Is buying links blackhat?

I agree. I think some people are getting the wrong idea that anything outside of Google's webmaster guidelines is considered "blackhat."

 

Is it blackhat ? Not really. We are kind of treading on a grey path here.

Link buying can be done for various purposes- boosting SERPS, increasing PR and traffic being the three primary ones. While buying it for pure traffic reasons ( with the no follow) seems to be the most ethical solution, it is ultimately traffic that you are seeking from the search engines when you buy it for PR.

Is link buying whitehat ? No, because it isn't the way Google wants you to reach the top. They want you to do it naturally. Unfortunately, in the world that we live in, that isn't simply possible. People don't like to wait in queues, and they are certainly not going to wait for a " natural " increase if others around them want to take the quick route. Some of these quick route taking guys do have the best interests of the public in mind ( for their sites are indeed worth visiting) and they see no harm in giving their sites a little boost as the site goes on growing. After a certain point of time, nobody buys links anymore , because the site pulls in enough links by itself. Link building is usually done for brand new sites, because like it or not, they need to be taken care of so that they can stand on their own legs later.

 

if Google started punishing sites that have paid for links pointing to them, then I would kindly buy some links for my competitors
That's why Google won't do that.

But yes I think it would be classed as blackhat, as it is against their guidelines

 

If you are investing in your site for exposure then I don't see the problem.

 

In my mind, blackhat has to require some skill, and ingenuity to be true blackhat. Everything else[like link buying] is just misbehaving kids.

 

And in what kind of ideal world would google know the difference, if people don't implement the nofollow tag?

oh well

 

Any methods designed to manipulate serps ar considered black hat SEO, so buying links is definitely black hat SEO. But it's difficult to prove if you buy links in small quantities and from trusted third parties and not from links selling companies as they leave footprints by their linking behaviour . eg your link apprears on pages with same linking pattern as many other sites.

 

Yes if they aren't nofollow according to Google's webmaster guidelines.

 

I have some questions regarding this. There is no point starting a seperate thread. My questions are:

1. If I sell links with the no-follow tag, can Google still penalize me?
2. What is Google's stance on selling banner ads? the no-follow tag doesn't arise if there is no anchor text, or does it?

 

I guess they can do whatever they want? Is it likely? Doubtful either way.. With or without the no-follow

I'd say pretty much the same thing.. Non-issue..

 

Yes, buying backlinks is black hat. Probably you won't be banned from a search engine. But you will lose your Google-Pagerank.

 

You have evidence of this?

 

OK. My mistake, I was talking about selling back links. Sorry. Going to sleep.