. This means that if the site owner is ethical, they will only link to relevant and useful and related sites. BUT if the site owner wasnt ethical, then as long as they are paid, they will link to whatever they wish.

    *requiring* a payment and receiving a donation for a site review, both mean that the effort for linking to the site was rewarded financially. If I sent a donation with information on my site (and as long as its relevant) wouldnt you be inclined to take a better look? I am paying for or financially encouraging that activity.

    If I hadnt done so, but sent in a request, you may have looked at my site or may have not. Either way, if you hadnt heard of my site, you wouldnt link to it. The fact that I raised the interest of my site in your eyes by donating to you increased its chances of a link.

    This is the “grey” area – NOT “grey hat SEO” but an undefinable situation to do with the individual.

    This is why a “no follow” would be advisable here.

    On the other hand, if you came to a site without being financially encouraged to so, and felt “I want to talk about this site” or ” this is useful to my readers” then linking to that site is a perfect vote and would not need a “no follow”, because you genuinely feel that the site is worth linkng to.

  561. Rishi Lakhani

    http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-google-yahoo-askcom-treat-the-no-follow-link-attribute/4801/

    Came across this site and thought that its an important addo on to the discussions on this page. Its titled How Google, Yahoo & Ask.com Treat the No Follow Link Attribute

  562. Rishi, No offense taken at all, in fact I’m glad that YOU can see the grey area.
    We have never accepted any kind of donation from anyone that submitted a site that did not fit the profile of the directory. That was why the person that was turned down threatened to turn us in to Google for selling links and included a link to this post.

    I think you were right on target with mentioning ethics, some are ethical and some are not. We happen to be in the ethical group.

    The site was changed because of Matt making this post and so the point is kind of mute. I just wanted to discuss the broad brush stroke of zapping sites for not knowing when the rules change.

  563. Dave (Original)

    Perhaps this should be read. IMO it’s a non hysterical common sense transcript that doesn’t pre-assume Google is evil.

    http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-adam-lasnik.shtml

    From what I read, I find a lot of concurrence with what myself and a few others have been saying here and other places for years now.

  564. Rishi Lakhani

    “what happens if my competitor decides to report my pages, even though they are completely following the webmaster guidelines. Is some action going to be taken?” The answer to that is definitively not, because this does not lead directly into an action pipeline, but rather it is used only for review. It is not going to directly or adversely affect any pages or sites that are following the webmaster guidelines.

    Thats the most important bit I found in Adams comments. Thanks Dave (Original) for sharing that.

    I have always found Adams commenst on the google groups and in the past has helped me understand the duplicate content issue.

  565. Matt –

    What you said about established sites is really true – especially in the ‘news/media’ area. (Not to mention the cross-linking happening at the large newspaper corporations w/in their network. And link selling too…)

    I’m almost hesitant to say anything because I finally got into Google News and don’t want to take a chance of getting that taken away, but I feel I have to say something.

    I’m a small, independent publisher – grassroots journalism. I have a wide variety of incoming links from different neighborhoods, but since I’ve only been around two years, I still have trouble for ranking for certain one and two word phrases (I am doing well with the long tail 3 or 4 word phrases, though, so maybe I shouldn’t complain?)

    In any case, because the local newspaper has been around since the mid-90s and has other Gannett properties linking to them, they’re hard to compete with in the natural SERPs.

    I’ve also started to wonder, though, if I had a penalty on my site (www.munciefreepress.com) because I sold text advertising (labeled as such!) on the homepage. It’s just a tiny bit of revenue, but as an independent publisher trying to compete against billion dollar corporations (i.e. Gannett), I need to bring in as much revenue as I can (via advertising) until I start selling more local ads. (And a good portion of that goes back to Google via Adwords…)

    Any way you can let me know if we have a penalty of some sort on that domain? Or if you can turn the knob for ‘age of domain’ back a little so I have a chance against the established players in my region? 😉

    I’ve been a supporter of Google since the beginning, but it does scare me that Google is getting so powerful. I’m sure you’re not trying to be evil, but as you get larger, imho, you need to hold to that ‘Do no Evil’ mantra even more…

    Thanks,
    K. Paul Mallasch – New Media Publisher

  566. Hi Matt & Others.
    Sorry -I was so aghast with the double standard of Google that I didn’t join on this conversation for long and in between I missed 400 posts.
    I hope Matt still joins and check this thread –because it is targetted at him. I need some specific answers.
    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/#comment-101793

    Did you read that post Matt? I gave you backlinks of a BLOG that you are in LOVE with for Good Old Fashioned SEO!
    Well what I said these came everything true– the BLOG is indeed a PR7 now.
    I still have the screenshot I took that day–and still can show you backlinks of that BLOG. From where the blogger got it –this and that –etc. etc.

    How come your new advanced Algo could not differentiate between genuine votes and manipulated votes just before PR? There are some techniques to get high PR –temporary backlinks which is what your favorite BLOGGER was doing just before the PR SNAPSHOT! If you want.
    I still don’t feel to reveal and discredit you for liking the BLOG and Googd old SEO.

    If you want –please drop in an e-mail with the one I am using here–I’ll send you all the details. But that is against my ethics to expose someone –otherwise I would have done long time back.

    @Dave(Original) –My friend Google does love BLOGs –as is validated with this BLOG I have been following since Matt mentioned it! It is now PR7. That PR9 link was Temporary –manipulated which stays for 1 to 2 weeks –Great to dupe Google snapshot. Also those PR8 links are not natural.

    Very well Matt–So long for your Good Ol-SEO and natural link techniques and algo.

  567. Matt,

    A couple of questions.

    1) Does offering someone a link in return for a donation constitute a paid link under these rules? I offer a link and a name on a list of donors (not unlike ‘buying a brick’ or other such donations schemes, as a (small) incentive to donate). Incidentally, if the answer is “yes” I’ll get rid of this completely.

    2) I found this while I was searching for something slightly different – I’ll explain. Is there anywhere one can report an AdWords advertiser whom we believe to be using a false, or misleading website? (hence me clicking the “report paid links” search result!).

    I personally don’t think this is such a bad idea, it is right that natural links should be considered over those which are paid for, and all you suggest is to report sites where the links may – potentially – be artificial. Presumably you would then check them out, perhaps asking the webmaster in question, or ascertaining the nature of these paid links yourselves by a thorough investigation. That would be ok, you could just attribute zero PR worth to links coming from sites which contain only paid links. This would actually benefit everyone who does not buy links, and only improves content.

    Those who are most opposed to this must either sell links themselves, or buy a lot of links, otherwise, I fail to see where this opposition stems from. It is not up to Google to provide a high PR site with a lucrative marketing opportunity (e.g. selling links purely based on their high PR status) such site should (in Google’s view) use Adsense to monetize, or sell advertising based on their traffic figures alone (i.e. not by riding along on Google’s coattails).

  568. Assuming that a site engaging in selling links gets discredited or would not pass PR, what happens to the natural unpaid links also in the site? Does that mean that the unpaid links would also have no PR passed to them? It’s highly unlikely that a site would only have paid links on it right?

  569. I dont think anyone has the right to tell you what you can and cannot sell on your site, and no one should be able to report you. I am not a fan of google. but with my company I can do whatever I want on my site and I’m happy with it. I’m tired of companies trying to scoop up the money advertising should be left to the publisher of that website.

  570. Dave (Original)

    Assuming that a site engaging in selling links gets discredited or would not pass PR, what happens to the natural unpaid links also in the site? Does that mean that the unpaid links would also have no PR passed to them? It’s highly unlikely that a site would only have paid links on it right?

    It’s unlikely IMO it would be done on a site wide basis, but rather link-by-link. ALL I believe Google wish to do is determine paid links from votes and NOT pass PR on the former. Nothing more, nothing less.

    I dont think anyone has the right to tell you what you can and cannot sell on your site, and no one should be able to report you. I am not a fan of google. but with my company I can do whatever I want on my site and I’m happy with it. I’m tired of companies trying to scoop up the money advertising should be left to the publisher of that website.

    No they shouldn’t and Google retain the SAME right to run their SE as they see fit. So if you CHOOSE to sell PR don’t blame Google if they ban you or (more likely) modify THEIR algo so no PR is passed on the bought PR and you end-up being a snake oil seller.

  571. Matt…I may have missed it but what is your official stance on sites like payperpost.com? Will sites be penalized for paying blogers to blog about their products and o services?

  572. if there’s editorial review (ala Yahoo and the other paid directories) how is that different? i mean, doesn’t google say in the webmaster guidelines to submit to Yahoo Directory – which is $299/year last time I checked…

    -kpaul

  573. Dave (Original)

    kpaul, what’s your point?

  574. Rishi Lakhani

    No they shouldn’t and Google retain the SAME right to run their SE as they see fit. So if you CHOOSE to sell PR don’t blame Google if they ban you or (more likely) modify THEIR algo so no PR is passed on the bought PR and you end-up being a snake oil seller.

    Unfortunately, I agree. What we keep trying to blot out in our minds is that Goog does not owe us anything. Yes as a successful corporation it should take into account the opinions of its stakeholders – but cannot and should not be bound by them.

    If G makes a mistake that the general public doesnt agree with, it will suffer in so much as the gap created there would enable another provider jump in. As hard as this sounds, the rate of start ups becoming household names over night is astounding.

  575. Rishi Lakhani

    if there’s editorial review (ala Yahoo and the other paid directories) how is that different? i mean, doesn’t google say in the webmaster guidelines to submit to Yahoo Directory – which is $299/year last time I checked…

    kpaul, google advises you to do this (IMO) to get traffic to your site, NOT to build up you PR. As mentioned quite a few times here and on million other blogs elswhere – buying links for boosting your postion is in essence manipulation of G’s SERPs. THIS is why links bought purely for this purpose should be reported – NOT link sold to generate traffic.

    Some one correct me if I understood the argument wrong…

  576. @ Dave (Original)

    Still fighting the war single-handedly I see 🙂

    Why not just wait and see if Mr Cutts ever bothers to add something to this thread again, you are not his stooge are you?

  577. Stop kicking on every webmasters stomach!! I have no idea how paid links going to bring down the relevancy of search. If Google’s algorithm is inefficient you can’t go blaming whole world for this.
    Google always forget it is just a search engine not the internet. Google indexes our content . Just because people use more of Google that doesn’t mean you dictate terms.
    Do not make people rebel. If may, will back fire!!

    If you filter our bad contents it is good. Start filtering good contents with paid links all you will be left with porn sites. So get real! First get rid of the Made For adsense sites. millions of illegal websites indexed by Google. Then speak all these!
    I see this as total non sense.. I see more of monopoly rather than any real good use to the search engine. Google exists because there are webmasters working hard to bring quality contents. Kick them and they kick back!!
    always remember Bigger you are harder you fall!!
    I know you will not approve this comment as it speaks what every webmaster thinks about this move. You read it I made my point!!

  578. Google is 100% right on this one. Thank Google for working on creating an even playing ground for all website owners.

    When webmasters working on unique content and gaining links naturally finds that their sites positioning in the SERPS are bumped down by sites which go on “Paidlink” frenzies, that is simply not fair. Report the spam; let Google devalue those links so that these spammy sites get their true natural organic positioning in the SERPs, now that is fair.

  579. >

    Ok, so who decides who is selling for PR (I’m not) and who’s selling for traffic (I am)… I mean, how can an outside observer really know why you’re selling advertising. That’s what it comes down to for me – I’m selling advertising. I own the site and I should be able to do that.

    Also, afaik, Yahoo Directory (and DMOZ, etc.) do pass PR, don’t they? I can see the editorial difference – that is, they don’t accept all sites. I don’t either, though.

    Or maybe it’s just the “buy a link on the footer that’s not labeled” that they’re after? If that’s the case, I don’t see a problem. I haven’t read this whole thread, but I think Mr. Cutts should clarify who they want reports on.

    I hate spam and spammers too. I think as a publisher I should have a right to sell advertising on my site, though.

    -kpaul

  580. I do think this is far to tricky to judge by people, hence will create more problems than solutions to the overal goal of providing usefull search results.

  581. Dear Matt, It will be great if you could answer my doubts:

    I never bought a link and I never do any black Seo… but the other day, when google was doing an update and our main site was PR0 for a day, I call our CEO, and he calls our contact at adwords because we think that we were penalized (we spent about 20k at adwords per month). Finally everything was ok the day before, but really Google is arriving to a point that it is impossible to understand, at least for me, let me give you 2 examples:

    1. We do a jobs for clients we offer a discount if they add our link saying that we did the job. Is there any problem with that?

    2. I do sites with good (excellent)f content related to my industry and I add links to my commercial site. Is there any problem with that?

    I think that my competitors could thing that any of those links were bought, on the other hand I see my competitors buying paid links and ranking good for that, I try to submit that and I never got and answer I have a lot of examples. I ask directly that to the people of Google at a Confernece in Miami las year and the answer was no clear, I thought that maybe I have to start buying links…

    So, really we are starting to be afraid of what Google could think…. we do not have clear waht we coudl do, well It will be great to have some feedback directly from you.

    Thanks

    Gustavo L.

  582. Just one more comment, regarding my other comment, I remember the policy “don’t be evil”, Google is changing that policy? Because it looks like we don’t have the benefit of the doubt anymore… Hope you publish this, thanks

    Gustavo L.

  583. Dave (Original)

    Why not just wait and see if Mr Cutts ever bothers to add something to this thread again, you are not his stooge are you?

    Nope, just trying to spread some common sense. I believe Matt has given up hope that most here even possess any, quite evident by reading the posts by the majority tin foil hat brigade. Nothing but factoids by them.

    I’m amazed most can even work out how to upload their sites, let-alone “optimize” them.

  584. I guess we’re gonna need to buy some links as google no longer likes the way we earned them via optimization etc..

    (email to analytics)
    I’m have trouble with the google results that had us on the first page of the results for “myspace hide codes” without the quotations for about a year and now we’re no where to be found. I went 7 pages deep and still couldn’t find us… So you mean since around the 13th of last month we are no longer important enough to make pages 2-7 of the search results. I looked at the sites on the first page and they don’t look much different then ours. Basically a bit of code and google adds every where…… Look at our “Visits and Pageviews” from April 1st to the present. See anything odd. We went from 250 visits a day to 7…. Google has simply dropped us off the face of the earth! Thanks for holding our lives in your hands and killing us at a whem…. I realize there a lot of new sites popping up for the myspace stuff but shouldn’t they start at the back of the line?

    Didn’t google get sued for this sort of thing? hummmmmm…

    “Get your peanuts”…
    Oh sorry, I meant…

    Get your links, links for sale right here. As he calls out from the dark alley…..

    Yeah, google really has a great grasp of the whole search thing……

    Heres a thought google. Worry less about new anti-spam filters and buying/selling links.. and worry more about how the results you already produce are so jacked….

    IMHO

  585. Hi Matt,

    Saw that you’ll be in Seattle soon, don’t know if you’ve ever been here, but either way you’ll love it, it’s especially nice in June.

    Anyway, also saw that you will be addressing questions on paid links again so I wanted to ask a few.

    Where can we find the correct sytax for a simple javascript link that Google will love on paid links? In case we don’t want to use no follow.

    Also wondering if anyone else could search this phrase:
    “increase your page rank with permanent one-way SEO friendly links”

    Is this the type of site that is doing something wrong?

  586. Matt,
    I agree this is a bad idea. If sites are penalized for having legitimate payed ads, it would be a crime. I have to eat too.

  587. Matt Link baiting works 😉 You have recieved many backlinks from this post, which proves Dont buy Backlinks – Get something unique on your website, and generate natural backlinks 😀
    Well Done
    Amit

  588. Good lord.

    A link is a link, and at the end of the day, the markup/format indicates dick.. and you (should) know it.

    I just hope Google’s shareholders realize the legal quagmire they’re about to fund when various parties start crying foul and carry on with the usual class actions etc.

    It amazes me no end the talent Google has on board continues to pursue such rediculous and clearly unachievable ends.

    Good luck to you Matt, but what an incredible waste of time and money.

  589. Terrible idea for many reasons.

    First off, most sites sell links as a form of generating advertising revenue. Many of these sites are smaller and depend on that revenue that comes in. Now, the site buying the advertising might know links are important for SEO, but they’re paying for it just like they would if they were paying for search engine rankings with Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

    This leads to the issue of why Google can change for links, but other companies/sites can’t. Does that mean Google Adwords will now be free? Ya right!

    This is another example of how big business tries to push around the little guys.

  590. Dave (Original)

    I see the tin-foil hatters are STILL not reading (other than the heading) or understanding.

    This is another example of how big business tries to push around the little guys.

    That couldn’t be more erronous if you had read or understood. This IS a perfect example of how Google is leveling the playing field FOR the “little guys”.

  591. Matt,

    The issue is not whether a link is paid or not, but whether its presence deceives or helps search engines / users.

    There is only one way for you to know how bad or good a link is: relevancy.

    I’m sure Google already has all the algorithms in place to ignore links that are not on topic. If a University homepage has 20 links to other academic institutions, and 2 links to online casinos, the latter 2 links are obviously deceiving and not on topic. Simply ignore them. No rel=nofollow needed.

    There can be many examples where such off-topic links are not paid: maybe the University’s webmistress went to bed with the online casino webmaster, or maybe the casino gives 50% of its profits to the University. It is not Google’s business to determine what deal is behind. But it is definitely Google’s business to know that “university” has nothing to do with “casino”, and that the other pages of both sites have very few common keywords. That alone should be sufficient to trigger an automatic rel=nofollow for Google’s spider.

    On the other hand, there can be examples of paid links that do help search engines. If Red Widgets accepts a paid link from Green Widgets, it can really be helpful for the user / search engine, because both sites deal with Widgets. Again it is not Google’s business to check whether that link has been paid or not; but because there are many common keywords on both sites, Google should understand that the link is useful.

    Your attitude towards paid links and rel=nofollow has been widely misunderstood, because this is the wrong way to look at the problem you are dealing with.

    In most cases rel=”nofollow” has been abused. When Wikinews publishes an article that is a compilation of several sources, and quotes the sources at the bottom, it adds rel=nofollow next to these sources. What is the meaning of rel=nofollow in such a case??? Surely, if they use the article, they recognise that there is some editorial value in it. If I was Reuters, or any other press agency that is being quoted by Wikinews, I would fight for the removal of that rel=nofollow, if necessary in court.

    The real issue is the PR and the way it seems to be transmitted from site to site. It is really up to Google alone, without the help of rel=nofollow or informers filling out report forms with doubtful goals, to determine that

    1) site A links to site B; both sites have quite a lot of common keywords, or keywords that are semantically related; let’s pass on the PR

    2) site C links do site D; both sites have very few common keywords, and seemingly no related subjects; let’s ignore that link and let’s not pass the PR

    That sounds quite easy to me. Now, for you to implement it might be another piece of cake. Good luck!

  592. Rishi Lakhani

    This leads to the issue of why Google can change for links, but other companies/sites can’t. Does that mean Google Adwords will now be free? Ya right

    GREG – Adwords DOES NOT help your positions or increase the strength of your site – adwords help you drive relevant traffic to your site. If you want to set up a javscript pay per click sort of thing on your site – there is a lot of software that you can use very cheaply to do so.

    The whole point of this argument is to HELP individuals who actually bother to improve their sites by HARD WORK. Link buying is so easy for large companies – what would YOU do if some corporate blows your site of the SERPS by simply going and spending $xxxxxx and deeplinking to various pages?

    Do you still believe that you will be able to sell links form you site?

    By adding a “nofollow” tag to the link, you can still sell the links to your hearts content, but keeping the integrity of SERPs by NOT selling to pass on pagerank.

    This is not an attack on anyone, just my honest view on the issue.

  593. I think this is complete crap. I think mat catt is a lier – if google really wanted someone to report paid links as such, they would make a separate report tool for it.

    DOn’t trust this report – its bullshit

  594. I hope you take into consideration that others can buy paid links for their competition with the hopes of malice and intent. Personally I think this is pointless… spend your time improving Google other ways… the results listed as of today are perfectly fine as they are now. Your just opening the doors for someone else to start up something else etc… and the circle will never end. Not relating to myself but you are also going to hurt many individuals who base their families income around websites and some markets where a lot of link power is just not feasible… thus forcing them out of income and a job.

  595. Somebody raised this question above Matt, and you seem to have dodged it. The real question is: with so many brilliant problem solvers and patent filers at Google, when will you either
    a) discover a new technology that yields relevant SERPs without the possibility of being gamed by money
    b) take notice that the SEOs buying paid links are only buying relevant ones. So your concern that paid links will result in spam and irrelevant sites ranking can just focus on figuring out how to weight links from irrelevant sites (many of which can still be legitimate though, like a web designer linking to a chocolatier’s site…)

    But this is a stopgap and won’t be 100% effectice. I’d say G’s best off working on creating another measure of relevancy (PageStrength anyone?).

    By the way, I’m studying in a vertical with specialized engines that aren’t particularly good. I’ve had some ideas for improving their relevancy and would be interested in discussing the idea with you, Matt. It could be an interesting business opportunity, and help diversify Google’s revenue streams. You can email the address I submitted with this post if you’re interested.

  596. Great, so while Google makes it’s cheese selling text link ads, in a matter of words it’s going to penalize anyone else trying to do the same? GOOGLE is quickly becoming a bigger evil. You guys need to check yoself!

  597. Someone probably already submitted Google.com for link spamming, or?
    After all they are selling all those links there 😉
    (Okay – bad joke.)

  598. Hi Matt;

    Google is selling pr 6 partner links on http://www.google.com/enterprise/gep/directory_apps.html for 10,000/year, but I do not see them using nofollow on the links. Will G remove those links?

    Thanks

  599. Dave (Original)

    Thanks for the update Matt. However, most of neigh sayers haven’t really read and/or understood what you have written, frequently by choice and I doubt they ever will

    I would however like to take you up on one point though.

    What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.

    IMO Quality is always in the eyes of the beholder. Or put another way, one mans trash might be anothers treasure. I prefer directories that take an objective approach over subjective. IF directories feel the need to review sites then I would suggest they rank listings on that review. Again however, this is subjective and not objective.

    I like the way PR is objective, so IF I ran a directory I would probably let most sites in (small or no fee) and rank them based on PR.

  600. I think that that google can should not relay on link almost at all.
    people with lot’s of money can buy links and can build unlimited web sites and buy more links for them, so what you get is that people with lot’s of money will be more millionaire, and a honest guy that want to build useful sites and try to make some extra money will not have any chance to get there.

    if google want to make the internet better he should build something that will not give one site with lot’s of link a chance to win in search engine result’s.

    i think that there should be a community of volunteers that will rate sites and the calculator of all the volunteer users will count as most important with reating a Site.

    i volunteer to be that first one in my spare time 🙂

  601. Dave (Original), I think there was a tendency for a few people (deliberately or not) to look for the finest distinction of what a paid link is, when in practice the sorts of things that people have been reporting (and that we want to hear about) are along the lines of the examples I gave. Hopefully the examples help to give people an idea of what we’re talking about, and the other Q&A stuff will at least serve as a place where we can point people to.

    I definitely don’t want to scare people away from directories, but I did want to mention that Google has to reserve the right to weigh a directory in what we think is the appropriate way. That is, saying “well, I reject X% of directory submissions (or paid review proposals)” is fine, but if the stuff that ends up getting linked to is still low-quality or spammy in Google’s opinion, then that’s not great.

  602. What a lame decision. I know Google will die one day.

  603. Matt

    Ok. So I’m gonna ask again since you have updated the current post, as promissed.

    You mentioned: “(individual links can be discounted and sellers can lose their ability to pass on PageRank/anchortext/etc., which doesn’t allow site A to hurt site B).”

    I think that its a very weak measure just to discount the links and deny the sellers to pass link juice.

    Because here we have a seller who is attempting to manipulate the PageRank in daylight. He is breaking Google webmaster guidlines just like hidden text and gateway pages spammers who get deindexed when caught.

    So why are you so soft and gentel on paid links spam, Matt?

  604. I can see some ‘collateral’ damage coming to purely ‘white hat’ webmasters from this.
    i’ve seen some well established high profile/PR blogs selling links. So…..when they lose their ablility to pass pr juice, what happens to all the legitimate sites they blogged about and linked to in the past (for example)? Well, I’d guess their rankings will start to drop, and they’ll be wondering why…

  605. Dave (Original)

    Thanks Matt, agree with you, especially on “Google has to reserve the right to weigh a directory in what we think is the appropriate way”.

    Harith, IMO very few sites/pages get delisted for going outside the Google guidelines. I, along with many others, would like to see that happen, but it certainly wouldn’t be in Google users best interest to do so. E.g, the site/page might be the most relevant and/or important without the spam. Users don’t really care about hidden text etc *unless* it affects their ability to find the best page for their query.

    I would hazard a guess that Google can detect and neutralize most spam, so delisting would likely be a cure worse than the disease.

  606. Matt said:

    “That is, saying “well, I reject X% of directory submissions (or paid review proposals)” is fine, but if the stuff that ends up getting linked to is still low-quality or spammy in Google’s opinion, then that’s not great.”

    ——————————–

    I’m glad that is clarified, I think some of us came onto the wrong foot with this post. I for one did, I think I have broad enough shoulders to admit that. Now that the post is becoming clearer and what you mean more defined.

    I agree that there are a lot of directories that are spammy and sell links without any research of the submitters website, who that particular website may be linking too, and if that particular website has a plethora of dubious inbound links.

    What about the directory that is tighter on submissions, that works hard to integrate it into unique and quality content as part of a portal and exercises an reasonable amount of research on each site with a lot of its sales coming in from offline selling? Would this be taken on an individual basis and given the weight it deserves or would it be lost in a “it’s just another directory” so it gets pushed out? or would it be given the credence it deserves?

  607. Thanks Matt,

    your comments show that we seem to be in the same book. I am still not 100% sure yet, if we are also on the same page.

    I think you would agree on the following statement:

    Search is important for any online business. You should build your sites with your users and the search engines in mind. The two types of audience have different needs which do not conflict with each other in most cases.

    There are a few things where a compromise is necessary. You cross the line if the visitor “search engine” becomes more important than the user and starts affecting the user experience in a negative way, which includes confusing the user, using deceptions or trick the user to do something different than he wanted to. I specifically low ability to retain users and make them come back is another sign that indicates that you should check if your priorities are in alignment with your targeted audiences needs.

    If you think that this a pretty good summary of what Webmasters should keep in mind to be fine, then there is room for paid links which should be counted by the search engines equally to a similar link that is not paid.

    I did buy ad placements for brand visibility. The traffic was low and the return was less than what I spent. However, I expected that to be the case, because most of the users of that other site came to it not to buy stuff, but to seek advice and help (it was a forum). 99% of the users though are my targeted audience so having the name out there visible for them to see will have them think about the advertised site at a later time when they are about to buy something and want to check available offers.

    I also buy traffic for the sole purpose of driving sales. Ready to buy customers that can be converted if done properly.

    The third kind of advertising is a mix of advertising by associating your brand with the cause of the site advertised on. Branding so to speak, but also to get in return some of the authority that site got. This is often the case with great, viral and free sites. They tend to get authority quickly and they get a lot of it. Their problem is, that they can’t monetize this very well without the risk of loosing this viral authority.

    The traffic the site gets is nearly impossible to convert and your branding message can’t be too strong to interfere with the user experience. You loose basically on both parts, the branding and the traffic that also converts.

    Now comes the 3rd factor into play that allow the advertiser to pay the needed money for the “sponsorship”, passing some of the authority back to the sponsor as a way of showing gratitude for the support without forcing the site to change their successful way of connecting with their audience. There are times where brands and advertising have to take a bit of a back seat. Unless the site converts itself to a non-profit and advertisers can write off the money as a donation, this 3rd way of monetizing is a very good alternative. There are natural limits which I hopefully covered in my first statement.

    Affiliate links are kind of in between of all this.
    Most affiliate links do not pass on PageRank, but some do and this is a trend that is growing. More than one network offers today a tracking and linking method that covers both needs, the need to track and the need to pass on PageRank. We covered already thin affiliate sites and sites that add little or no value. I am not talking about those.

    I am talking about sites that build their sites around the affiliate marketing business model and provide valuable content to the user and try to improve on the user experience as much as they can. Since they only get paid for referred business, is trust much more critical for an affiliate site than for any other site. The loss in trust translates directly and immediately into the loss of revenue without much time delay between the two.

    I want to make sure that Google does not discounts affiliate links because they are affiliate links without considering all the other factors that are also used to evaluate any other site that does not use the affiliate business model.

    A clarifying statement regarding this would be much appreciated. I understand that you have to be careful with such a statement to avoid that it is being used out of context and then used against you. That’s why did I write this long comment to provide you with the context needed for such a statement. Thank you.

  608. Matt, you quote the quality guidelines and say that we should read it fully. However, you fail to address the fact that the guidelines say “Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

    How do you twist that statement to fit what you folks are currently doing? The nofollow tag doesn’t help users and it obviously would never be used it search engines didn’t exist.

    Also, how can you assume that purchased links that don’t have the nofollow tag applied, are redirected, or the other measures you mention, are meant to game Google?

  609. Dave (Original)

    “Harith, IMO very few sites/pages get delisted for going outside the Google guidelines. I, along with many others, would like to see that happen, but it certainly wouldn’t be in Google users best interest to do so. E.g, the site/page might be the most relevant and/or important without the spam. Users don’t really care about hidden text etc *unless* it affects their ability to find the best page for their query.”

    By only preventing Paid links from passing votes (link juice) and not deindexing the Paid Links sellers who aim at manipulating PageRank (as Matt indicated), GOOG is doing two wrong things IMO:

    – sending the wrong signal that GOOG doesn’t look at Paid Links spam as a serious issue.

    – only GOOG knows that the seller site isn’t passing votes. I.e buyers will keep purchasing paid links under the assuption that the seller site is passing votes. I.e GOOG is helping that spammy piad link seller to continue selling paid links.

  610. What about the buyer, they are a party to the action also. Actually initiating the “attempting to manipulate the PageRank in daylight”, especially when they buy dozens of links on non-relevant low profile sites. So all the buyer suffers in thier obvious attempt to spam, is a bunch of worthless links they bought?

  611. Matt,

    Hi, I see that you said “Google has to reserve the right to weigh a directory in what we think is the appropriate way.” That makes perfect sense, but it might not be working right now.

    I see a network of directories that are selling pagerank and if I search for: keyword directory they have 3 listings on the first page, and at least four more listings within the next 20 spots, plus those few directories are on a much much larger network.

    I know you’re not looking for reports of directories but why aren’t you? That seems really bad.

    Thanks for reading.

  612. Good to see you’re still around Matt; I thought you were on holiday?! 🙂

    Anyway, I’m quite happy to see the update because it does clarify some things, much like Vincent above also notes. If it’s only examples like that that people should be concerned about, I am totally fine with this move and in fact applaud it!

    The fine line here is at a point when you have a site that is about SEO for example and you might put a pr passing link to another site about SEO that a. you have checked out and really like/endorse and that b. pays you to do so. So essentially you are selling the link and passing on pr, but you totally endorse the site you are linking to (basically exactly what the google algo is built on to start with).

    How will google know that you have totally checked out the site and endorse it?

    Would surrounding your ad with a class=”sponsored link” be enough for google’s algo to work out the link is a paid one and thus discount it (if it is also clear with an image to users that the links are sponsored)?

    There’s some really interesting border cases here that I hope can be clarified further in maybe another round of Q&A ? 🙂

  613. Matt – that was a great update, but I still have a question that is yet to be answered.

    If I buy links on a large technology product review site solely for the traffic or even a “brand” play… and my link is correctly themed within the site’s topics, how will google know not to penalize me, when it looks at the other off-topic links that may have bought a link just for “manipulating the SEs” ?

    I guess the real question is, how will google know whether the intent of the link buyer is to boost PR/SERPs or just to get traffic? – From what it sounds like, it’s now the advertiser that has the responsibility of no-following links, or rather, it’s my job to find advertisers that adhere to google’s paid link guidelines.

  614. I submitted some of my paid reviews for evaluation, and would appreciate a response.

    You discuss paid reviews for 2 reasons

    1. Traffic
    2. Passing on PR

    But there is a very clear 3rd

    3. Expertise

    I charge a premium rate for my paid reviews, but it still in any normal sense of monetary equality cover the cost of time I invest in them. I have spent over 10 hours on some of them.

    I still charge less than someone would pay for an inclusion in the Yahoo directory, and my reviews certainly seem to send a good deal of qualified traffic.

    I don’t accept spammy affiliate sites for reviews, but at the same time I don’t make a huge point in advertising what percentage of review requests I turn down.

    Also unlike the Yahoo directory, I also write free reviews for many commercial sites because they are relevant. I haven’t paid for a link in the Yahoo directory because whilst it is a premium directory, I am not sure it would send me any more traffic than my listing in dmoz / google directory which an editor gave me with out me having to make an application.

    I have also gained editorial links to my paid reviews.

    I don’t think any of my content is spammy, and it is nice to receive the occasional compensation for writing about a service I might have reviewed anyway and that is highly relevant to my audience.

    I have very clear disclosure on all my reviews, within the content.

    I link through to the people I review in an editorial manner, often deep links to specific relevant items. In my capacity as a consultant I don’t believe I have to include nofollow on such link, in the same way you don’t place nofollow on a link to a new Google service.

    However I would like to ask you about one specific scenario, with which I have financial interest.

    You have discussed that affiliate links given editorially don’t have to have nofollow

    What happens if you have a scenario where a webmaster links through to an authoritative affiliate review site from which they receive financial compensation, not for the link but on overall sales and success of the site or where they are a shareholder?

  615. Dave (Original)

    The nofollow tag doesn’t help users…

    Yes it does! It stops those who cheat and game to SE’s from stuffing up the SERPS.

    Besides, it doesn’t state in and absolute sense that Webmasters should do NOTHING for search engines. Common sense should be applied as they are “guidelines” not absolute rules.

  616. Dave (Original)

    only GOOG knows that the seller site isn’t passing votes

    The buyer will also find out that were ripped off by the link monger when they don’t get what they paid for.

    This is good on 3 fronts;

    1) Google users are not hampered.

    2) The link monger sooner or later get’s exposed as a snake oil merchant.

    3) The one who tried to buy PageRank GAVE money to a snake oil merchant.

    buyers will keep purchasing paid links under the assuption that the seller site is passing votes

    Good, I hope they spend thousands!

    Everyones but the PageRank mongers & buyers wins in the long run 🙂

  617. Dave (Original)

    If I buy links on a large technology product review site solely for the traffic or even a “brand” play… and my link is correctly themed within the site’s topics, how will google know not to penalize me, when it looks at the other off-topic links that may have bought a link just for “manipulating the SEs” ?

    I don’t believe Matt has said anyone will be “penalized”. If you are only paying for traffic then you get what you pay for, only you can decide if the cost justifies the link.

    If you buy a link for PR you will likely NOT get what you paid for.

  618. Matt,

    the update is very concise. However, I’m still unsure of the implications of human verification on directories. Its impossible to cover off all the angles and no doubt impossible to to impose a clear benchmark. As I see it most directories trade on the ability to pass PageRank and could fall into a MFPR category.

  619. Why google dont want webmasters to earn ?

    What if there are no sites on internet (made by webmasters only) – Will there be existence of Google search – Visitors to google search will get 0 results..?

    Webmasters are creating their sites – to earn some extra revenue from their extra time, to help pay their hosting and domain fees, Should they not earn for their hard work ?

    Google Search engine is the top search engine.. Nobody want to get banned or removed from Google, so obviously people are worried about its strategies.

    But had Google ever dropped its No.1 rank as Search engine ? — The answer is no.. Infact it’s becoming the only search engine used by the whole world.
    So paid text links are sold in past too, but Google remains always on top..
    So I dont think Google will loose its position even if they allow selling them..

    Please Matt, Think and consider..

    You are loosing heart of 100000000 of webmasters 🙁

  620. Sorry, but paid links report improve Google quality? How so?

    Maybe you should sort out the millions of SPAM RESULTs before trying to crack down on paid links.

  621. Dave (Original)

    David, IMO it’s very simple. You submit to directories for traffic they may bring, or to be indexed if the site is new. Who cares if they pass PR or not? If the directory focuses on PR and/or requires a link back it’s possible they will become a “bad neighborhood”, if not already.

    All-in-all 99% of directories exist for AdSense and/or selling PR and are not interested in building a quality and useful directory.

  622. Perhaps I missed something in this enormous thread, in which the majority share the same opinion, but when this silly subject comes up how many times has Matt reponded directly to the Adwords initiative? It is so humorous to me to watch the P.R. dance that Google performs. Instead of sending their most trusted voice in anti-spam out on missions to rid the world of spam, they send them out to prevent people from attempting to buy paid links without paying the Adwords fees.

    The strategy is simple. Google will not lose significant viewer share unless their results are absolute crap. They lose revenue significantly if their natural results are spectacular. As long as they can strike the balance of “not so terrible I’m going to check out Live.com” natural results, and pay results that deliver what the users want, they will have a reliable business model. This hokey pokey dance is nothing but a charade, plain and simple.

    I have the ultimate respect for Google for what they have accomplished in the past, and for what they are doing currently as a ‘business’. But to take this stuff seriously as an effort to improve the user experience is laughable and in a way insulting. I’m sure that some in the Google camp believe what they are being fed, but if their interest is to improve the user experience, then I think they should be more vocal about what they are doing to accomplish that, instead of.. “of course we have other teams working on the important stuff… this is just for blah blah blah”. Maybe those teams need to be re-evaluated, as Google has had the same consistent serp problems for the past year and a half.

    I’m sure the team is working hard at stopping parasite hosting, and authority domain abuse. That’s why they have been effective for soooooooo long. But, golly gee whiz those paid links are really messing up the results. Someone might actually find a business that they are looking for, instead of a directory listing on an authority site, or a two sentence comment on a high PR blog. That would be a bad user experience. Let’s flush out the paid links, sinless users can still use Adwords to get traffic, it’s so much more wholesome…

    Pointless rant? Maybe… But this stuff builds up and it has to come out. I know I’m not alone. Just look at the previous 90% of comments on this post…. Matt is a good guy, and is trying hard to fight the good fight, but at the same time has to tow the Google line. Its too bad, but the good news is that it won’t be like that for too much longer.

  623. Dave (Original)

    They lose revenue significantly if their natural results are spectacular

    No, far from it. The more “spectacular” their organic results the more users Google has and picks up. The more users Google has the more Webmatsers want to use AdWords. The more Webmatsers want to use AdWords the higher the bids are.

    AdWords does not game the organic results like some paid links and there is only ever 10 spots on page 1 of any SERP. It’s simple numbers and common sense.

  624. David, IMO it’s very simple. You submit to directories for traffic they may bring, or to be indexed if the site is new. Who cares if they pass PR or not? If the directory focuses on PR and/or requires a link back it’s possible they will become a “bad neighborhood”, if not already.

    Question: (to Dave and Matt)

    I agree with the fact that directory listings should be carried out for the two above mentioned points:
    – Driving Traffic
    – Indexing

    But wouldnt adding a rel nofollow disallow the second choice?

    I agree that we can manually submit to SEs, but maybe a new tag maybe in order? (follownoPR?) I am sure others have mentioned other tags that may make more sense…

  625. I think what we’re seeing here is the unravelling of the basis of Google search, namely Page Rank.

    I despair of the sites I go to now that have high PR, but lousy/non existent content, whereas other, newer sites are a joy. And since when did domain age have anything to do with the quality of what’s on a site, but the older you are, the more Google love you seem to get.

    Bottom line is that PR is being gamed, and will continue to be gamed, and only directories, or the Wiki Search approach, actually consistently offer the experience that surfers are looking for. The PR boat has got too many holes in it now and no amount of patching it up is going to stop it sinking sooner or later.

  626. Dave (Original)

    I hear ya 🙂

    Ok. How about this one which wouldn’t affect the users:

    – Google to turn the green TBPR of the paid links sellers to a very nice white or gray colour bar?

  627. I don’t get it. If people to receiprocal linking in their own subject matters, how does Google differ between those legitimate sponsored links and paid sponsored links. Also, what makes Google think we are going to spend our time reporting paid links when we have better things to do in our lives? What does Google give us in return? Nothing…I see no reason in reporting paid links, but in a way I understand why Google is doing it.

  628. Yoofie Durker

    It seems Google are finally trying to save their baby (PR) from the monster it has become.

    It started out as a Utopian idea, a la ‘one man – one vote’, but it appears Google weren’t prepared/didn’t care (delete as applicable) for online prostitutes, who realised quickly they could abuse their baby by selling links to other website owners looking for an easy way to improve their Google rankings. This spawned a whole plethora of ‘me too’ so-called directory sites, and left the internet populated by widespread webtrash full of ads run by people who appear to do nothing to earn their living, except sell links between themselves and/or Google AdTrash. Presumably, this is why some people have a slight case of online diarrhea, i.e. twitchy back-ends, because they have emulated the prozzies’ websites and/or bought links from them.

    I believe that it’s in Google’s best interest to make their results as clean as possible, as it’s a long, quick way to oblivion if your results are regularly inaccurate or messy, as users will vote with their feet. Also, if the organic results were improved, more users would use Google alone rather than as one or two search options, and this would lead to higher rates for AdWords used by people who have something of value to sell (other than the PR of their website).

    IMHO if you want to buy links for extra traffic to whom you can sell your products/services, buy them, but they should not pass any PR value. In other words, neither the site that sold, nor the site that bought the link should be penalised for trying to do so, just that the transaction should be treated as if it were to gain extra traffic, not to win a popularity contest by unfair means.

    Finally, my suggestion for a new tag:
    ‘follow_no_PR_blue_link_unless_Sunday’

    This could be used to make sites to local churches (blue links only) easier to find on Sunday by people who are away from home and fancy a quick pray!

  629. Matt,

    I do understand where you are going with this. As you say these are “Google’s results” and you have the right to address issues that affect them.

    Just two things I ask really…

    1. Please make sure you do whatever is possible to target “real” abuse. Someone who takes some space on a “relevant” website to advertise their site should not be punished in my view. Even if the webmaster of the site has not “nofollowed” the links, etc.

    2. Make sure that all of this does not move on to a technique that can be used to damage a site’s ranking. If spammers can’t help themselves the next best thing is to hurt someone else’s ranking.

    Best regards,

    Rob

  630. Dave (Original)

    But wouldnt adding a rel nofollow disallow the second choice?

    Perhaps, but note how Google mentions Yahoo and ODP is it’s example of being indexed. Most directories (paid or free) do not use nofollow. Besides, I’m almost certain Google can determine directories from content sites etc already.

    Google to turn the green TBPR of the paid links sellers to a very nice white or gray colour bar?

    I wish they would too. However Matt has answered that along the lines of; many searchers use TBPR and Google is unlikley to make their users pay for those who game Google. Which I think is fair enough in light of what I believe they are doing to tackle the problem of bought PR.

    don’t get it. If people to receiprocal linking in their own subject matters, how does Google differ between those legitimate sponsored links and paid sponsored links. Also, what makes Google think we are going to spend our time reporting paid links when we have better things to do in our lives? What does Google give us in return? Nothing…I see no reason in reporting paid links, but in a way I understand why Google is doing it.

    How Google is going to do this only Google know and I hope it stays that way. I would hazard a guess that they are over half-way there already.

    Google is NOT relying on others reporting paid links. Matt has simply requested sample data to test out their new algo idea. In other words, it will no doubt be 99% automated.

    Perhaps you should read what has been written. This is nothing new and Google has said right from the start don’t try and buy PR etc. Matt has stated this on his blog over a year ago and the Google guidelines have always stated it.

  631. Okay the update by Matt makes sense..

    But Matt wouldn’t it be more feasible if your team work on improving your algorithm to judge the quality of linked page and linking page in the term of relevance, content, and the relevance of anchor text being used regardless whether a link is paid or not.

    Google’s job is to deliver highest quality and most relevant pages for the queried key term, not to exclude sites on the basis paid links even if they are high quality and relevant to searched terms.

  632. Matt,

    Everyone with a little of brain will understand that google is all about making money. What would google do if every single one of us, internet marketer stop using adwords? how much would that hurt google?

    I hate when companies like Microsoft, Google and others grow so big that they think they are bigger than the people. If we all marketer start telling our clients to stop using google, blog about stop using google, stop using adwords, then you google people may start listening and taking care of the people who feed you.

    I agree that spammy sites are a pain in the ass, and that google needs to clean their index from them, but google is growing to the point of scaring the crap out of me, now they are asking them to do their job, in order to make more money.

    In case there is a few stupid people reading this post, I will make it very clear: Google will try to make adwords the only, the easiest but expensive way for people to sell products on line or do marketing. SEO and other ways of making a site go high will always be unstable, people will hate doing SEO, companies will be afraid of doing SEO because they may go out of the top 10 at any time, so what is the solution? pay google great money to use their adwords, stupid people who has not get this yet, do you get it now? Terrorism does this to a country, it makes it unstable, scary, afraid, that way they control you easily, google wants to do the same, they want to force us to go the easy, stable way, paid google your money so they can be multi-billionares!

    I pray, I ask, I hope yahoo and msn one day will take this competition seriously so we can move to their side 100% and make google wish they would had been more modest, I pray all of us will understand what I am trying to say, there is a bad, very bad thing about a company getting too much power.

    I think we still seeing very bad spammy sites, but the results are pretty good, so if google really cares about results, they should do it in a way that does not affect the real, hard working and honest companies and business owners.

    Who is willing to leave google 100%?? guess what? I did already, I do not use adword and my sites are not ranking on google, I actually stopped google bot from visiting my sites, I have balls!!! do you? and by the way, MSN and Yahoo is sending me pretty good traffic at lower cost and doing SEO on them is easier than at google, and more stable.

    Manny

  633. Dave (Original)

    That would make the SERPs open to those who have the most money to buy links. Might is not right or the most relevant when it comes to search.

    IMO Google has no desire to “not to exclude sites on the basis paid links even if they are high quality and relevant to searched terms.” ALL they are doing is levelling the playing field so the results remain objective.

  634. The economic idea of intristic value has been lost in google’s ‘too neat’ logic.

    Google thinks this is a win for users, small sites and themselves and you can see their thinking:

    1) removing competitors to adsense means ‘content only sites’ have to use adsense to monetise
    2) advertisers will have ‘spare budget’ and will notice the increased levels of traffic being generated in adwords (by adsense)
    3) this increase in bidding competition will increase CPC levels in adsense and the bloggers, article writers etc will be better off
    4) Journo’s getting more money = better quantity and quality of writing
    5) Better quantity and quality of writing = better for users

    It sounds logical, but there’s one big problem: currently there is larger inherent value in purchasing links than the ‘direct traffic’ they generate. For this reason adsense will only absorb a small part of the revenue and the smallest sites will lose out financially.

    Firstly, why only the smallest sites? Moe, Everett and Steve touch on these points:

    1) The largest sites spend millions on TV, radio and print adverts and their brands ‘out perform’ on search engine results because of this. Do these sites create well written informative articles… generally no, because it’s difficult to justify the spend in ROI run budgets. Paid links offer them an easy route to market.

    2) Forward thinking medium sized sites (like ours!) will continue to generate more of their own content (I’m proud to say we still have the old ‘content is king’ ethos and have more journalists than developers & marketing people combined). Most small sites don’t have the site size and structure to get high in any rankings (their traffic alone wil not generate significant revenues).

    3) It’s no co-incidence that quality and quantity of blogs, articles and news has increased in recent years as the market for paid-for posts, links & articles has ballooned (adsense has helped massively too but if it maximised returns for these sites these other methods would not be used).

    So what happens to the value of ‘natural links’?

    As links are more difficult to get hold of and fewer links = higher ranking their value increases. The result will be to push monies towards clandestine, less organised non-direct reciprocated links (remember web rings) with little relevance to one another.

    So what’s the problem with all that? it diminishes the egalitarian nature of the web (exactly the thing that google is trying to preserve).

    Personally I hate seeing my results being overshadowed by results that have poor content but have stronger back links (either directly paid for or indirectly by massive advertising campaigns & PR activity).

    If google really want to achieve better user experience they’ll work out the difference between irrelevant & relevant external links (bought or ‘natural’) and weight them accordingly. Anything else is further distortion.

  635. It would be great if there was a better system to report comment spam. I run a number of blogs and regularly see people trying to post spam links in comments on posts. The spam report feature on google asks for a specific url and keyword that is misbehaving, which doesn’t make it appropriate for reporting content spammers who you may have found through their attempt to post lnks rather than using google search.

  636. Google Adwords is not a paid link system?
    Why is that?

    I think google is a little dark in this terms. They do what they are saying not to do?

  637. Matt, effectively Google sells links. With this new policy it seems that Google wants to be the only one able to do so. I don’t sell links, but I handle ad budgets for my clients. Now this policy tells me I can’t be confident when I buy a link because my money may be wasted.

    Is Google trying to monopolize the selling of paid links? You say get out of our webmaster hat for a minute when you posted about this. Well take off your google hat for a minute. From our perspective, it seems Google wants to be the only place for advertisers to buy ads.

    That is anti-competitive as a business practice. I see adwords ads in google all the time that have nothing at all to do with the search I just did. Places like shopping.com or shop.com, (not sure what the name of them are so those may not be accurate), create adwords campaigns that target all kinds of phrases, then you click on them and it basically shows you a list of their affiliates that use that search term.

    According to your policy, Google should be reported for selling links that are not relative to the search results page they are found on. Which form do we use to report google to google Matt?

    I don’t like link schemes that try to trick the search engines either. I believe working with the search engines and not against them is the best way to go and have been doing it this way for years.

    However, as an advertiser it is up to me whether or not I want to spend my money on an ad or a link in a specific website. It is up to that website’s owner whether or not they want top sell me that ad or link. I just don’t see where Google should be involved in that business arrangement at all.

    Of course it is up to google how they rank websites. You guys own it. But so far I have not seen your spam policies or this new policy improving the search results from google. It looks more like a monopolistic attempt at controlling what advertising is bought where.

    It is your option as you say, but since google is in a position that webmasters and business owners cannot just ignore google, then this policy is a strong arm method. Using your weight as the largest source of traffic on the web to dictate to everyone what they can or cannot do falls into anti-competitive business practices.

    To explain. You answered a question by a webmaster about them being able to do whatever they want on their website by saying google can do the same thing. Big difference here Matt. That other webmaster doing as they please with their website does not have the effect that google has when doing the same thing.

    I know you sya you are getting quality reports. I’m sure that is true, but the only motivation is to beat up on their competitors. If that is not true yet, it will be and anyone with common sense sees that coming.

  638. hey Matt,

    Good comeback. I’m happy to see Larry and Sergey didn’t suspend your account.

    I (think I) understand what Google is getting at, but by definition organic search can’t be artificially influenced. That’s like my mom sticking plastic flowers in her rose garden to keep out all the weeds.

    Don’t think that you will ever be able to get rid of all the spam in the world. It’s out there because it’s human nature and it will always find a way to surface.

    I for one give am giving up on this silly game. I’m going to see if I can buy back my old shop after which I’ll put an ad out in the local paper.

    Ahh, the good old days 🙂

  639. From the article:
    A: Sure. Here are some paid text links on a site dedicated to Linux:
    image here

    The sites that has links on 105,000 pages of the linux site are still in the top 3 for the most competitive keywords in google. So, I guess we should not read this bs and get ready for the large spendings for link shopping. .ORG sites’ craize is growing.

  640. >If you see a spammy or made-for-AdSense site, do the following…

    Why?

    If the one guy with the 700 interlinked directories of scraped content that is openly selling pagerank across his network for 29.95 is still allowed to run adsense after being reported, then what’s the use of making any reports?

    Just wondering…

  641. Dave (Original)

    Google use reports to design algorithms and not to manually intervene.

  642. I knew how they used the reports for search, but Matt gave the nugget on reporting MFA’s, they just use algorithms for that too? I guess that explains it 🙂

  643. If you are engaged in buying links for pr or whatever reason, then just be sensible about it. Dont buy links from sites that openly promote the sale of links. Dont have your links placed in a box along with 20 other links, that are not in the least bit related to yours.

    Everyone wants to get higher in Google thats only natural, but try to get there by giving people what they want. Thats all Google wants to see, sites that are useful and original. Not sites that can afford to buy their way to the top with paid links. Thats what adsense is for 😉

  644. Hi Matt,

    Here’s what I don’t quite get. What I understand Google wants is
    fresh, unique, quality content.

    But sites I know doing that rank terrible. Here’s an example.
    TheDailyReckoning is a monster content site from a 200 million a year
    company. They have the best writers in the world for financial publications.
    They produce daily, extremely high quality content.

    Plus, the have a network of sites that do the same.

    Still their PR is like 4. I’m assuming investors don’t have web sites
    so they can’t link in.

    So the problem is, Google isn’t rewarding sites that are doing exactly
    what you want. And this is for companies with massive content
    creation budgets. (I’ve seen other really big companies producing
    extremely high quality daily content with the same problem.)

    So honestly, what’s a little guy or gal trying to make a living going to
    do for seo positioning? If world class content creators can’t get a
    high PR, then what is Joe or Suzy gonna think they can do?

    That, to me, is the crux of the problem. And the main reason
    you have people resorting to non-content strategies to game
    Google.

    Even if you produce extremely high quality content, the chances
    you’re going to get lots of people linking to it in today’s world
    isn’t good.

    High quality content isn’t “unique” anymore. There’s a glut of it.
    So there isn’t a lot of incentive for people to link to it without some
    sort of forced incentive involved.

    Good luck Matt. You really have a big job on your hands! But
    remember that there are a lot of Joe’s and Suzies trying to pay their
    bills with little web sites. And all they want is a decent chances to
    get a bit of Google love.

    Best wishes,

    Marlon Sanders

  645. Dave (Original)

    Didn’t his very 1st sentence give you a clue?
    [blockquote]One thing I heard at SES London was that people wanted a way to report paid links specifically. I’d like to get a few paid link reports anyway because I’m excited about trying some ideas here at Google to augment our existing algorithms[/blockquote]

  646. Who does the paid link report hurt? The site paid, or the paying site?

  647. Dave (Original)

    It likely “hurts” both. However, don’t confuse hurt with penalty. All Google is likely doing is differentiating between paid text link ads and true link votes. The latter will help with PR and the former wont.

    The “hurt” for the buyer is they have wasted their money and not got what they paid for. The “hurt” for the seller is they are exposed as snake oil merchants and no longer have a viable business model. But, that’s what happens when you build your Castles on sand 🙂

  648. I dont really think this is a great idea .

    Just that you get paid to write this all you would be attack the webmaster community .

  649. Chris McElroy.
    You are right. Google will do what they want. They have there right`s.
    But monopolio (spanish) is not what they can do.

    A woman post in some blog. GOOGLE IS GOOGLE BUT THEY WILL BE NOBODY WHEN THEY POP UP A BROWSER…

    That`s a curly sentence but think about that.

    They are only playing and money is in there pockets.

    Matt Cutts, you know that day by day I belive in google less and less.
    GOOGLE have the power to be number one. But they are not going at the right way by now.

    Google is because we let them be. Think and Think.

    Leads is not important. The important is to create good content to our users. Bussiness cards are important more than google, design is more important than market, and something else.

    We have more contacts from others sites and search than with google. For adwords hei hei is dont´t pay. Pay links are better and PR is not important.
    PR only is for directories, we are making websites, bussiness online for bussiness offline.

    Matt you have too talk to me. I can explain some good thinks about history.
    Past can explain what google is and where they are walking.

  650. Is sad to see how google is going down.

    Reading this blog. All I see is a company trying to manipulate internet.

    Is not about result?
    Google is a search?

    Google can be number one us my friend say. But are they talking about thinks that not have to be talking. Manipulation is not good bussiness, monopolio (spanish) is not good for GOOGLE.

    Controling spam in content is good. But god is not google. google only have to see good content.

    In my country, is not good to speak about thinks of others. In spanish we say ( boton, or buchon ). Codes are codes my friends.

    Google is a friend or a enemy.

  651. Pay me and I’ll report paid links.

    Also, how does a webmaster find out if they’ve been reported?

  652. I have a exchange link with another site. A two weeks ago, I see a page where this page where I exchange links, sell links on your home page a 20$. Is could be bad for me?
    Thanks for your help

  653. Dave (Original)

    Looks like both Miguel and Luciano Lopez have a vested interest in buying/selling links 🙂 No doubt they will say they don’t, but most spammers cries foul when caught-out piggy backing at the expense of the piggies customers 🙂

  654. Dave (Original)

    I have a exchange link with another site. A two weeks ago, I see a page where this page where I exchange links, sell links on your home page a 20$. Is could be bad for me?

    Likely not. But, if the link is of no real use to you vistor type I would dump it. If it is and you don’t trust them, use nofollow.

  655. Google main income is from selling links via adsense but now it’s verboten website owners to sell. Sounds like a anti-trust case waiting to happen.

  656. Dave, in my life a have pay 0 links, its to easy and thats not to me.
    In fact we are ranking by keywords, good content and a very good internal road of links

    Yes we use some methods for PR, but that sites are our sites and are very good sites, good content and users realy seems to like them.

    In fact I think google has been doing thinks like this in the past. That`s why they have much data about pays links. So some time ago we decline in the search of more PR. PR will come with work and useful online tools. Work for users like Google say.

    I study some sites related to real estate, and they are big sites with links that are out of there bussiness but there pr are very high and they rank very well. We know they will fall and quickly!!!

    Its a pain for us, because we work and work, in the way of good content and applications that are for users and not for searchs.

    Google cant do what they want. But other search are in the correct way. Analysing content very very well.

    Sorry for this comment but i don`t like people saying thinks that are not.

  657. Dave (Original)

    Google main income is from selling links via adsense but now it’s verboten website owners to sell.

    No it hasn’t.

  658. Is it me or do most the people commenting on this post dont know the difference between links and adwords, paid links and unpaid links, links for PR and links for traffic?

  659. >difference between links and adwords

    Perhaps one thing Google can do is change the name “Sponsored Links” to “Paid Advertising” for Adwords.

  660. Interesting calculation in a German Blog about the benefit from selling links (2 schemes) versus placing Adsense:

    http://www.basicthinking.de/blog/2007/05/25/tla-vs-linklift-vs-google-adsense/#comment-687182

    Looks like selling links is quite more profitable than placing Adsense, so my question: isn’t this a fight Google can’t win ?

    There are a lot of webmasters / bloggers out there who don’t care about “penalties” so far they still get money out of their audience.

  661. This is the most interesting to me of all comments here:

    ———————————————————-
    Brad S. Said,
    April 16, 2007 @ 6:12 pm

    Wouldn’t the easiest solution just be to not disclose pagerank? If it’s a value that only Google knows, then there’s no buying links to game the system.

    ———————————————————

    Makes perfect sense.

  662. While I do think it is reasonable to sell links, I have to agree that things have started to go too far. For example, http://www.adison.edu is a fake university set up just to sell .edu links. Something has to be done, but I’m not sure a “snitching” system will solve anything. All it means is that people are going to have to find new ways to disguise their paid links.

  663. Matt, all Google would have to do is read the directory forum on Digital Point, all the link selling scam artists and link farm operators expose themselves daily right there!

  664. Here is a prime example of what I mention in my above post Matt.

    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=3407812#post3407812

    There’s a whole lot of link selling and farming going on !!!!

  665. “Here is a prime example of what I mention in my above post Matt.

    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=3407812#post3407812

    There’s a whole lot of link selling and farming going on !!!!”

    Not only that thread – the whole Directories forum at DigitalPoint has become a spam-and-scam-fest:

    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=25
    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

    Google doesn’t need a reporting page. People there seem to be lining up to report themselves.

  666. Matt, are all the spam submission reports reviewed by Google? As I am regular user of this and feel like input is going unacted upon.

  667. Google’s policy on paid links seems so hypocritical. Google tells us the way to get noticed and indexed is to get sites to link to you then they penalize sites that buy paid links. Maybe Google needs to spend more time on going after real spammers and crap sites and Adsense fraud instead of messing with people that are trying to find ways to get listed organically because most can’t afford to play the Adwords game any longer.

  668. Hi matt,

    Google has started ‘report paid links’ option on my webmaster tools section.

    I have a simple question to ask –

    ‘I have paid for http://www.business.com and http://www.botw.com links. Will they be considered as ‘paid’ links or ‘advertise’ links. Given an option i would like to submit the two links i have paid for and be clear.

    Will google can consider voluntary disclosure of paid links.

  669. Hello,
    I want to know If suppose I buy a link from yahoo directory for my site then how much time it takes to see imporvement in ranking of my site once google has crawled that page in yahoo directory where my link is located and also it has crawled my own site after it has recognized my site’s yahoo link also. I want to know how often google update ranking of a site for a particular keyword once it shows links to it when domain name is searched.

  670. Hi Matt,
    I’m very concerned about the Paid Links-Stuff. I found a site linking to my domain in their footer-links, which also includes ‘Credit’, ‘Cellphone’ and other links that seem to be paid links or some link-exchange-thing… I have never participated in such a thing, but maybe i’ll get penalized in the future…
    A Webmaster Central Tool to not count links from a specific domain would be great. Or should i submit a spam-report? Next question is: would that harm my site…

  671. I’m sure many directories are going to go to “no follow” to protect their own search rankings down the road if they are selling “advertising links”, so will many websites to stay on the good side of Google and the other SE’s.

    Many forums are moving to “nofollow” also for live links in posts and signatures to protect their websites and to avoid linking to link farms and spam sites.

    So ask the people who sold you those links about “no follow tags” and you can see yourself, many directories are selling links with the intention of manipulating the SERP’s because buyers know this is “part of the deal”.

  672. Daniel, I would contact that webmaster and tell them to remove your links immediately.

  673. Dan could also ask that webmaster to convert his links to nofollow also Amber.

  674. Concerning bought links, there is a big question concerning “third party” bought links. An example:
    The company http://www.askubal.de obviously went to a seo company for the keyword “kugellager” (right, over here in germany). The SEO company uses a quite useless portal http://www.phrasen.com where they host several thousand pages with german phrases. The pages themselves have no meaning, they contain just these phrases, some ads and links to some of their clients. There are several pages with links to askubal.de with the link text “kugellager”. See:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3awww%2ephrasen%2ecom+kugellager
    So, you can’t buy links at http://www.phrasen.com for SEO purposes, but you can pay the SEO company that will put those links on those pages. The goal is the same, even it is not that obvious. But is this something you kick out of the index? The client pays indirectly for those links.
    Thanks!

  675. Well, that did not work out 🙁 The webmaster is not responding to my mails… So I will wait and see what happens to my ranking.

  676. I think there is an element of scaremongering going on here. It is very difficult to penalise professional link-spammers without hurting the little guy who just wants some publicity.

  677. You are wrong about that, webmasters think SEO is all about getting as many links from pages with high PR and they are selling and buying links like there is no tomorrow, Google banned SearchKing.com long ago for selling PR, look it up, SearchKing.com even filed a lawsuit against Google that was dismissed.

    This issue is not new, but today link farm scam artists are out of control on webmaster forums, see my first few posts in this thread above and click the live link for examples.

    These networks of link farms need to be taken out, end of story, report them when you discover them or con men will take over Google search results, I just hope Google takes aggressive action against these link farm directory crooks soon, most of their sites are ranking because they have rigged the system with SEO contests to get webmasters to link to their sites.

  678. QUOTE:

    TB Said,
    June 26, 2007 @ 5:19 am

    I think there is an element of scaremongering going on here. It is very difficult to penalise professional link-spammers without hurting the little guy who just wants some publicity.

    “““““““““““““““““““““

    TB, you have to see the scams being worked by people who call themselves SEO’s with their blatant promotion of link farm bidding directories to understand the magnitude of this plague of paid link selling.

    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=334412

    Read the above thread, see how scam artists are rigging Google using anchor text on forums to rank for this “SEO contest” which is really a link farm promotional scam.

  679. I would like to report a paid link scheme.

    Their page is:

    http://www.google.com/adwords

    This scheme seems to have a widget that puts paid links on millions of web sites. They should be removed from the index, along with anyone who displays the widget.

  680. You just don’t get it do you?

    Google Adsense does not pass on page rank or effect the organic search results like paid links do from high PR pages, how do you thing webmasters rig their own PR so quickly, by attracting links by paying for them, spamming blogs or forums with anchor text or rigging “SEO contests” to get everyone under the Sun to link to their pages.

  681. Way to go Matt and Google! I just found out why all my hard work in my niche, such as writing original content, and getting noticed (in the form of genuine, free links) by sites like USA Today and About.com, was going nowhere — in fact, I was starting to slip in the SERPs, while other sites that don’t have one quarter of the useful content that I have are beating me.

    Then the lightbulb came on Guess what? These sites that are beating my site are doing it with paid links. Lots of them! I checked.

    I work really hard on my site. I don’t buy paid links, because I understand it can hurt me in Google.

    I make great content for my visitors. The whole idea of Google’s algorithm is that other sites “vote” for sites through links. Well, when the links are paid for, that just means they are “paid votes.”

    We’d all be so shocked if that happened in the presidential election. And rightly so, because it makes a mockery of the whole process. So if Google’s search algo is based on “votes” for quality sites, then I applaud their efforts to make sure that THEIR system is as clean as possible.

    I’m proud to say that I will make every effort to report “Page Rank Fraud” to Google when I find it. And in my niche, I am now looking for it, because I don’t like it when all my hard work is beaten by webmasters who are buying links and gaming the system. Beat with with better content and better organic links — my hat is off to you. Beat me by cheating the system (even if it’s perfectly legal) I’m coming after you (legally).

    Thanks Google for making it so easy to report paid links. This is the best thing that has happened to organic search in years.

  682. kd is so right on his http://www.google.com/adwords report. How about Yahoo Directory? People are paying fortune to be listed on Yahoo! This is not considered as ‘paid link’?

    What I see in this situation; Google did not forsee what pagerank would cause and also could not find a better way of doing it. So now, it will prosecute the people who makes money here and there by selling links while Google Adwords and other advertisement companies are making big chunk of money by listing links on other websites as ‘advertisement’ with javascript. What Mr. Google says with this; ‘I created the game and I make the rules and I’ll prosecute the ones against my rules’. and I don’t like it…

  683. You can buy all the links you want, get as many link farm directory paid links you can, this does not mean Google has to rank your sites if you want to buy 20,000 links in so called “SEO friendly directories”.

    Buy the top spot on all the “Bidding directories” you can, see how that works out for you man !!!

  684. When I search for backlinks or review referral sources I find many spammy “search network” sites that contain nothing but Adwords and Overture PPC ads. The click traffic from these sites has been so poor that we do not use the content match options, and have also eliminated the search networks where possible. Google and Yahoo (Overture) have both responded to my complaints that the sites are genuine search sites – well, not when the “keywords” are preprogrammed as text links etc, at least in my opinion. These sites are there to spam the search engines and generate PPC revenue. Doesn’t take much to see why Google and Yahoo keep these spam sites in the SERP’s – it generates a lot of PPC revenue for them. All paid links in my mind.

  685. Overture PPC ads. The click traffic from these sites has been so poor that we do not use the content match options, and have also eliminated the search networks where possible. Google and Yahoo (Overture) have both responded to my complaints that the sites are genuine search sites – well, not when the “keywords” are preprogrammed as text links etc, at least in my opinion. These sites are there to spam the search engines and generate PPC revenue. Doesn’t take much to see why Google and Yahoo keep these spam sites in the SERP’s – it generates a lot of PPC revenue for them. All paid links in my mind.

  686. Nice, Neil Street. I am in almost the same boat as you. Let’s remember that SERP on Google isn’t a legal issue, but a Google issue.

    There is nothing illegal about buying links (that I know of), just as there is little legal grounds to hold Google from organizing information they way they want to. It’s wise for us to play by Google’s rules if we want to benefit from their rankings.

  687. The most detailed report on the topic. I came to this post from another post on Jon Chow in blogstorm.com

    I like your view on PFB.
    I quot:”but if you are blogging and being paid by services like Pay Per Post, ReviewMe, or SponsoredReviews, links in those paid-for posts should be made in a way that doesn’t affect search engines.”

    For the benefit of non technical bloggers like me, can you pl be more explicit on this?
    Thanks for your time.

  688. No offense, but his is a dumb idea, for all the above reasons. Instead of Google wasting their time and energy on this nonsense, how about actually doing something positive about sites that are reported to them as being MFA, arbitrage and ‘sponsored results’ sites?

    How come its ok for an arbitrage ‘sponsored results’ page to still be using Adwords after they’ve been reported to Google goodness how many times? Why do I still see the same “.info” sites advertising using Adwords? Sort them out and you wouldn’t have to be thinking about this nonsense.

    Or despite all the rhetoric, is this still just about money?

  689. You people who are saying google sells links too, obviously don’t have enough intelligence to understand the article.

    He clearly said, if you use a way to not pass on link-juice like a javascript, redirect, nofollow, etc, it is fine to still sell the links for traffic.

    That is what google adwords does, so their service is fine within these guidelines.

    Some of you people need to go back to Elementary School and work on that reading comprehension, like half of the questions that were asked were already answered in the original article.

  690. Yeah, nice post, Matt. Now I will spend all of my money to buy links for my competitors then I will report it to google. I will become no. 1 in my keywords, right? Now it even much easier to ranked well in google, just buy links for your competitor. Thanks google, you made my life easier 🙂

  691. Too bad we can’t report paid links in directories? Why is that? Matt, you said we are permitted to buy links in directories so those directories will review our website and it’ll not considered as paid links…you not stupid, aren’t you? Directories are created because they want to make money, not to review websites…naive..

    I think it must be stupid if someone created directories just because they want to review all websites in internet. Their purposes actually is only to generate more money (with their paid links). That’s all. Too bad because I want to report yahoo directories..I think google are afraid if they penalize sites from yahoo directories. Yahoo could take action and it’ll be interesting 😀

    Anyway, I will spend around $1,000 to buy links for my competitors then I will report all of them, what do you think? My competitors will get penalized, am i right? This is much easier than before…

  692. Most directories have found a way to spam the internet and most of these owners are specialists in this field. 75% of them claim that their directories are of quality, high standards, human edited, informative and other declaration of false pretentions. So look at their listings inside if it really matches on what they say and you’ll find crappy sites or nothing listed not even a listing in a Reference Category or Kids and Teens. This is totally out of control as most of them dont find time making up for what their declaration say about their site but rather spam the rankings through many modules such as newsfeeds which is totally irrelevant or just buying high PR links. Visit the Top 50 and you’ll find that most of them have hundreds or even thousand of categories without even a single listing. Yet they survive. Shame as there are a lot of well maintained directories but could not be ranked as supposed to be because they play a fair game instead of using such techniques.

  693. In this thread at Digital Point http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=406574&page=3 The Great One gives a lesson about duplicate content while the subject matter is about directory content. Twisting words from a power house spammer and a PR9 Link Buyer with a directory link on a newspaper PR8 site. As I was saying while these people afford to buy high PR links and con people at Digital Point never did they have the time to add content on their directories and yet they speak of time. Qoute” Time is of the essence, and within that time things progress and grow” which really made me laugh as it has been almost a year that those directories operate and not one informative site had been added yet they claim to be the highest integrity. That sounds pathetic to me. While the real owners who sweat adding useful information for end users don’t come close of the deserved position. I guess Rand Fishkin is somewhat right in pointing the sic people in the directory industry.

  694. Wow, the new Google Gustapo!! What the heck is the point of this? Selling links helps many websites stay online by generating much needed revenue that Adsense cannot provide.

    I am sorry Google, but this makes me dislike you more than your two faced comments on the H1-B visa program (see slashdot).

    I am now stopping all of my adwords ads and removing google adsense and moving on to adbrite. I will start focusing on Yahoo marketing, since they are the #1 world-wide site anyways.

  695. Matt,
    Speaking of paid inclusions –
    I am a web developer and site administrator. I also consider myself to be pretty good at Whitehat SEO. I’m not sure how the listings in DMOZ affect SERPs in google above and beyond what other links might do, but I have 2 interesting questions that I can’t find much information on. I did find one post here –
    http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/53039-dmoz-editor-wants-300-list-my-site.html

    Basically DMOZ editors are getting paid for site inclusions with impunity? Oh sure, they fired one guy, but how much monitoring of this are they really doing? I have been submitting sites for years with no inclusion and my sites are high quality, high traffic sites. There MUST be something strange going on because why would anyone not admit these sites into the directory? The sites have homepage GPRs of 4 & 5. Each site has over 1000 pages with at least 5000 backlinks from Yahoo, MSN, and Google. So tell me what is wrong with these sites and why they haven’t been admitted? Something isn’t right here.

    Secondly, since anyone can become an editor, why not become an editor for a market you currently compete in and shoot down all the sites you fear might be big competition for you? It seems likely that if I could dispute my competition from getting into DMOZ it could give me an edge. Especially if google considers the backlinks DMOZ gives to be of importance. Even if it doesn’t, it’s an edge isn’t it? Some search engines use results from DMOZ as their primary source of SERP.

    Am I being pessimistic or does this seem like a flawed system?

  696. Guys, if you read careful Google is not against Paid Links!

    And Matt’s is not talking about penalizing sites for buying text links.

    So anyone is free to buy and sell links with no worry of being banned or even penalized, however those paid links will NOT do any good in terms of SEO, they will just bring visitors like any other form of advertising, but they will NOT improve your rankings.

    He just talk about trying to detect and discard the value of paid links, in other words they need feedback about paid links that do not use “nofollow” so they can improve their algoritm on detecting paid links.

    When they can detect paid links well, they will probably adjust the algoritm to discard the value of these links, but you will not be penalized.

  697. I don’t get it, a paid link or rather paying for the “review process” in a Pay Per Inclusion directory is ok as the money is for reviewing the site.

    So what’s the difference with a non-directory site accepting money for “reviewing” the link, modifying the source code to accomodate it etc. Also if the link is highly related, it benefits the user as per Googles webmaster guidelines.

    This either boils down to Google’s Adsense revenue being effected, or Google not having a refined enough algo that it lets any old backlink “vote” count despite it being related or not.

    Your algo is too reliant on backlinks and anchor text and can be gamed too easily simple as that.

  698. How long will it take for Google to implement all this? And Shall we be notified or we don’t stand any chance at all?

  699. Hey Matt make sure you properly nofollow your paid links…
    http://www.conversionrater.com/index.php/2007/02/23/google-selling-pr7-links-for-10000

    You say to report websites who do this so I am assuming Google follows their own rules… no wait those links are regular good ol’ SEF links with no nofollows…

    Are we saying one thing and doing another? Why is it okay for google to sell links for search engine benefit and not the rest of us? Fine control the world but start with your own house, fix those issues and then scream at us.

  700. Please reply to Randy regarding Google buying links. I’d really be interested in what you have to say about that but I’m guessing you’ll ignore this post.

  701. I guess some of you people just don’t get it, look at this thread and see how “Bidding Directories” which are PAID LINK FARMS SELLING PAID LINKS are promoted non-stop by kids who think they are going to get rich quick !!!!

    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=433002

    Get real people, some of these link farm promoting fools have 25 of these bidding directories going at one time and they are all interlinked together.

    Google needs to ban all these link farm directories and any who are interlinked with them.

  702. I have not spoke against the paid link penalization… if Google can do it and do it accurately more power to them… it should help keep the engine relevant as it has overall stood over the past years.

    Penalizing paid links is like shooting mistakes with a rifle… you are going to hit very few and are likely to hit something that is not a “mosquito” – get my point?

  703. I’ve been trying to exchange relevant links with similar web sites , but few bother replying to my request because of my low PR – that’s my one reason why some choose to buy paid links.

    Those who follow Google advice and keep their web sites clean will always end up having web sites with low value!

  704. Lets not forget that even mainstream sites such as the Times Online in the UK are now selling sitewide text links on their site for advertising and for seo. Its a deep link in the classified section of each page for the term “car insurance” – even on their subdomains – the site it linked to then went into the top 10 for that term. Coincidence? Maybe.

  705. Hi Matt,

    It seems that links coming from tags are actually working very well to be in the 1st position for a keyword.

    I have several example and find a discussion about it on http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-13-n50.html.

    A lot of people seems to think that Google doesn’t want to penalyse it, what is your opinion ?

  706. I appreciate that the chances of you responding directly via your comments section are pretty remote but I’d like to know how Google view Text-Link-Ads following the recent story of a Premium AdSense Publisher getting dropped from the index and blaming it on using services like TLA.

    I’ve invited Patrick Gavin, president of TLA, to respond as well so it would be great to have your feedback.

  707. Google can dump any site they want to dump from THEIR search index if they are breaking their guidelines or if the spam reports on sites buying or selling paid links prove to be true.

    What is so hard to understand about this fact ?

    If you are running a contextual link farm network on your sites and you get dumped for gaming the SERP’s with anchor text that’s your problem, it will not be the first time a link brokers network of sites is blacklisted by Google.

  708. I wish I would have read this article a few months back. There has been a lot of things floating around about Text Links Ads, and how basically they are allowing people to “buy page rank”, etc. Also, they don’t even come up for their own keywords “text link ads” at all anymore (google penalty??). For those using this service, will their sites be negatively impacted as well? I wrote all I could find about Google Penalty for Using Text Links Ads here.

    thanks again Matt!

  709. Anthony Cea. I concur.

    I reported about 5 websites clearly buying links and clearly selling them. Its a pr7 and provides no real use to any web users. Basically just a site with links (bid dir). Now tell me, if Google can easily dump it from theirs search engines, why are so many sites like these are still here?

    Sometimes if you can’t walk the walk, you shouldn’t talk the talk. That Google Report tool is obviously not working…and is obviously proving no results. Now my next question is, why aren’t these sites that are clearly chasing high PR and making money selling links not being punished? Is there a small loophole that these sites are taking advantage of? Some wording in the Google guidelines that prevent these sites to “be qualified” , but in reality “not qualified” And if it is, then well, again—-if you can’t walk the walk, don’t talk the talk.

  710. Henry, it often takes time for Google to investigate these spam reports and work them into the next update, so don’t give up hope, just keep reporting search engine spammers man !!!

    While you are at it, report the same sites to Live.com and Yahoo if you have the time.

  711. Matt

    All do respect…Leave what is working alone. In your last interview you said we can do what we want. It’s our right! You then state it’s Google’s right to run their SE as they feel needed or words to that effect. I agree, and it is people like me that have made Google what it is today. Guess what Matt? It’s my right to choose the SE I use. I choose Yahoo. That’s where you have pushed me. Change your structure Matt as I know many many more are tired of this garbage you keep pushing on us. We all know Google is a profit organization. Google is merely trying to push out the little people and get the whole slice of pie. Hopefully the rest of the world will wise up and see it too. I changed everything over to Yahoo today….More power to Yahoo!

  712. “Google can dump any site they want to dump from THEIR search index if they are breaking their guidelines or if the spam reports on sites buying or selling paid links prove to be true.

    What is so hard to understand about this fact ?”

    What if my site is the bees knees about red widgets and everyone loves it because it is the ultimate authority on red widgets.

    But then Google removes it from the directory because it discovered that I was committing the heinous crime of trying to make some extra cash by accepting paid links on the site?

    How does THIS benefit the users of Google who are now no longer able to find my excellent red widget site?

  713. Furthermore, if I have a great site that is all about Red Widgets and I want it to get noticed NOW and not in 6-12 months then I should be able to buy links both for the clickthrough traffic AND to get my SE ranking up there.

    At the end of the day, users aren’t stupid, if I use keywords Red Widget for my anchor text and my site is all about Blue Sproggets then I have wasted my advertising budget because that user is going to go, “Huh, this site doesn’t have anything about Red Widgets!” and click off the site immediately.

    I would be a fool to buy keywords that have nothing whatsoever to do with my site and I would be a fool to try and get to the top of the search engines with keywords that have nothing to do with my site.

    Looked at from that point of view, paid advertising could actually HELP Google with their rankings.

    If I pay $1000/month for a keyword, Google can be pretty darned sure that my site is pretty relevant to that keyword.

    I have thought about reporting competitors for paid links but something prevents me – being a tittle tattle is a pretty ugly characteristic in a child – it is even worse in an adult. And when the person you’re reporting is not actually doing anything illegal, it just seems wrong.

  714. Who at Google gave this guy authority to reinvent business? and for that matter who cares? People will still buy and sell links and Google will never figure out which are paid, and which are not. This is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors to get people to spend more money on Adwords, of course.

  715. LOL Jason, a 3rd grader could figure out who is selling paid links just by reading forum threads, looking at the signature links the con men run that post on webmaster forums and by simply going to their link farms and looking at the interlinking and reciprocal link relationships.

    http://www.pagepower.info/

    You better reinvent your business, that is if you have one after getting busted for running link farms.

  716. Matt, is there a chance that Google puts a few extra field in the Google Toolbar that shows a message if the specific page contains unworthy links – spammy like – sites?

    Furthermore, what if Google shows an extra tab or an extra field in the Analysis of Google Webmasters that might depict if the page is incurring in any of the practices that might reduce the ability of the Search Engine to produce good results to the common users? A mechanism like that, I would call it: Googleize my Site!

  717. I hope Google would check all those directory sites manually that have dropped recently. If they come back it would just be a mess again since most of these owners can do their system manipulation back.

  718. Ok Dave or Matt,

    I belong to the 1% building a quality relevent directory, which delivers traffic not pr what are the black & white guidelines.

    I charge an annual review fee for submissions to keep my directory relevent and clean for my visitors who are looking for quality results.

    I currently haven`t planned on selling paid or featured listings.
    Only links in my directory are reviewed submissions.

    1. If I was to sell featured listings/ adverts in the future – these need a no follow tag, my directory delivers customers to listings (no problem there).

    2. My paid reviewed submissions which make my results do they need the nofollow tag……because I have read the above entirely twice in the last three months and still see grey on this point? Is it this point that falls under link selling aswell, either way I don`t care if needs be to add nofollow to these because I believe in traffic not pr….for my listed submissions?

    Great job levelling the field makes my site even better…

  719. Hi,

    If an SEO company places a link to their own site on every page of their clients site, would it just be considered an unethical technique or an actual spamming technique?

    It’s sort of like a paid link in reverse right? Client paying for the service and giving away, in some instances, massive amounts of links at the same time.

  720. Directory owner are the big problem for google, and whats the point to offer free links? you are right matt, are they providing some free service? its not a fair free public service .

  721. What about paid directories. What about advertising on relevant websites?
    Will those be affected too? What about Fully open link sales? If you search for “buy pR…” link,there are tons of website that sell links. Maybe they shouldn’t be in google in the first place. Those websites are 100% made for link sales. Some have 1000s of links.

  722. Maybe google needs to be taken down a notch with an anti-trust lawsuit.

  723. So Google is wrong for protecting it’s product against spammers who use anchor text via comment spamming and link selling and PR rigging ?

    I guess McDonald’s should let people ruin your lunch with contamination then serve it to you for lunch too !!

    Would that be fine with you Jessica ?

  724. Alot of people try to make a living online.
    Google keep changing the rules to suit themselve while in the process hurting other people, sort of like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
    What google dont realise is that more than likely within the next few years some bright sparks will develop something new that will dethrone them from the lofty position and they will be yesterdays news after all the internet is just in its infancy.

  725. Hi Matt, But what if a webmaster own a couple of websites and he or she want to links those sites to each other even if it’s not theme related, what would Google consider those links… PAID or NOT ???

  726. Hi Matt,

    Thank you for explaining this important issue in here but what if some body reported a website as paid links and the links there are free links or even two way links just for traffic ?

  727. The whole reporting of paid links has hit my company in the gut. We have bought links for the sake of traffic for more than 3 years, and yes we did check PR before purchasing a link for the sake of gauging the value of the site because this is one of the only ways to do so without having access to their analytics. Our ranking dropped just some 60+ days ago because someone must have reported us. Since the drop in rank we have eliminated our relationships with any paid links. We are starting to see some improvements in rank just in the last few days. This was a hard decision because we were buying from newspapers and other such content rich providers for quality and credibility, but Google traffic out-weighs the link traffic.

    We have gone and reported more than 30% of the websites listed under our competative term in the first 50 results for the same practice, and most are buying from the same websites we had bought from. Nothing has seemed to happen to any of them. We are not ones to tattle, but we only want to be able to play under the same rules without unfair advantages.

    The other thing we are finding is that sites that have very little content and pages in relation to other sites for this competative term are ranking high, but they seem to have 100’s and 100’s of links from adsense sites. These are also less than 3-6 month aged sites. These sites seem to only be ranking because of the adsense and sites pointing to them having adsense because their SEO practices are to be desired if not blackhat. Now, I can guess why this would happen from taking a common sense business stance in that Google has to provide a stronger content network to improve their profits and performance for shareholders – nothing wrong with this. But, wouldn’t this be a contradiction to the puriest stance on Paid Links in reverse?

    Finally, how is it that one site can be isolated for paid link practice over another when both sites are buying from the same source.

    I do not disagree with the whole paid links debate, but would just like to see a fair ball game played.

  728. Another admittance from the person who asked to be reincluded in Google index. From David Eaves of Biz-Dir and supported by Directory Dump.
    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=4610026&postcount=48

  729. ok, i know this might sound stupid, but if page rank is directly related to traffic and vice versa, and obviously for us to get more sales and traffic we need to have a good page rank on google, and our external links count towards page rank, then what is gonna determine page rank now?? i mean, meta tags are ok, and quality of site is important obviously, but listing ourselves on directories to offer our services to users, is directly related to page rank and getting more traffic, its just like advertising in the paper or through other media. I understand that link farms are the wrong way to go about it, but why shouldnt we want to boost our page rank? i mean, a website can be the best website in the world, with loads of features and good graphics, and good for the users, but google isnt going to personally go on there and say, “yes thats a great site, we will give that a high page rank cos we can tell they have worked hard on that for the sake of their users”. So we are left to promote it as best as we can, and i think that a lot of the time, if someone has a business, and has spent a lot of time researching how to best help their business thrive on the web, then they shouldnt be penalised for wanting to tell users about it, paid or unpaid.

  730. The effect of this increased awareness about Google’s attitude to paid links will just drive the industry underground. It won’t stop, it will just become more difficult to detect.

    Over the last 3 months I have noticed an increase in the number of e-mail solicitations trying to sell me links. The business model seems to be:

    1. Set up a niche directory
    2. Give away links on that directory to capture e-mail addresses of people who are obviously interested in getting links.
    3. Wait a few days, then send an e-mail from a different domain offering natural-looking links on a network of sites and blogs.

    If you look at the network of sites, there is no mention of being able to buy links. The e-mail only approach keeps the business under the radar. You can’t even relate the niche directory to the link network.

  731. The purpose of this is not the discredited PageRank. PR is really irrelevant thing which do not deserve such serious action. The real purpose of the crack down on paid advertisement is for Google to make even more money from AdWords. I hope they go to hell with their “Don’t be evil” hypocrisy. I am seriously considering to drop them and go to Yahoo. I am tired of the spammy sites they are accepting for Adwords and serving on my site. The ad filter of 200 sites is a drop in the see. Their hypocrisy go as far as to still accept ads for link sales on Adwords and profit from it. And I am tired of the 1 cent clicks anyway. Keep the good work Google and you are just a dinosaur waiting to die.

  732. Hello to everybody that is a part of this discussion. I only would like to ask why is Google so concerned with paid links? Also to remark the two way links which Google doesn’t give too much value are still a very strong and efficient way of getting trafic without the use of payments. Doesn’t this shows some contradiction in your guidelines?

  733. I am seeing sites ranking for very hard to get terms by buying 10,000s of irrelevant links. Search on Promotional Products and see the # 1 site. Most all their backlinks are Chinese comment spam.

    Also, the http://www.tnx.net massive network of links on Russian and machine generated websites is propping up them and many of the users artificially.

    I have nothing against nice relevant paid links to give a site some traffic and income, but surely human reporting is not necessary to help Google spot massive link spamming corrupting the SERPS?

  734. Yes, kd is absolutely right. AdWords is the biggest link farm, spam filled pile of boring paid advertisements. What you are asking people to do is insane Matt. Anyone supporting fighting or reporting paid links should move to China or Russia. Actually, Nazi Germany would have been a more appropriate place as far as the reporting part goes. I advertised on Google on and off. From now, it’ll be off.

  735. I think that paid linking can be spam…but what about the businesses that are legitimately using paid links to generate real income and actually do a service for a community, their businesses and their economic well being.
    I think there should be a “manual way” for businesses to petition Google for exclusion from being penalized. Especially if the paid linking business can prove legitimacey.

  736. You can sell links by using the nofollow tag…. Thats okay for Google…. So that the paid links dont affect the rankings…. Google wants webmasters to do like that……

  737. Matt,
    I sell advertising on my site (not for PR) so I use ref=”nofollow” in the links. Does this protect my site from penalties?

  738. hi,
    when give penatly with paid link that have follow tag ,which can effect pr and SERP

    wont there be some day where all site are with no follow tags ,then even if we get natural links ,SE cant recognise us as theya re no follow

    so does this mean in future rank 1# now will be ranked for ever

  739. I am still unsure what the difference of displaying text links or a Adsense link unit? Oh wait Google gets paid for Link Units and you get paid for Text Links.

    Its not gaming the Google search. Google has enough Phd’s to cure cancer and figure out how to make their algorithm work without punishing those that want to make a few bucks on their website.

    Don’t worry people, if Google starts de-indexing sites because they don’t follow Google’s wishes there are certainly other places to focus our Efforts.
    Google, MSN, Social networks and other blogs.

    By the way Google provides less than 10% of my traffic so not a big deal to me.

  740. Mr Cutts, I am so confused. I am a Thai woman who has had Thai dating websites of nearly 10 years. I have a constant battle with keyword and search engine placement due to Porn and key words asian girls. Now that I have started a blog I now learn if I dofollow on comments it will hurt me. On one side you have http://www.tnx.net buying ads from you and one the other side your telling people not to buy. There is an example on my blog. http://thaidarling.blogspot.com/2007/10/paid-links-death-of-page-rank.html which shows adsense ad from tnx showing on site that also sells links and directory placement. How can it be both ways? I do understand the nofollow on paid text ads and I believe adsense are java based so would never be indexed. But how can google approve and ad for something they deem unethical?

  741. I have a very good example of serps tempering but you need a bit of patience to see this one..

    Try searching for “broadband forum” in http://www.google.co.in and the first result that comes up is broadbandforum dot in with that all new flast multi link result as google things its a major hub.. I have been following this forum for over three months now and been watching the in links aswell and majority of links come from techwhack.com and its subdomains. The content on this forum is 90% rss content from the techwhack.com site again.

    Now the thing is that both the domains are owned by the same person sushubh so we cannot call this a paid link but he is still tempering with the google serps.
    More over techwhack.com and its subdomains are selling links via text link ads site and even broadbandforum.in is selling links which you can see in the footer but google still loves this site. Can Matt or any other google gods explain why?

    As far as I can undestand is that once you have a good pr7 site you have the liscence to launch new sites and be far ahead of competetion…
    So shall just buy a pr7 site with the content and just link to my other sites? this wont be paid links would they?

    I would love it if I could get Matt’s kind attention on this one 🙂

    Regards
    Ankur lekhi

  742. Why do not you just put “it is forbidden to sell links” in the Webmaster Guideline? It would be more simple to everybody. I read the Webmaster Guideline and there are not any info about it. IDEM Quality guidelines – basic principles.

    There you say ” Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.” How do I know what are the “bad neighborhood”?

    PS= OMG! This post is from April! I was living under a rock! Well, here It’s almost the same…. Don’t forget about me.

    Regards

  743. As a normal user i prefer to get as search results only popup-free and banner-free websites (yes, non-comercial sites still exist but most of them don’t show on search results). Not all webmasters want fast profits and money from their websites. Not everyone tryes to “make a living” or to “make money fast” from selling links and ads on his website. And yet, a feature to show only non-comercial and ads-free websites in search results doesn’t exist.
    Payed links only increase the irrelevance of search results. Google’s page ranking system would be much better if it was not based on backlinks.

  744. My site has just been penalised for selling textual adverts.

    My site was a PR7 and is now reduced to a PR4.

    I think the idea of google acting as some sort if advertising guardian is laughable at best, and hypocritical at worst. Who the hell do google think they are ? Do they forget the days when THEY yearned for advertising revenue?
    Your hypocritical bullshit should come slapping right back on your faces. If I want to sell adverts on my website it is up to ME who I sell links to not google.
    I will sell to any advertiser other than adult/porn material, and I believe that is my fundamental right and choice.

    The quicker the world awakens and dsicovers what kind of ugly monsters you people are the better. I look forward to the day when you are sent packing back to that garage that you crawled out of – AND THAT DAY WILL COME.

  745. Oh,

    and just for the record Mr Cutts – I am a Computing Student trying to fund my way thru my degrees. I am a partner of that site with the original owner, and the sums that it makes for me helped me greatly.
    The meagre sums that I make from advertising were simply an aid to help me achieve nothing more than the same dreams and aspiritations of sergey brin and larry page.

    There was a time in their life when they were desperate for these things too. Now they, and people like you that they hire, think they are some kind of planetary guardians.

    If I want to advertise my website by using descriptive terms such as ‘MY website had a google PR7’ then I am doing nothing more than stating what were facts. I also stated that the website has 3 IBM backlinks, and over 100 phpnet backlinks. These are nothing more than alluring facts which can appeal to people who advertise on our site – like Adobe.com, who advertise with us.

    The sort of facts that google wants to start penalising people like me for, and create an impression that there is something ‘not so trusting’ about our site now, simply because WE and NOT google decide who we sell advertising to.

    When you start letting your head swell up and deluding yourself into thinking that you are God – Mr Cutts, Brin and Page – you better be careful — because the real gods of this world might just have something to say and do about that. Think you can piss about with people’s ways and lives and consequences as if you are gods? We shall see.

  746. LOL man, sell all the ads you want, just add no follow to them so you don’t get on the wrong side of Google if that is what you want to do.

  747. If you have done the dirty deed and sold links, realised your mistake and that your going to Google Hell, is there a way of reversing the PR change, i.e. removing the links, adding no-follow?

    Or is your domain tarnished forever?

  748. AnthonyCea,

    we use third party companies to sell our advertising, so the final display code is something which is outwith our control.
    I’m pretty sure many companies operate in a similar way.

    The question however is, does that give Google the right to penalise us, or suggest that our site is less than trustworthy – as this is certainly how advertisers interpret that information judging by some of the emails we have received?

    I have, since making those posts, heard that there has been a LOT of pr drops on some major sites as well. Some people have suggested it is simply an initial run of google testing new algo’s, and that most site pr’s correct themself after this – but there is by no means any guarantee this will be the case.

    I understand Google’s need to provide relevant search data, and to weed out people that forever try and circumvent their attempt to provide relevant search data, and their endeavors to get rid of spammers, scammers and the like — but does that mean they are prepared to accept damaging or harming legitimate sites also and simply accept this as some kind of ‘collateral damage’ ? Does the fact that some people sell ‘pr’ links give google the right to bazooka everyone and anyone who sells text links for example ? If so then google itself would not be a business – after all this IS how they made their initial fortunes.

  749. I’m not sure that telling people to play “tomboy” is good for internet economics. You might not be doing a living from the internet, but other people are. People pay when they don’t have the time to do it. It’s always been this way. Don’t be naive – realize it.

  750. I think that the question is very difficult to understand. You said that inside Linux site is not correct to found some sponsored Links like poker online because it don’t talk about Linux system but if they should be talk about ” how can play poker online with linux” that is correct ? Is very difficult to understand when is correct and isn’t.
    So, another point: there are a lots of word that mean more than one meant like for example play. Maybe you can find a link called play inside a guitar site but isn’t correct because that site don’t talk about music…

    For absurd, if there aren’t the directory site you can divide the Web into some big categories and is not possibile to link outside this big categories, absurd, yes, I know but is very difficult also for a neural network to understand when the link is or isn’t correct.
    Maybe the Spam Report is only another method for the SEOwar about different SEO.

    I suppose, and is only IMHO, that Google have the good market guys and finally all most important Google SERPS will be manual for the first 10 or more result. If you pay more you can appear there but is only my little opinion. But take care Google, China is coming…

    Sorry for my bad English, I hope that you understand what I mean.

  751. Why don’t Google just de-index the sites of link brokers? If link brokers were not in Google’s index then this may have a positive effect in restricting link buying and selling, especially for people thinking about engaging in buying or selling links for the first time. Surely it is easier and more effective to tackle the source and hit them harder rather than targeting small isolated sites that are engaging in such practices.

  752. I don’t see anything wrong with paid links!!!!
    or you don’t want ppl to make money online?
    or you don’t want ppl to buy links other than adwords
    paid links is better than free any way!
    google have to stop this

  753. How to report sites that got penalized but that were not selling links?

    My site was PR5, no paid links, no bought links, organic growth for 2 years, first documentary site online, launched using the Flash video format 1 year before Google video started, hosts nearly 100 top quality documentaries.

    At the bottom of the homepage are a few links to other sites that I built, host and own. These are not paid links, just links to my other projects. It’s simple to prove as all the outbound links are pointing to only 1 IP (my server) which is where they are all hosted.

    I lost PR and dropped to PR4. A pretty hefty penalty for building a quality site with tons of high quality unique content, that built its traffic organically the old fashioned way (by word or mouth).

    Is it not enough that G Video already went into direct competition with me.

    For what its worth I am pleased to see the general upheaval, and it has made the game even more interesting. Now that TLA are out of business (or will be in the dead pool within 6 months) Im looking forward to how the SEO community will respond with their counter strikes.

    So Matt where do I report this? Many thanks for your consideration.
    bleu

  754. Hi Matt,

    I have revisited and reread this post and most of the comments as with the latest google algo change this info seems more relevent to me than it was at the time.

    Firstly, I can tell that a lot of the people who have commented either didnt fully read what you said or didnt understand it. In the comments people have been talking a lot about google bowling (without mentioning the term), this is something you have clearly stated is not possible as site B will not be able to hurt site A. I wish people had read what they were replying to before posting the replies.

    I think the latest google algo change, if I understand it correctly, can only be good for the internet as a whole. Up to now anyone who invested money buying links would get a high ranking, and quite quickly. Someone, like me, who has not paid for any links, has been trying to wear a white hat and read all of the guidelines, was at a disadvantage when it came to trading on the internet.

    This cant be right as financial backing (how much money we have to invest in internet marketing) should have absolutely no relevence to google positioning. Thats what adwords is for – if you have money to spend to get traffic to your website do it – I am completely in favor of PPC.

    Organic search results should be organic and not financially influenced as they have been to date!

    I for one would like to salute the recent changes that have been made, they are for the better in the long run.

  755. The only people that this will effect will be those that place value in PR….This is a great way to bring PR down to the value that it actually is. So many webmasters place so much faith and time into PR and ignore whats truly important that, yes, this will hurt you. For those of you that say that you are only trying to make a living, keep in mind, you are trying to sell PR, which is something that Google is offering, how they determine PR is completely up to them, if it screws you, then find a different way to get results (not that PR will ever give you any measurable results)……

    Those of you that are reading this that are p.o.’d because of the recent export, you really need to figure out what PR is doing for your site, and go from there.

  756. Well done !

  757. Reported spam via the webmaster counsole but think I did it wrong so wanted to clarify what I did. When logging into the spam report there are 3 lines then a huge box for additional details, so I added the excate query on the first line and on the second line it pretty much asks for the same thing, then the thrid line asks for the site was offending so I put the buyer of the links http://www.sensualadviser.com/ then in the big box I put website http://www.midweekpolitics.com/ that is selling the paidlinks, is this the right way to report paid links Matt?

  758. How to report sites that got penalized but that were not selling links?

    Your PR drop had nothing to do with anything you have done, this was a recalibration of PR for most sites ranked across the web, think about this, if links are devalued by Google, so will the PR of the sites they link to.

    So some of the sites linking to your site could have dropped and that dropped your total PR.

    You have done nothing wrong, the seasons just changed at G.

  759. Our website was recently redesigned and relaunched in August 2007. We purchased some advertising, mainly site reviews through pay per post to gain some traffic to our new site. We finally reached a rank of #6 this past week, but I honestly do not think it has anything to do with the PPP links. Our site was well optimized by the company we hired to do the redesign (solid cactus).

    A competitor emailed us this evening, saying if we do not have our PPP links removed they are planning on reporting us to Google for having paid links.

    Considering all of our competitors have purchased paid links, in one way or another, as advertising, it would be very unfair that our site would get pulled for this reason alone.

    We weren’t even trying to get PR, as most of the blogs which posted had a PR of 1 to 3. Most of the blogs were aimed at our target audience (women’s issues) again, we were looking for traffic, not PR.

    Since Google allows users to report anonymously, it is quite unfair – there are no “checks” in place to see if it is a competitor reporting another site.

    If a competitor reports us, how is that going affect our rankings?

  760. In my opinion if the paid links are highly content relevant then they should not be penalized as in above discussion is mentioned that on a Linux site there is paid link for a casino site. These types of paid links can be penalized that just buy links to get higher PR’s irrespective of what the content of site is to which they will get linked.

  761. We recently had a large drop in TBPR (I assume that follows with a drop in actual PR).

    On our homepage we have a block of advertising links to one other site. This is just advertising, there’s no attempt to manipulate any form of pagerank by either party. Yes they pay us, but hell, that’s what the internet is all about isn’t it?

    Anyway, Following this drop in PR, I’ve made the following changes:

    added the text: “Sponsored links” above the block

    added html comments either side of the block in the HTML

    added rel=”nofollow” to the link tags

    2 questions:

    How long will it take before these changes put us back where we were?

    Is there anything else I can do to prove these are genuine links designed for users and not Spiders?

  762. Matt I have a question regarding accuracy of Google algorithm in detecting those sites who are selling paid links with an improvised concept. Take for example http://www.designfirms.org/ a web design industry directory. Apparently they try to make themselves appear as a marketplace but you n make out that this is nothing but an indirect way of selling links from high Page rank pages.

    In your PPT presentation on Paid Links Matt Cutts Google Software Engineer
    SES San Jose, August 21, 2007 you do mention that :

    Buying paid links that pass PageRank violates Google quality guidelines. But sites like Adbrite, adCenter who do not provide HTML backlinks are well within guidelines. If I apply this to CiderMedia, sites like :

    http://www.designfirms.org/advertising/information/site/
    http://topdesignfirms.com/

    and many others then they should all be penalised by Google as they are indirectly nothing but sites selling one way back links.

    I am sure that they will vehemently deny my remarks but my observation is based on the fact that HTML links on home page link back to design agency sites. Page Rank obviously gets shared through these links.

    Google should first punish the large Paid Link Sellers (direct and indirect) and then penalize minnows.

  763. How does it all affects the directories, are the directory links regarded as paid ? because most of them are.
    Now if we stop their revenue are they going to survive?

  764. I was surprised (although I suppose I shouldn’t have been) that Text-Link-Ads admitted that it prohibits NoFollow tags. For more details, visit http://digg.com/tech_news/Text_Link_Ads_Prohibits_NoFollow/.

    On a similar note, I noticed that Google recently decreased the pagerank on my sites with Text-Link-Ads to pagerank zero. Google’s latest efforts could put Text-Link-Ads out of business, since they can no longer sell pagerank. Well done, Google.

  765. It’sjust catch 22. Google’s algorithm puts weight on a site that has an inbound link from a high PR site. Of course the downside of this that broker sites are going to sprought up to sell links from high PR sites to pass undeserving PR which in term scams the search engine. The only true way around this is to do away with PR and develop an algorithm with enough artificial intelligence to know if a site is a good one or not. I don’t know how that can be done, but it’s getting to the point where there are so many worthless sites that have links off of high PR sites, so they end up on the front page even though they have no useful content on their site.

  766. I have heard so much about buying text links and we never have but I see that most of our top competitors have. I don’t want to turn them in since I don’t want to be the demise of a business but how are we supposed to compete against those companies that spend all that money buying text links. We are want to advertise on certain sites that will get us text link advertising that will also get us customers – I am little confused though. Is that wrong as well or is it just worng when you are just buying links just for the link.

  767. It’s really a joke…

    I mean. Isn’t selling advertising supposed to benefit the buyer in any way possible. What’s the big deal with buying links for PR? Sites with no PR still rank highly in many cases anyhow!

    The no follow tag, routing though a nofollow robots tag… etc… etc… etc… All Google are continuing to do is make it more and more difficult for smaller new webmaster to get a good foot in the market by forcing them to learn all of Google’s tactics before they even get going.

  768. I am a little concerned about this post and have a very specific question regarding an industrial directory. This directory provides 1,000’s of back links to websites advertising within their directory. They have specifically created a duplicate directory for search engines to spider. Now on one end the directory is relevant and well known within the industrial industry (Thomasnet.com) however they are indeed increasing the PR of their advertisers. The bigger investment, the higher the clients overall rankings. My question is – is this included in this call out of paid links? Or is this in agreement with Googles policy? We do not sell advertising on this directory, however many of our clients pay to be included, and I need to notify them if this is the case.

    Please advise.

    P.S. I really appreciate the time invested in this blog, I follow it religiously!

  769. Is it possible that a website can be completely dropped from index because of paid links were purchased? I would really appreciate some feedback or advise. Can paid link advertising hurt website so much that it will be completely banned?

  770. Hi Matt, seen you in Vegas at Pubcon! Great stuff! This is my first comment and I hate that it is to backup my company and also shed some light on this topic. With that being said, as a reply to Web 2.0 Designers’ comment, as owner of http://www.designfirms.org and http://www.topdesignfirms.com, we sell advertising and higher rankings in our directory only. The issue with this topic, whether it’s a banner, text link or even a click to call button, is that all web advertising needs a link. You pay for print ads and it should be the same with web ads. Our goal is to provide visitors to an advertiser’s site and generate sales on their end – helping make a name for them in the process. We started as a directory and are slowly moving to a marketplace. It is difficult to change from a process of selling advertising to closing deals for our paid customers. We sell branding, traffic and leads. We get on the phone for our advertisers to generate more business for them and us. Does this sound like buying links for higher rankings? If everyone was punished for selling links on the web, would Yahoo get penalized because you paid for inclusion in their directory?

  771. NoFollow? Sorry, I don't follow.

    After reading the original post, then reading Scotts post above (in reference to Web 2.0’s post) – I don’t see the problem with designfirms links.

    Matts examples above show a Linux site with an image based “paid links” header then links to gambling etc (non-related – non – linux sites) obviously this is unrelated sites just trying to game the system.

    Looking at designfirms, all the links are to, well to design firms – they are all totally related. The whole directory is based around designfirms and design companies – just what you would expect from such a directory

    Now, Google says in its webmaster guidelines, first and by order most important sentence under quality guidelines “Make pages for users, not for search engines.” http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

    Next Matt, you say in your respoinse above and I quote “The rel=”nofollow” attribute is one way, but there are numerous other ways to do paid links that won’t affect search engines, e.g. doing an internal redirect through a url that is forbidden from crawling by robots.txt. ”

    So what human benefit is there for adding a “rel=nofollow” attribute or any of the other methods you have suggested? You are clearly telling people to go AGAINST GOOGLES WEBMASTER GUIDELINES. (nofollow is not even a standard HTML attribute http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32 )

    There is NO human benefit, its a Google benefit so that Google can stop webmasters from dealing with Pagerank which you IMPOSED on the websites to begin with!

    Its completely unfair to punish a site for selling a link when the link is completely within the subject of the site – and is a benefit to the visitor (becaiuse the visitor is there looking for design firms or Linux, or Recipies whatever directory is about)

    I find this very disturbing, Google creates a ranking system, then when some people attempt to abuse the system Google created, innocent people get put out of business. If designfirms gets penalized for “selling links” and not adding some tag that Google wants them to add – they are essentially losing their business and probably the liveleyhood of the people who run the site just because Google changed the game. Now directories have to try to change the business model real late in the game.

    If any directory site turns around and says to their advertisers, “we are adding a nofollow attribute in your link because Google doesnt want us to unfairly give you pagerank” – how many advertisers do you think will stick around? NEXT TO NONE – because for the past 5 years all the buzz in the world haws been around pagerank, pagerank, pagerank – its the most important thing in the world – so these advertisers scrabmble to appease the great god google and buy, trade, post, swap links every chance they get – then all of a sudden, quietly, Google says “oh by the way, if you are selling (or buying) links were going to penalize you and you will lose your link sales revenue anyway, so better lose it voluntarily” –

    either way Google is putting people out of business – while at the same time violating their own guidelines

    Its a sad day for the internet and a lot of small business people who have spent years building up good solid and well made directorues are going to be forced into throwing away years of work to try and develop a new system that will be acceptable to google…

    There is nothing wrong with internet commerce, and essentially your saying that paid advertising is wrong because your PageRank system is affected by paid links. While I understand you are trying to make a better result for your users, so that more relevant sites are returned in search results, it appears that you are going to be taking down a lot of innocent webmasters in the process. I don’t like to come across spam results in the search engines, and most of the spam is generated from you Google – why do you think people are trying so hard to manupulate search results? Ill give you a hint…

    ADSENSE – the majority of the garbage on the web is there to sell your advertising. Which is why spammers try to get pagerank. If you really want to cut down on spam, try having your Adsense quality control team police adsense publishers.

    Eliminating paid links is really just a way for Google to corner the internet advertising market. When your practices are put into place under the guise of “elminating spam from your index” but the sad side effect is that it is going to put a lot of honest business people out-of-business because they can no longer sell links – it is hardly classified as “do no evil”

    by the time the link buyers realize that the only links they can buy are nofollow or redirect links it will be far too late for the mom and pop shops to recover. While Google will easily be able to weather that strom and will actually benefit from it while link buyers ultimately have to resort to buying adwords instead of buying links on dead or dying sites and directories that cant exists without advertising sales.

    If you really want to “do no evil” you need to take a closer look at what it is you are doing and exactly who will be affectted. This isnt a time to jump on Tokyo like Godzilla and destroy the entire city, there are a lot of good people living in linkville and this new policy is going to take down the good with the bad.

  772. But, what I really want to know is:

    If I were to obtain a legit. link from a site, which then went on and began selling links publicly, would I get hammered for it? And, is it against the “Google God Morals List” to buy links for PR? For instance, I’ve seen plenty bought/sold links on sites with high PR’s which also send a lot of traffic onwards – although the buyers may have been more interested in the traffic, it’s still a cause for concern that they may be hit hard by Google, don’t you think?

  773. Why not just use a few rating algorithms and let the user of google decide
    which they wish to use?

    That seems to be the wise business move by google.

    At times I just want to find some info out – normally I avoid google and go to wikipedia for now. Other times wikipedia is lacking so I move over to google.

    If I am looking to buy something I just use google or sites I know about. Business sites I expect to be linked up, and I don’t care if they paid for them or not.

    Information sites, need to make a little back to cover their costs and I expect commercial links on them to be relevant.

    I do click on the links people paid google for, often those are for ISP things.

    And if I use a review site I try to link from them to the supplier.

    Paid for links are quite useful IMHO, so are reciprocal.

    Both Google and Wikipedia need to reign themselves in a little though, I would actually argue that Wikipedia should not be listed by Google to ensure the quality of the Wikipedia.

    Google probably needs to improve the basic interface to their search engine now. Sure, it was a bold move to make it so basic and that was its appeal, but times move on and users can take a few extra buttons.

    They could even open up another domain for advanced users, watch how fast most of the entrance points change, and I am not talking advanced search, I want some type of snazzy interface; easy to use but lets me play with the ranking system myself.

    Google need to expose more of the innards in a useful way and stop worrying about finding the holy grail of one search algorithm, because it does not exist for everyone. With that said I would like to see 3 algorithms in the next year that are preselects, with the ability to fine tune and another 2 preselects added the year after.

    I am aware of the Gothic, BSD, Linux search engines but perhaps something a bit more clever. I want another search engine interface and network but you can leverage off the existing infrastructure. How about getting another company to pay for it, thereby rewarding your investors, using your know how, and getting more companies into the field. It would be nice to see another tech upsurge but we need diversification and google needs some friendly competition. Just imagine a world full of Ford cars, how dull is that.

    Actually it sounds like quite a good project for Google, I suspect they are getting into mantra land a bit at the mo, they need to shake it up but do it by thinking outside the box a bit. We know you lot are evil, in fact you are the epitome of it, but you know, everyone loves a sinner and you could try being a bit overtly wicked and get some of your edge back.

  774. Matt,

    Let’s say a blog does PPP or ReviewMe or a similar service. Let’s say they get 20 requests per month for these reviews or posts, and let’s say a reviewer only takes 5 or the 20 requests per month. Let’s say he/she only takes reviews of products that he/she endorses, and chooses not to review inferior products. Let’s say this person has a blog about electronics and all of the products that have paid reviews are in fact electronics.

    Please explain (if you don’t mind) the difference between this example and a paid directory that has not been penalized for selling links, such as BestOfTheWeb or Yahoo! Directory.

    I still am failing to understand the difference between paid links in a directory vs. a blog or any other website that sells links. I am not in favor of these penalties, however, whatever the “ruling”, I do think it should be equal across all websites, rather than these perceived double-standards.

    We have discussed this before, in brief in this post: Selling links that pass PageRank. Your reply referenced this article.

    I have been pondering this issue since then, and I have even made a post recently on my blog about the same topic (Click my user name if you care to read the post).

    Am I missing some important piece of the puzzle here?

    Thanks Matt,

    Jim McNelis

  775. I’m sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say: “I *am* in favor of these penalties, I feel the rule should be applied to all websites that sell links.”

    in place of: “I am not in favor of these penalties, however, whatever the “ruling”, I do think it should be equal across all websites, rather than these perceived double-standards.”

  776. I think Google should carefully consider what is a “paid link”, because your covering lots of terriroty and bloggers in general, especially one’s that make some of their income from paid links or sponsored reviews, etc…Doesn’t it still come down to content and quality of content? text links are in that gray area I know, at least one’s that are solicited for consideration. If you go to far, bloggers especially will revolt and with over half the indexed pages on Google being blog pages, that is something worth of considering even for the great Google. … I love you man!!! like the old bud commercials. dm

  777. Helped explain a lot, thanks! 🙂

  778. …I am still confused about the idea of paid links…

  779. I really think all of you here should stop your crying. Honestly what do you expect? Do you think Google is just going let you spam your way to the top forever? This is why we are all here. We are smarter then the rest.

    If you have a true business and you want to offer services. Get creative and find ways to get links the natural way.

    Just because you have some money and know how to find a website that offers a back end database to write a URL and alt tag should not grant you the right to be at the top. If you want to stay at the too, do the work and naturally find a way to get links.

    Google is a primarily marketing company, not a search company. To have the best product this is a necessary change in the market.

    To those of you that are sitting here crying you might want to get off your butts and start getting natural links, because I believe when they finish building this algorithm its going to include allot of “no value” links, and you will be left with very little.

  780. I agree with Gary Brok’s comment. I think the best to spend time is offering worthwhile things that people are willing to link to. Stop trying to get something for nothing by manipulating content. This is my opinion on how to build a site for better indexing and relevant search. If you are doing SEO for companies, ask yourself what you are getting paid to do? Amplify a company’s presence on the web or just try to make it rank higher in SERPs?

    Value adding companies need marketing, yes. SERP manipulation is temporary at best since Google is getting better at spotting your shotty work.

    That’s my take on this post. Hats off to Matt for helping to clarify paid links.

  781. I am never looking at other peoples paid links as I am too busy trying to find places to put my own links. It is really hard and takes so much time.. No wonder people want to pay for links.

  782. Google will never be able to stop SPAM. At this point I consider Google’s search results less relevant than ever.
    The entire purpose of your SPAM hunting is in fact forcing everybody to fight for “paid links”.
    Why Google can have them ?

  783. Google is becoming more and more like living in the UK, more stupid rules and regulations to prevent something that is not a problem in the first place.

    I don’t see any problem with people going out there and buying links, if they have the money to do it and they thin that is the best option for them then it’s fine by me, I don’t do and and don’t intend to now or in the future.

    However, what does bother me is that the so called biggest SE is bullying smaller companies into their way of thinking and could potentially harm others that have absolutely nothing to do with buying and selling links.

    What I am worried about is that sites that offer free links to members or users of their site might become affected by this stupid rule, we offer incentives for our users to use our forum more and offer them a link in exchange. This helps our community and also our visitors with a wide range of different sites all in the same industry, soon there will probably be a rule of no linking unless it is completely natural.

    The more you try to police the internet with stupid ideas – the more you destroy the mystery of the net and the interest that goes with it.

  784. Google launched more and more rules, which confused me alot. I have to be careful of our strategies and SEO technoligies, avoid using blackhat ways. But I can still see some other sites went listed before mine by spaming at many other sites. Comparatively buying a link looks much more reasonable.

  785. What about footer links which clearly mention which are given as a special thanks for donations. For example http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ gives a footer link to http://www.graphicsguru.com/ for the donation and this link gives the site PR7.

  786. I’m really baffled about the people raving on about this “Hate Google!” , “Google Sucks!”. Its either they’re dumb or they’re just using it as a marketing ploy. *shrugs*

    Anyway, though this was an old article, I think you should have emphasised the importance of the “rel=nofollow” tag back when you released it. Even now, there are still many people who do not understand or know that you can still sell links, just put the nofollow tag in that link so that Googlebot knows not to count that. Hope I’m right on this.

    What I want to know though, for this paid links saga, does Google penalize those paid links only, or the whole site in general? I should think that just penalizing the paid links by totally eliminating them should be better off?

    Sorry to be treating you like Google’s customer service :p

  787. Matt, I wonder what will happen if people start submitting false reports?
    I think this will reduce link buying and selling but still it can’t eliminate the whole thing.

  788. What about web directories? What are you going to do about some huge web directories that sell links? If you’re penalizing small websites with a few purchased links, what’s happening to the huge directories?
    I’m not going to post any of them, because I’m sure Google can Google them.

  789. Haha I just notice you used http://www.shadyseo.com in your example. You implying something Cutts?
    just kidding.
    Have a good day.

  790. I think the practice of bloggers reporting bloggers for paid links is insidious. If Google is so bent on abusing bloggers that make a living using various methods of blog monetization, it’s their job to fish them out, not mine. Should I also report all the insidious Adsense links that are paid links … only Google gets the money instead of the bloggers?

    As for relevance, Google results are far from relevant. Check out Google Hot Trends and see how many blogs make it into Google’s blog listings under Hot Trends within minutes of a keyword going hot that are nothing but splogs. In addition, the first page results for many top keywords are nothing more than cloaked pages that rank at the top for those keywords. I can spot a cloaked page a mile away and Google’s first page results on just about anything is full of them.

    I think that Google’s concern with paid links is more of a Corporate giant attempting to squash their Adsense competition than it is any concern about relevance.

  791. This is wrong, google should not be allowed to punish web sites for selling links. If someone owns a web site they should be able to do whatever they want with it, without having to worry about being devalued by google.

  792. can i take links on paid directory ….or that will also banned by google…i am putting lots of efforts to build links….thanks

  793. hi, Matts Cutts, my suggestion for paid links solution, please read,

    Why reporting, why not ask the webmasters themselves to enter their own paid links one by one,

    If google provides a section in the webmaster tools, where webmasters can enter paid links, both incoming and out going paid links, it will help a lot. That way google can dis-continue the paid links.

    Why not no-follow?
    People don’t use no-follow links because it’s visible to everyone that a particular link is no-follow or not, so if this suggestion is used, then webmasters will disclose their paid links in the webmaster tools section and this disclosure will be only with google and the webmaster. No one else will know that a particular link is no-follow or not!

    All it will take is a simple interface, like:
    Enter incoming paid links of your website – _______________
    enter out-going paid links for your website – _______________
    that’s it!

    If i use no-follow on the website directly then link-buyers, sponsors, other webmasters who bought the links, paid posts sites, link buying sites will know that am using no-follow. But if google maintains secrecy, then i can report all my paid links and make my site google friendly, what say!

    This small little tip, will break the backbone of link buyers, as those that sell links will cheat and tell google that these links are paid and don’t give value to those. The link buyers won’t be able to understand which link is no follow and which are not and hence All these google cheat SEO people will be worthless!

    Hey, just an idea, but i guess this will improve google’s index a lot, as webmasters themselves will tell which links on their sites are natural and which are paid.

  794. That’s all very well, you mentioned reporting spam links and the resulting Google checks and new tests for finding paid links, but how do you know the links were paid for? If the arrangement included a barter of some kind that adds value to the site and its visitors like a content blog review including hyperlinks.

    1. Is there really anything wrong with that?
    2. If so, how will Google know it was paid for and not a genuine review?
    3. Are we just talking about paid links, and/or sites saying place your link here for $20?

  795. Matt,
    I’ve been forwarding them to spam@google.com
    i know this an old article.. but i will be happy to send them somewhere else.. i have a blanket email address for 100+ SEO clients and i get about 10-50 requests/solicitations a day

  796. Over this past week I’ve been reading about how shady your company is Matt and I’m very disappointed. We reported several sites with irrelevant backlinks that were on the same domain that were ranked #2 in our industry. Actually, page 1 and page 2 for several keywords in our industry have results with companies not following “Google’s Rules”. We reported all of them. You and your company did not do jack. They still have top ranking. So to everyone…DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON REPORTING. IT IS A SHAM TO SHOW THEY CARE.

    Google is a joke. If you want to acquire links by any means necessary, just be careful. If you play the way Google wants, you get no where but a drained account from having your money go into their adwords account!

  797. Hi Matt,

    Apologies if this sounds cynical but reporting very obvious link buying seems to make no difference.

    The top 2 sites for an incredibly competitive terms are engaging in very obvious link buying and haven’t been penalised despite reporting them a number of times over the last 4 months. One of the sites buys a link with exactly the same anchor text for a very competitive word every time on dozens if not hundreds of sites including foreign language off topic sites and sites which advertise they are selling links.

    We’ve sent through numerous examples of this link buying through the webmaster console but no action has been taken.

    It’s very disheartening to the point where it’s tempting to go down the same router as the competitors as we can compete by using the white hat methods we’ve always relied on and our business is now struggling to compete.

  798. This is retarded! Google is the one who put the internet for sale, PageRank is what created the link real estate boom… and now you complain that people are buying and selling links? Well DUH!!! Of course they are, you gave them a value to base their links off of. Even though I would prefer to advertise on my favourite sites with nice flash banners I’ve made it’s much more valuable to advertise with paid links.

  799. It becomes a concern when the whole “paid link” issue is a bit ambigous.
    Adding your site to Yahoo Directory and paying for it is technically a paid link and the website would have never linked to your website if you didn’t pay, therefore it’s not organic in anyway.
    It seems the whole “level playing field” is nonsense, if you’ve got money you can buy links from many sites. It’s a very grey area.

  800. I still see no problem with people buying and selling text links for the proper reasons. Yes maybe site B that is advertising might not receive any gain in page rank from the purchase but text links can be a very valuable advertising avenue. It just worries me that Google may penalize sites purchasing text links down the road. That being said, I just stay away completely from that marketing area.

    -Brad

  801. Matt I would like to say speaking to people out there is there 2 sets rules 1 for large media companies that maybe able to be more critical of Google controlling the net .

    I see Forbes selling links Like under
    http://www.forbes.com/technology/
    Under Resources
    http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

    Are there 2 sets of rules 1 for the weak that cannot publish to the masses about Google trying to control the advertising space.

    I would appreciate your comments

  802. Cool great article i was looking an information like that. If we report these kind of links everyone compete for search engine results otherwise rich webmasters can crush others so there will be an injustice situation

  803. Quote:

    “If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.”

    Not to sound critical, but the sole purpose of most directories these days is to squash local businesses and hold them for ransom in the SERPs – this is the motivation for the business to buy the link…

    Just so I don’t sound like a nut, let’s have an example of this [hotels in sydney]. Aside from the local business map every single result on the front page is a hotels directory. The reason this is a negative thing is that the hotel with the biggest online adverting budget can simply go and list themselves in every directory, effectively buying a whole SERPs page. To Google’s credit, the local business listings really saves this page.

    As a dedicated Googler I have always thought the idea was that you can’t buy Google, but in the case where a whole category is just paid directories you sort of can? Isn’t this very negative?

  804. Maybe the term “paid link” that Google uses is very misleading and confusing. You should choose another term that describes the problem better. Many links are paid, directly or indirectly. BusinessWeek says “Buy a link here”, so it must be paid links then! Many advertising services are about paid links, including Google’s AdWords. Use another term or remove this altogether! I cannot believe Google didn’t think this through!

  805. How serious is the Google team taking paid links? I have seen several sites continue to improve their rankings even though they participated in buying 1000s of links. I’ve reported some of the links I know are paid links. And I’ve said no to the companies that keep offering to do the same for us. What’s an white hat SEO to do?

    We can’t wait for ever for Google to make a decision to either penalize sites that are buying paid links because our business depends on search traffic. Which are getting worse because our competition is buying links.

  806. The sad part is that although a blog can have tens of pages with unique high quality articles, it is still under danger of losing all PR with a simple mistake. Is there a way to get PR back by nofollowing all outgoing links etc. and applying for reconsideration after this?

  807. Basically SEO is a BIG CRAP SHOOT. Unless you have a product that is mind blowing and sells itself like mad, You pretty much have to do some manipulation. There is a scale from 1 to 1000 (White Hat to Black Hat) with SOoo much Gray inbetween. Because Most Gray gets away with it and Most Top Sites have used Gray to get there!! So, its only natural that most will try gray in some fasion or another to obtain their means. But after all, it is a crap shoot, you may roll big and win or you may loose it all. Plus there is a factor that most will ignor, and that is sabatage, it may not be wide spread but it does happen. Including saying something is paid when it is absolutely not paid or posting a link to some site, put a “paid links” on it. Then contacting Google and reporting. But even finking on someone will have a good chance of being overlooked or ignored entirely. So, Roll the dice. Good Luck.

  808. Google could also just kick one right in the pants just for fun too. I believe this constantly happens. Someone will work their brains out, have NO Paid links etc, yet somehow the dice did not produce a 7 or 11 and well,,, you lost.

  809. What if I’m trying to place my paid links on related websites. Say if I have a hosting company and if I pay and place links on hosting related websites such as hosting review sites etc.. Will Google consider it legitimate?

  810. Another view on the gray areas…

    Many associations like the American Dental Association have for decades accepted money to put their seal of approval on products. This is how they are funded, so it no small reasonable fee for the cost of reviewing. If you want your toothpaste to have the ADA seal, you have to pay.
    see
    http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2007/09/paying-for-product-approvals.html
    or tons of other articles that are just a Google search away 🙂

    So do the links at
    http://www.ada.org/ada/seal/company_consumer.asp
    Count under this policy?

    The don’t have no follow tags. The money was large, and no one who did not pay the money got a link.

    I’m not picking on the ADA, they were just a easy example. Plenty of others do similar things. In fact the ADA may be one of the better actors, they actually have standards the toothpaste actually has to have fluoride in it etc., plus pay the money. Many other medical/industry groups do not, if you pay, you are listed, no questions or standards.

    I’m not passing judgment, and I don’t have any recommendations. Just want feedback and thoughts.

  811. I am little late to comment on this post,but still I want to comment on it. Large corporations, banks, online business portals spend lots of money, put dedicated teams of specialists, to protect their websites. Still hackers find a way to hack their sites. In the same way, whatever Google do, web masters will difenately find a way to put their “paid links” to get batter PR and ranking. Atleast they will get short term profits. We all say that “Constructing something is difficult but destroying it(In my words,finding loop holes in it), is quite easy”.Google can become better and better, but can’t be perfect. So,in one or another way, “Paid Links” are going to exist here for long.

  812. If Google is against paid links, then why are they allowing text link ads to advertise on AdWords? I find it hard to believe it is for traffic purposes only

  813. The whole report paid links is a joke. All you have to do is buy a few links for a competitor’s website, report the links and bingo, Google will penalise there site. A better method would be to simply devalue the alleged paid link. What steps will Google take to make sure that the links were paid and that the owner paid for them?

  814. Opseo, that is scary! I know Matt has not revisted this thead in a while, but I wonder if he can eloborate on your comment. This is kind of like a white collar type of “Google Bowling”.

  815. Matt,

    I have already complained “Paid Link” throught form which is provided by Google. And my complaint is true not for joking and I have included very detail instruction but Google does not take any action to Link seller and buyer and no investigation… Why…? The Seller and Buyer’s are giant network/huge revenue maker/big concern? Else how long you will take time to consider?

  816. Matt, I was just offered money via an email for a link in my subject text by a website with a PR5 ranking. This is the only proof I have they are buying links. What the site does to earn money is a bit shady and though legal, it’s wrong. But that aside, how do I report this? I still have the email.

  817. Hi Matt!

    I’m all for quality results but I was just curious about one thing –

    There are some folks who pay bloggers to write a blog about them. Then again there are also bloggers who write a blog and link to other websites just because they think it’s a good resource, like for instance satisfied customers raving about a good product. How does Google determine if the link mentioned in a blog was paid or was done in good faith? Code-wise there’s no way of telling, right? So how can Google tell the former from the latter?

    Thanks!

  818. I guess I’m a little confused. I often partner with other webmasters in my niche, and although we sometimes do simple “link exchanges” where we attempt to support each other’s sites by adding free links to cool sites we genuinely like, sometimes these friendly sites want to buy advertising on my site. I feel like Google has manuevered to a point where it’s frowning on any type of advertising, even if the paid links are highly relevant to my site topic. For instance, I had a self-improvement website about affirmations upon which I accepted a few highly relevant, text-based paid links from sites I genuinely enjoy and these sites were very relevant to my subject matter. I received compliments from my site readers who found those links very useful and went on to buy things at those webmasters’ sites.

    I feel like an entirely innocent relationship is now called into question since that website had a page rank of 4 before I added those links and in the last update it was “punished’ to a level of page rank 1. That was the only thing I had done on the site in months, adding those paid links.

    But if I put Google’s adsense on my site and it shows relevant links (paid for by the vendors who pay Google for content advertising) it’s okay?

    I can understand going after spammy links, but I don’t like the intrusion into a process where webmasters are legitimately serving up relevant, high quality (paid) links to quality sites in their same niche. I don’t think webmasters should in any way be punished for that.

    Dan

  819. The problem here is that paid links are being spoken of as if these people were peddling child-porn or planning a terrorist attack or something sinister.

    It is an exchange of money for a link. There is NOTHING shady about that.

    ANYONE who actually assists Google with this by actually reporting anyone for buying or selling links deserves everything they get in the future when they decide that something YOU are doing is “shady”.

    Google is NOT the Internet and they have no right to dictate what practices on the internet are acceptable or unacceptable. Their job is to determine which sites are the most relevant for a search term and if their algorithms are so poor that they can only tell by counting inbound links then that’s their problem.

    They are effectively admitting to this by saying that paid links are such a problem that they ARE screwing the serps and now they need our help to tell them which are “genuine” links and which are paid.

    A more pertinent question might be “Is the link text relevant to the site?”

    By all means, if someone is buying links for “Office Furniture” when their site is actually selling something completely different, maybe google would be interested and if someone wants to tell them, then that’s their prerogative.

  820. MATT,

    What ever happened to the original and real paid link report form here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks ?

    And how does this compare with the “spam form” approach you now describe?

    Very confused!

  821. One more question. Feel free not to answer if its a sticky topic, but does Google tend to focus more on paid link moderation in certain industries over others? For example, if I look into a certain few industries, it appears that 100% of the top ranked (top 10) sites are very blatant in using paid links, and have been there for a long, long time. There is no question at all that these sites use 90% – 100% paid links to achieve their very competitive rankings, yet they never move regardless of spam reports.

  822. Hi, Thanks for your interesting Blog !
    I feel Google is going against the market here, surely, it would be much better , for companies, not to buy those links, and invest this money in other marketing method, specially in this days ..
    But Google is acting a bit weird here, and going against her own nature… I Would say, “Stop the war”, and go with the Flow:
    let people buy links, as much as they want….but don’t count them for PR .Google should think out the box here…. and find a better way to evaluate PR.. it will never be perfect, cause this is the way evolution works.
    But, it will change the game, and surely Google will benefit it and the users as well 🙂

    Lets take an example, Smoking weed, is against the law, in many countries, still 50% of the people I know, did smoke…The government, is fighting against, but we all know, people will keep on smoking (same as i was with alcohol 100 yrs ago)…

    Thanks,
    Ilan

  823. Hi Matt,

    A question about reporting weird types of spam not payed necessary.

    I have noticed a lot of spam links to a competitor and have uncovered a huge network of website with several thousand subdomains appeared to be creating thousands useless things non stop.

    v1gp5b.us/ 7,000 plus sub domains with link point
    xb8coe.us 5,700 plus sub domains
    d22rlx.us/ 10,100
    7wd7ya.us 5,330
    4xxsk2.us 14,400

    mccane-foods.v1gp5b.us
    sudan-1-food-dye-scare.v1gp5b.us
    callories-in-mcdonalds-food.v1gp5b.us
    fifties-foods.v1gp5b.us/

  824. i have 3 sites which are completely different from each other. but i want them to be interlinked. will i be punished by google? that’s funny. of course i want my sites to link to one another.

  825. using google adwords accounts on the same server and using the same keywords will create a problem because the one of the websites will charge almost double for the same keyword, why is that. Even if the quality score is a 7 on both advertisements.

  826. Google has too much power. It’s horrible that we all have to jump through their hoops. I have one perfectly legitimate site loaded with great information and having thousands of organic inlinks — not a single one paid — that recently got smacked down by Google for some unknown reason. I suspect it was something as simple as somebody at the Googleplex not liking the site, but good luck trying to find out.

    I’m going to disengage from Google — no more AdSense, no more gmail, no more search, no more analytics. No company should have that much power.

  827. I really disagree with this-somewhat. User’s reporting won’t know the difference between black hat SEO, and a webmaster who is trying to make money off a non-google-adsense advertising tool. A webmaster who can program their own custom advertising system, has slots and wants anyone to pay if their site isn’t that popular. Why does it have to be related to the subject matter? Bots should be smart enough to pick only the content on a page to dispay in search results, and not index navigation, ads etc.

    Ironically, I’ve received non subject related ads on my websites with google adsense before (for example a fart button ad). Should I report Google?

    Does anybody else agree with what I’m saying?

  828. @ Halfdeck (comment 15/4/07, 9:45 am).

    Asda now sits at number 35 (for a search on “car insurance” in my part of the world).

    Any thoughts? Did others beat them at their own game or were they rumbled by G?

  829. Sorry i’m not grasping this, if you buy space on a directory is that counted as a paid link or is it when you buy space on someones website? So having advertisement space could effectively damage the client? or am i well off track here, some help please.

  830. Hello Matt,

    I am accepting paid links in my one blog and other paid sites… until I heard Google might penalized sites accepting do follow paid links… so I stop doing paid post. but I was disappointed when my friend asked me.. wow you had a new post.. is that a paid post? when it is not a paid I only give link love the the site I found very interesting.

    I wish there is a way we can recognize paid post easily. 🙂

    Cheers

  831. I am afraid that Google will distinguish between paid and free… “bonus” or “award” links.
    It’s like… they make us use their Google Webmaster Tools to tell them about paid links. Then they sneakily sniff-hunt after them and potentially penalize us.

    I am not very happy about this reporting thing.
    I was enthusiastic about analytics, but now this?

  832. I like reading Matt’s blog but I also kinda hate it at the same time because…well…because it drives me to waste my time posting a comment when I should be doing other things. And as usual with previous comments…I am late to the party but what the heck.

    I would like ask a general question for those of you who seem to think that Google is all knowing and all seeing.

    Let’s say I have a web site. Let’s call it A. Someone else has a website that we will call B. Both websites are generally related in subject but not direct competitors. Site A sells a text link to site B that looks like an innocent and useful link for the value of site visitors. Site A does not indicate that the link is a paid link at all and does not use a nofollow tag on it.

    How is Google going to know that site B paid to get a link on site A?

    THEY CAN’T!!

    Some of you people seem to think that Google’s algorithm is capable of making chicken soup, of cooking you dinner, getting your newspaper for you, and otherwise discerning what is rolling around inside your hearts.

    Get real!

    Google can no more tell what our motivations are than I can tell what the motivation of any of you posting is! Not with any degree of certainty.

    Unless you come out and tell me explicitly why you are posting the comments you are…I can’t really tell. Who knows what dark and sinister motive lies lurking inside some of you.

    Google’s algo is fatally flawed. They value links. People go after links. And Google simply cannot tell completely which links are valid and which aren’t. Which one’s are natural and which aren’t.

    We have a problem Houston has now become “We have a problem Google”. A problem that isn’t going to go away and that is essentially unsolvable.

    Your own algo is causing a flood of spam as people jump on the linking bandwagon. And there is little that Google can or will do to put the genie back into it’s bottle. Welcome to the state of Google today.

    Incidentally the idea that one can create a wonderful and rich content site and wait around to get natural backlinks is in my opinion, a joke. Sure, if a wonderful site is ranked well it will get natural backlinks but if it is not ranked well…say down on page 10 or something, how is it supposed to get backlinks if not assertively and proactively going out there to acquire links (paid or otherwise)?

    Any webmaster who cares to wait around to get backlinks naturally is welcomed to be my guest and sit around all they want. I and the rest of your competition will leave you in the dust while we go out and acquire backlinks.

    Does that improve the search experience? Not really. But Google created the environment in which such artificial link building thrives. Google has turned linking into a commodity that is sold, traded, and otherwise used to determine relevance and value.

    Sure there are websites that have gotten thousands and thousands of natural links. But among the millions and millions of websites in existence those are the relative few compared to the countless who have not and cannot get such links easily if at all.

    Not every web site owner among millions of competitors can come up with awe inspiring, wonderful content, that everyone and their next door will talk about at the water cooler and more important create backlinks to.

    It never ceases to amaze me that people can fall for the line that all we have to do is create great content and people (i.e. backlinks) will just happen naturally. That’s like saying that if I go out and start sweeping the local street corner and provide value that way that people will start throwing me money. Things don’t work that way in real life folks and neither do they work that way over the Internet.

    If you sit around waiting for backlinks to come to you…most of you will be sitting around a very, very, v-e-r-y, long time.

    Carlos

  833. Good to see there is a tool for junk in your index.

  834. Many webmasters are selling links and not declaring those links to the search engine bots as paid links. Google never appears to take action against these webmasters or against their clients and the client’s websites continue to climb the page rankings ladder on the back of the paid links. While at the same time, webmasters and clients who’s sites do not break Google’s Terms of Service by selling or purchasing links, frequently obtain lower Page Ranking from Google.

    Google’s less that transparent business plactices and their willingness to allow/encourage these practices to continue, does not help to build confidence that Google abides by it’s aclaimed motto.

  835. Hi Matt,

    I bought a site recently and after, I found out ( seeing some posts on different forums ) that the former owner sold links :(. It seems that the web site is marked as a link seller now.

    I removed all the links from it and I would like to know if there is a way to get back on track with it as time passes ( do I have to apply for reconsideration request in WMT ? ) or should I bury the project forever ?

    Thanks in advance for support

  836. This post is now the most linked to article on this domain. Nice linkbait mattt! Find out how many domains link to this page…

    http://www.seo-doctor.co.uk/linkbait-most-linked-to-articles.html

  837. Hi,

    I reported a site that is so clearly using paid links (they have 50,000 links for the search terms versus 500-1000 everyone else has and the links are all in an unmarked box hidden as much out of the way as possible) but yet Google has done absolutely nothing. Nada. Does Google even read it’s e-mail?

    Very frustrating… if Google won’t actually investigate and take action then the only way to beat them is to join them in paying for links… something I don’t want to do!

  838. Matthew Lawson

    So to get someone elses opinion would you consider the links in the bottom right of the site paid links?

    http://www.aspergillus.org.uk/indexhome.htm?/aspergillosis.htm~main

  839. I knew a company that were buying links, overnight the websites selling the links went from PR5 to PR0 and the buyers site went down to Pr4… so it look like Google knows about this stuff but doesnt penalise buyers, just intelligently discounts the link value when it catches up.

  840. I reported a site that is so clearly using paid links (they have 50,000 links for the search terms versus 500-1000 everyone else has and the links are all in an unmarked box hidden as much out of the way as possible) but yet Google has done absolutely nothing. Nada. Does Google even read it’s e-mail?

  841. Hi, Matt,

    I just saw an ad for a company that seems to me to be selling backlinks for a hefty $12.95 each. But they claim they’re not really selling links at all. So I thought I’d ask for your “semi-official” opinion.
    The program is called Linker and is offered by Eightfold Logic.
    You signup, which is free, and fill out a form with your URL, type of business, keywords and the geographic area you want links to originate from. From there you go to a second page where you specify the PageRank, SEMOZ rank, and Alexa rank of the sites you’d like backlinks from.
    After an unspecified length of time Linker allegedly presents you with a palette of sites that meet your specs and you can select the ones you want links from. If you select one or more and the other webmaster establishes the link, you pay $12.95 per link (after the first three which are free.) If you select none or the link is never established for some reason, you pay nothing.
    Here’s what I consider the cute part. Like, for example, adultfriendfinder.com – which, legally speaking, could say the same thing if you substitute “sex” for “links” – Eightfold Logic says they’re only selling “introductions” not links.
    Still the fact remains you can only obtain a link using Eightfold’s Linker if you pay $12.95 for it. And once you’ve done that, could a link acquired in that manner really be considered “earned” in the G Guidelines sense of the word.? IMO, if it looks, walks, talks and emits unsavory odors like a paid link, it’s a paid link. But my opinion doesn’t matter. What’s yours.
    Thanks.

  842. Matt I would also like to see you comment about Linker. Does this model violate Google’s link building guidelines because its not truely editor based?

  843. ads served in google search also are do follow so are you saying that you are also breaking your own rules or have I made a mistake somewhere ?

    Vish

  844. Matt, I’m also waiting for a reply for this: “Very frustrating… if Google won’t actually investigate and take action then the only way to beat them is to join them in paying for links… something I don’t want to do!”

  845. What about hidden links??? kickasstorrents.com makes millions and his link profile is full of hacked sites. Even yahoo catched hime for a period.

  846. Matt, I think you are full of shit. Everything is based on traffic that’s the reason why people are willing to pay Google Adwords a ton of money. What kind of bullshit standard are you trying to set? You can make money but nobody else can right? I know Google has a huge resource but that doesn’t mean your head has to swell just as big too. All you are doing is creating another witch hunt like in the old days. Really stupid if you ask me.

  847. Ouch – just read the previous comment.
    I think Matt set the case very clearly at the top of this long page.

    “Q: This is all well and fine, but I decide what to do on my site. I can do anything I want on it, including selling links.
    A: You’re 100% right; you can do absolutely anything you want on your site. But in the same way, I believe Google has the right to do whatever we think is best (in our index, algorithms, or scoring) to return relevant results.”

    After all, it IS Google’s website and Google’s algorithm. If we do not like it, we can use another search engine.

  848. All the cool kids ranking top for competitive search queries are buying links, if you want to compete, 99% of the times you will have to buy links. I’ve yet to really see any real evidence of penalising websites that buy backlinks or any devaluation of website ranking where their link profile is heavily made up of paid links.

  849. What’s to stop your competitor on a keyword from using a program such as Spyglass to find all of your back links and target them all systematically trying to steal your ranking from discounting your links?

    While many will not be discounted I’m sure the problem of some legitimate links being identified otherwise would be enough to jump you in the rankings on a very competitive keyword.

    I would liken this to in real life where in most states all it takes is a phone call and you could have the law beating down the door of your neighbor on just a whim. I only hope that it is legitimate proof you are looking for a not just a tiny might be correlation!

  850. Are links on a web-designer’s homepage to their clients paid? Good question Johnmu, which happened’s to be a g employee. 🙂

  851. If this is true then looking at this page: http://www.linxtrading.co.uk everyone of these sites should be penalised. Big businesses don’t get these links for nothing.
    Also, what about the likes of Yell, Applegate, Business Magnet and Thomson Local here in the UK?

    If this is going to work there can be no favouritism not even for Amazon.

  852. I have a competitor with a poorly done static website (no changes) and their only SEO is buying Blog links. Virtually all the blogs have nothing to do with their business and the links and associated text are so lame, obviously paid filler. I’ve been dutifully reporting these paid links when I find them to the Google Paid Links page. Yet, their PR stays up and they are moving up in the listings.

    At one point these guys went from a couple of hundred inbound links to over 17,000, virtually overnight. Pretty strong evidence of paid links.

    Lots of noise from Google about paid links and penalizing sites that use buy them yet I see no penalty for this site.

    Very frustrating to play by the rules and see others benefiting from cheating.

  853. You signup, which is free, and fill out a form with your URL, type of business, keywords and the geographic area you want links to originate from. From there you go to a second page where you specify the PageRank, SEMOZ rank, and Alexa rank of the sites you’d like backlinks from.
    After an unspecified length of time Linker allegedly presents you with a palette of sites that meet your specs and you can select the ones you want links from. If you select one or more and the other webmaster establishes the link, you pay $12.95 per link (after the first three which are free.) If you select none or the link is never established for some reason, you pay nothing.
    Here’s what I consider the cute part. Like, for example, adultfriendfinder.com – which, legally speaking, could say the same thing if you substitute “sex” for “links” – Eightfold Logic says they’re only selling “introductions” not links.

    yes thank you

  854. Here is a good experiment by one of the SEOmoz users
    http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/a-paid-link-building-experiment-results-takeaways
    Join the discussion.

  855. Hi Matt (and wishing you a happy New Year).

    Just wondering whether you could shed some light on the frequency by which the “Report paid links” entries are look at. Is it regularly? or quarterly? as I’ve noticed some pretty unscrupulous behavior (relating to aggressive paid link buying) go unnoticed and without penalty. It’s actually laughable.

    Appreciate your comments here.

    All the best,

    El

  856. Thanks Matt,
    This article help to clarify the difference between advertising links (for traffic) and links for manipulation. It’s all making sense. Thanks!

  857. I think I was wrongfully penalized for paid links in the last Google PR update. My sites home page specifically was a PR 3 and despite a quality editorial link increase that included popular news sites I was docked down to 2 on just that page in the last update. That page contained a footer banner ad that passed page rank to a site that I am co-owner of.

    The link has all the characteristics of a paid link. It is at the footer, it passes page rank, and it is to a site with subject matter largely irrelevant to the site linking to it. I can see how it looks like a paid link, but I am co-owner of the site being linked to. If I am co-owner then it is impossible for it to be a paid link due to the simple fact that it is impossible to sell something to yourself.

    The link and all other links to other sites of mine have already been removed and replaced by a banner ads loaded via javascript to be on the safe side. That does not change the fact that I should not have been penalized for linking to myself. How do I pass page rank to new sites of mine without Google thinking my site has paid links?

  858. Great report, it’s good to know about all the options out there to keep the best results appearing in Google. You’ve made it clear here on what type of links are worthless for the flow of Internet information and It’s good for everyone. I never knew how to report a made-for-adsense site but I sure see a lot of them.

  859. MAtt, Thank You for two links (paid links and for spam report). This is useful for all people that work in marketing, seo and web industry. For me spam on the Internet increases avalanche – the more harder is niche, the more spam in it.

  860. To follow up on Elliots comment above, I have seen a site fly up the serps which I know to be buying paid links and know it has been reported by at least 4 people using the report paid links form all over a year ago, yet nothing has changed.
    If anything they are still climbing and still while buying the same links.

  861. Eddie, just a few comments above, mentioned a good article that seo moz did as an experiment from paid link building. I’ve been coached that paid link building is not worth the risk of being penalized. I’ve also been coached that building a relationship and making new friends is a far better beneficial way to get unique quality links.

  862. If I pay for advertising on a website and get a link back to my site for example blueskyscrubs.com is that considered buying links?

  863. Thanks for clarifying this topic Matt. People tend to be very lenient in how they classify “paid links”, so we need an authority such as yourself to actually “lay down the law”.

  864. After analysing my top competitors they seem to have average links – what is the best research method to attain more juicy links?

    http://design-lite.co.uk
    Printing services

  865. I think this issue, if cracked, would be googles icing on the cake. It would make the results a little more fair. But a tricky subject to address all together as its been over 3 years since this post started!

  866. If I pay for an advertisement lets say on CNN’s homepage and I get a link back to my site is that a paid link?

  867. Hi Matt,

    how do we go about reporting the network of sites?

    thanks,
    Alex

  868. How many more trojan horses Matt? Nofollow was supposed to help us point out links we can’t vouch for, now Google wants us to use it on paid links

  869. New to the world of SEO I’ve been very wary of the whole topic of paid links, and how they skew the organic search results. I’m relieved to see that there is a reliable method implemented by Google for reporting this sort of malpractice.

    Thanks Matt.

  870. The sad thing is google seems to do nothing about these sites, it even ranks sites that offer to sell links, maybe if they got rid of these things could be a little fairer.

  871. Hey Matt, on the off chance you read this would you give me a quick head’s up on something I have not come across before. Here in the UK there is a government department selling a product to the public on a commercial basis, there are lots of private companies trying to compete in the industry but this gov.uk ranks top of Google! They run this commercial activity on a .gov.uk domain which is against the rules of such a domain extension. Would google act on a report on this and consider an index removal? If so, how can we report it and where?

    Cheers,
    Steve

  872. What happens to the spam paid links after reporting to google webmaster’s consol. Does Google down grades the ranking of those sites ?, then why is there is so many sites still offering paid link services?

  873. Hi Matt,

    We have noticed websites buying other websites just for the sole purpose of getting their link juice. Isn’t this the same as having a doorway site?

    Regards,
    Joe

  874. I was always under the impression that google disliked paid for links so surely if i were paying for links i would not want to arouse suspicion for google.

  875. Hi matt,

    Really informative article, Love the whole Q & A thing. I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes out for people selling links and submitting reports accordingly =)

    I do have one question…I have noticed a few competitors for my own websites have links from paid link and “high page rank seo” directories. I feel that this is an unfair advantage they have over me and they are purposely manipulating your algorithm to rank above resources that are genuinely popular with real internet users. Do you intend to bring a way for people to ‘snitch’ on the competition, so to speak, Like on a case by case basis of each link, or will you just be dropping entire link selling directories from your search results?

    Hope this reaches you

    All the best

  876. Thanks for themessage! I am bookmarking this now.@CRLF

  877. Hi Matt,

    Thanks for these pearls of wisdom I will certainly sign up and see if I can have my paid links tracked.

  878. 3 years on and Google has gotten even more advanced!

  879. With all the new google algo updates etc. it would be cool with an update to this article?, so we know what’s new and what’s not.

  880. Hi There

    One of my websites has been a target from one of our competitors who have been purchasing links for my website as part of their negative seo campaign. How do I go about reporting the links to Google? Will it hurt my site at all by reporting these links?

    Also I have been disavowing the links, but they just keep continuing to build new horrible, low quality paid links to my site from bad neighborhoods.

    Your help will really be appreciated.

  881. I do think that this is crazy as people put paid banners on sites that link to somewhere. Even adsense text links are paid links.

    Paying for links is not just about SEO, it is about making money, just as Google makes money.

    I am over all the rules and I am building quality links for real traffic, not SEO. If I have to pay for a link I will as that is just part of business.

    It is not my fault that Google does not want us to run our businesses like a business.

    The ONLY judge and jury for my websites is the users that visit them!

    • mitz, you have the right to make your website however you want. But Google also has the right to protect the quality of our search results, and we do that by taking action on sites that violate our guidelines.

      You say “Even AdSense text links are paid links.” But our guidelines are about paid links *that pass PageRank*. AdSense ads don’t pass PageRank or affect search engine rankings in any way, so they don’t violate our guidelines.

  882. Hello Matt Sir

    I find many directories who have some sites links and they have network of directories and all site in this network are very bad for seo back links almost toxic links

    Now when we contact them to remove our links then they simply mail us and asked to pay to remove our links

    We contacted almost 20 sites like this and all are in same directory network and just reply me with a website and asked us to pay if we want to remove backlinks

    Now what we can do in this case

  883. Actually, if Google used facebook links, and used some simple graph theory to isolate/isolate bad networks, then they would have this problem licked. Google + could work too, except that google + just doesn’t have the mass of daily users needed to generate meaningful stats.

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