Hi guys, I wrote an article on what are the potential methods of detecting paid links (available here). Please, help me out and feel free to add some more ideas that I didn't think of.
nice article, but i think that google already buy links on here, there are a few google employes on here with 100+ itraders. a little secret - but you cant tell anyone, i work for google buying links using 4 different accounts, shhhhh its a secret, lol
#8 You sold it to Google. If the link is high $$$ per month and advertised as high PR then they may look into it. It would be easy to send a "pm me the url" and pay nothing.
I would post a comment on the article, but would rather not have my user name and/or website on an article about selling links.... There is one obvious one that I think deserves to be mentioned, although maybe not in the list but possibly in the introduction. That is "not using rel=nofollow". For gbot, the very first step in analysis is whether nofollow is used or not. If yes, it's ok. If not, start looking the list of factors. /*tom*/
Once you use the "nofollow" attribute, then it no longer matters whether the link was paid for or not.
#4 is funny ) Because google analitycs is a .js and spiders don't load js-files, so google will not know if the links are checked by spiders. #5: "Google knows the theme of your site" - you think that google is smarter than it really is
sitewide links. I strongly feel that google will if it doesnt already count sitewide links as link exchanges and or paid links. Sitewide links dont appear natural and they arent. The keyword is natural, when a website legitimately recommends another website ala a link, they usually place that link within an article or relevant page within their website.
Well there's a lot of times when sitewide links are natural - for example a web design company putting a link to their site on each site they design, or each wordpress template they design, or a blog with blogrolling enabled, etc etc. What google has done and will continue to do is devalue sitewide links to the point where they're not worth the trouble. For example on a 500 page site with 500 links, they may count a percentage of those links but nowhere near the full 500.
There is no way to automatically detect paid links. I think they are having people (what would thousands of google employees do anyway?) check sites of interest manually.
Kenbrower...what you just explained is NOT what a natural link is. A web design company placing its link on its clients website is for self promotion. That site will NOT be related to a web design company. A natural link is when someone on their own free will places a link to a site because they feel it has value to their visitors because it is in relation to what their website is about. A web development company's link holds no value to a visitor only if they like the design of the website and want to go with the same design company. LOL...Kenbrower...is your site also saveondurex.com? I have been buying condoms from your site for over 4 years. In fact I used one just a few hours ago lol. Im entirely serious..not even joking, found you on ebay long time ago.
I think Google can easily identify Adsense click fraud generated by js files, so they are likely to intercept js querries to a specific page on your site. Adsense is a good example of that and the fact that your site shows up in serps under the keywords directly connected with the site's theme is also a good example.
Google can create a database of suspected paid links and then create a small list of high probablity paid links. Then have someone people in India manually check the paid links for high value keywords. Obviously they will only get a fraction but think of how many sites 5000 people can check a day. They can run three sifts so all you need is an office building that holds 2000 people.
Google may be able to detect certain link patterns or even have people manually viewing links as suggested, however how will they ever know if any link is actually paid or not. There is no way for them to know if any money changed hands or any barter occurred. Simply because there are site wide links, footer links or anything else doesn't really prove anything. What Google wants is for all links to be Nofollow. Until then G can/will ASSUME that any link is paid.
Google doesn't have to know if the links are paid or not. If the links fit a certain pattern they can block the ability of the page to flow pr.
You are right and I think this is way so many sites have received some kind of a penalty that may not have deserved it. It doesn't matter if you are actually buying or selling links but if you fit their "profile/pattern" then to G you are guilty...smack...end of discussion.