I do agree with you. Their ranking methods has been heavily compromised lately and thats what forces Google to address their problem. But there are many doubts following the webmaster along with this, questions like how will they know if my link is paid or not even is someone choses to link with lets say MTV.com from his sidebar and has no knowledge over what is going on with the new terms of Google and doesn't place a nofollow tag in his link? Ok, that can be easy "who would think that MTV.com buys link from your site" but thats just an example, one day it might come up in my mind and place your link on my sidebar just because i like it and want to share it with others, without the need to write a whole post just for linking with your site. This is a delicate line which can improve google algorithm a lot, but it can easily hurt newbies ranking with penalization.
Hey I feel really bad google is going to shut down your business When you get ready to close up shop can you toss my sites some free one way links???? LOL Link fire sale????
It's hard to tell what is a paid link and what's not, unless you label it or promote it. This is an idiot rule and I can't see why people would report paid links unless they actually work for Google.
No way this will ever work. How do they know what links are paied, which are exchanged <--- which is also just to get a higher PR for most. (i.e trick SE which is not allowed) Google cannot tell every webmaster to add nofollows to their links, it would be billions of pages. If you dont read that guys blog, have they/are they going to/ email everyone about the new update? I cannot see textlinkads liking this -- its basicly saying their system is not allowed.
You have to love the largest link seller in the world telling others they cannot buy and sell links. Google is not God......they might think they are...but they're not
If you are going to sell links, do like trade magazines do: Product seller:"Will you review my product?" Magazine editor:"Oh, of course, it looks great." Product seller:"I will look forward to it, thanks!" Magazine editor:"So to get started would you like our $3800 half page ad, or our value deal of a full page and a banner on our site for $8000?" If you read trade magazine you will see product reviews and surprise surprise there are glossy ads for the same product. The reviews don't say sponsored review or nofollow. It wouldn't be a bad model to develop, links embedded in reviews....ooops, did I see something like reviewmygreatproducttogetlinksandPR.com?
Hi, I think Google is going to do something along the lines that the music industry did with some of the p2p sites. They will make some highly visible "examples" of key sites. Just a few examples will probably be enough to slow down paid links a lot. It is not too difficult to find a few sites and then lower their PR. The word would get around very quickly. Google is, I believe, preparing for the crack down by providing plenty of warning of what is and what is not permissible. I am sure that they are aware of bad PR, and are attempting to avoid it. Rich Rich Hi, I think there are many ways to determine whether or not a link is paid for. Google does not have to do this thoroughly. They can just do it for some (like the music industry went after some colleges for illegal downloads). I think this would be enough to put a real damper on the industry. Rich Yep. I don't think Google is really after these type of one-off "paid for reviews". I think they are after the really large scale link farms which are distorting their SERP. However, I think that ultimately they will have to re-evaluate their algorithms but while at one time links may have been a good way to judge the value of a site, this may no longer be true. But, that said, Google still returns the best results which is why I use it. Rich
question: sites linking to you do not hurt you. now that google is gonna start paying more attention to "paid" links, will incoming links start hurting rankings? or will they just be weighted less or what (sites that don't comply to the nofollow rule i mean). or will they punish the actual directories?
I don't and won't but links anyway...BUT..the advertising link issue is perplexing. Google is like Darth Vader....even more evil than Microsoft.... Don't tell them I just said that....I'm sorry
Its very hard to implement their crqackdown without rewarding the ones that are buying links with a bit of research. Say for example there are 3 methods of determining a paid link. A,B and method C. Google decides that they penalise A and B to show you evil internet marketers. Whose going to benefit? Internet Marketers whose link buying methods is only detected by method C and also innovators that have caught on to the idea.
The whole thing smells like big business, and not Google engineering. What guidelines did Google recommend to webmasters when they first started? None. Their search engine was great then. You could blame webmaster manipulation for these current absurd rules, or you could blame the failure in their system. The way I see it those rules are just setting them up for a fall, or at least a failure in that region. It's like trying to block spam domains. What are they going to do? Make a list that just goes on forever with bad webmasters not complying with their system. Their super computers might keep up for a while, but it's just going to bog them down in the end. They may even be forced to realized that we are not bad webmasters, it's just our sites are not designed by the Google How To Make More Money Department. I think a better solution for them is to simply reevaluate the back links. Not necessarily doing away with their value, but just rethinking how they add value. Things like: are the links on forums, blogs, humor sites, political sites, directories, or whatever categories they want. Each category having a value they think, and we never know. I am sure there are lots of ways they can quickly analyze the links, and score them. Whatever, just hate hearing about what they are trying to do. They are editing your site by suggestion for their profit. Stop it! And of course I used the Google form spell checker
I have said it from almost the day Mattys blog went live.... but oddly enough the message did not seem to get through.... as it seems there are a lot of people who read his dribble daily....judging by the comments to his threads I would say there are a few still unsure lol
Earth to the terminally ignorant! Earth to the terminally ignorant! ... 1. Matt Cutts is the HEAD of Google's anti-spam division. Calling him a Google puppet is just dumb. He works for Google. He plays a major role in policy setting and development at Google. He posted an alert on his blog and, as I noted in the first post of this thread, whet he posted is now enshrined as an official part of "Google's Guidelines". 2. Sem-Advance, on the other hand, is not. His specialty is posting away like the proverbial room full of monkeys with typewriters, all sound and fury signifying nothing. Hello? It IS Google's search engine we're talking about. Of course they have a "say" in it.
I think it is just another Google scare tactic. I can't see how they can legally do this..if someone is running a business selling links how can they tell the difference and how can they discriminate.
We have some good directories who buy links left and right. Their PR is still intact, so I am not worried for now What about the footer links for tempates and scripts? Some of the tempates coming out are coming out with 3 or 4 links. when you add the script link, it takes the footer for granted. Are the footer links paid: Well Yes They paid the designer/Coder to hang the links there. Google has log way to go abou that. <<<If the big fish gets it, small guys can start thinking>>>