Paid Links Boom Despite Google Ire

The importance of links to Google’s website page ranking system PageRank (see above) has created a booming trade in paid links, with website paying hundreds and even thousands of dollars for ‘ranking juice’.

Google hates this and does everything in its power to punish perpetrators.

Some think in the local SEO industry think this is a little pointless, since Google has created the linking monster it is now apparently trying to contain, and people being people will always try to rort the system.

Clearly, paid linking of the ‘boost your site’s ranking kind’ is still working a treat despite the best efforts of Google to stop it.

But there’s no question Google will persist, as the company explains on website:

“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

“Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag
• Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

“Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank.

“If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank, let us know. We’ll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links.”

In other words, tell us who’s cheating and we’ll take action.

But critics say all this does encourage malicious behaviour and is no solution.

In fact, it’s hard to see how Google can control the beast unless it rebuilds from scratch, which won’t happen.

PageRank, remember, is at the “heart” of Google and was created by the company’s founders – just imagine the sentimental value.

Meanwhile, there’s little doubt I will continue receiving emails such as the following, which was sent to me by a very respectable Australian online business:

Hi, We are willing to remunerate you with a once off fee of USD $50 for placing a link to (website name deleted) from searchengineroom.com.au.
Also, we could pay a once off fee of USD $40 for a link on your links page.

Or, if you don't mind having entire page about our site, then we can create a page (with text which is to be approved by you). Then, you'll just need to upload this page to your server and link to this page from anywhere on your site. For such page we can pay a once off fee of $100.

Awaiting your reply….

Surely my site is worth more…

Search Engine Room: December 6, 2007