God I hate Google. Man, this is the pits. And I don't even sell links! THEY made PR a big deal. Now they want webmasters to rat eachother out for trying to get it? Man. That's awful.
I'm surprized this thread made it this far when there are at least three others of similar content. I guess it goes to show that the people using the internet are fickle, and what works for one will not work for another. As far as the paid links thing goes, I can see where google is coming from on some level, though I do fear that reducing the value of footer and header links will drive the price up on post links (forums/blogs/articles) while this can be good for me, it's not so good for the people reading my blog/forum/article. *I* should be the trustable one and put things in my footer, but if I'll get $2 for that or $20 for a blog post, sorry, but I just don't have to look at the blog post once it hits page two... I also think that we should worry less about 'text link ad' and worry more about our own B/S/T forum. I really think we need to make Buy, Sell or Trade forum members only... At least that way someone will need to physically report link sales here. Just my 2 cents, Q
What about the idea/myth that on-topic, on-theme links are so much more valuable to your sites ranking? If that were true, all those off-topic paid links would'nt be messing up the search results would they?
It this goes on larger scale byuing/selling links will just go underground, you will see many private forums, subscription/approval websites, enclosed communities where new members has to be checked etc..
The whole thing will open up loopholes for others and Google will get hit badly. New branches of searchengines will pop up. Remember, we can live without google but google can't live without us. Although Google has contributed many good things to internet communities, it is now probably driving the opposite direction. Since Google search, adsense/adwords nothing really breathtaking has come from Google then, even though expectation were so high. All they do now is polstering their interests and tear down on their obligations for self interests.
matt cutts got flamed on threadwatch. if you think about it, google is hypocritical and have double standards because they make money selling...you guessed it, LINKS
For what it's worth, Matt mentioned that the links in articles, etc. are also included in their definition of paid links. He's not saying that you can't sell links but do it for the purpose of traffic ...not SEO. Which brings me to my point about commercial websites that do not have lots of content and thus, is unlikely to "grow" their links organically. How can they ever rank high in the results? Hence, is this just a strategy to kill SEO and force all commerical websites into advertising on Adwords? Btw, I didn't know about this thread and had actually blogged about my thoughts on the paid links issue in case anyone's interested to read.
Why is google trying to turn everyone against them. We all put websites on the web as a business. Alot of websites earn their money from advertising revenue just like Google. Why can they do it and when we do it they want us to stop.
This is madness from part of google. They are not an Internet authority to tell us what to do and what not to do. How to do business. Google is just a search engine and it should remain as search engine. not trying to be a dictator.
Agreed -- we need to start moving link sales further underground to avoid making this game too easy for Google. We should also stop posting URL's directly in the BST threads only providing them by PM.
Google wll then start hiring ppl from India and china, who can manually login and ask people to pm them url's
I am sure there will be lot's of reports if they really start taking paid links into account for the rankings. This is what I originally meant by webmaster's wars.
Do you really think they would go that far? That would be real big brother stuff and certainly turn a lot of people against G
I do think If they can't have system which will do it automatically they will hire ppl to do that. I have seen google advertisements here in India about hiring ppl who have basic knowledge about internet and searching on internet to find adsense TOs breakers. LOL
They can't do that - it's entrapment! Trying to entice webmasters to slip-up. If Google do that they really have plumbed new depths. Yahoo here we come!
Yep They can't but it seems they continue....doing this until live or ypn come up with something strong.
Since we'll continue to react to Google's moves to imrove search results, we need to start planning ways to promote our sites within heir framework. Waht is the alternative?