Google has spoken about building links, now what?

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/12/building-link-based-popularity.html

Google has vested interest to protect there bottom line. ie google adwords.

Recently they blogged about the current situation of link building and the "proper" way to do it.

I am not surprised they did this, it was only a matter of time.

I must say though that I have not seen any proof, YET, that they are doing anything differently with their algorithms to combat people who buy links or have "exchanged" them.

The blog isnt clear and consise by saying reciprocal links are BAD and discounted.

What I have gathered from the blog post is that google doesnt like scheme's involving exchanging links in an attempt to increase rankings and PR.

Im curious what other peoples take on the rather vague blog post are.

 

What stands out to me is this phrase — "...the risky and short-term option of non-earned backlinks via link spamming tactics such as buying links. We've always taken a clear stance with respect to manipulating the PageRank algorithm..."

That statement seems to say that Google considers link buying to be:
1) link spamming and
2) manipulating the PR algorithm

That does not sound like ground I want to tread upon!

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/12/building-link-based-popularity.html

 

I disagree.

Once again, I'll reference this post: Thousands of Reciprocal Link Partners & Getting Nowhere in Google

Although a few link exchanges with relevant, quality sites won't hurt you, it's not really an effective linkbuilding method (other than the initial task of getting indexed).

In my opinion (and that of many others), the four best ways to obtain meaningful links are:

1) Writing content that attracts natural links
2) Submitting to quality directories that charge a review fee (this means they do actually reject submissions)
3) Writing articles and using a service such as iSnare to distribute them (this is my personal favorite). Not only do you get a lot of backlinks from different sources, but a large percentage of the backlinks have the anchor text of your choice
4) Purchasing a few links from relevant "authority" sites

If you do decide to do a few reciprocal link exchanges, keep the following things in mind:

1) Avoid sitewide link exchanges-Cheapens the link value and ruins any chance of it appearing as "natural"
2) Exchange on opposite pages-If you are exchanging links to your homepage with someone, one of you should place the link on a page other than the homepage. This makes it less of blatant link exchange.
3) Vary your anchor text-Don't use the exact seem keyword for every single link exchange. If all the links pointing towards your page have the exact same anchor text, it's not going to look very "natural"

 

I'm here from http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=211264
(Recip vs 1-way) I feel like I'm driving around town, or something

This paid linking thing concerns me as well. Most of my one-way quality back links are purchased. My question is, how would Google know if a link was purchased?

 

magic powers

 

matt cutts scrapes all the exchange and market forums on the internet .. he'll get ya

 

I for one have had it to my back teeth with Google's dictatorial atitudes. I'm sick of being brow beaten into what I can and can't do with my own sites and am now simply paying no atention to them. There are plenty of other search engines out there that stick to what they are designed for... providing a search facility for the masses.

 

Google is the Big Brother.

You like them or you don't.

they rule the Internet and each and every decission they made is going to impact if you run a web site.

there is no escape, you just have to live with it.

That is my $0.02

Thanks

 

I still want to know how the heck they are going to factor in buying links into their algos!

 

They aren't

What you're referring to applies to buying links for "PR Juice"

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060927-074214

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060707-111419

From Matt Cutts interview at http://battellemedia.com/archives/002917.php:

W3C Schools is listing its supporters' websites on Page Rank 9 and PR7 pages in exchange for donations, $1000 a pop in cash or trade (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/sup). Speculation on this is buzzing because though W3C is a well respected educational resource many SEO blackhats endorse similar tactics. Does Google consider link selling a type of webspam against Google's TOS? And if so, should we expect to see some kind of a censure on W3C? Or how does it differ from what Google considers webspam?

"I've said this before in a few places, but I'm happy to clarify. Google does consider it a violation of our quality guidelines to sell links that affect search engines. If someone wanted to sell links purely for visitors, there are a myriad number of ways to do it that don't affect search engines. You could have paid links do an internal redirect, and then block that redirecting page in robots.txt. You could add the rel="nofollow" attribute to a link, which tells search engines that you can't or don't want to vouch for the destination of a link. The W3C decided to add a "INDEX, NOFOLLOW" meta tag to their sponsor page, which has the benefits that the sponsor page can show up in search engines and that users receive nice static links that they can click on, but search engines are not affected by the outlinks on that page. All of these approaches are perfectly fine ways to sell links, and are within our quality guidelines. "

 

I particularly like the following snippet from that article....

It is Google that has actively encouraged webmasters to move away from concentrating on their users and toward "search engines" (meaning Google to be accurate), with their countless "algorithms". Their ludircrus Page Rank system is what has created this virtual horse race in the first place.

Hypocracy at it's best.

 

This is interesting. So, there is the possibility of an unethical webmaster selling high PR links to unsuspecting "PR Juicers" only to put a 'no follow' tag in the robots.txt file which, in effect, protects there own rear from a Google penalty, but nullifies the link they just sold to the buyer!

 

They are just trying to talk it down to deter people from taking the link buying path. Buying links, particularly the right kind of links, still works great.

Take everything Google says publicly with large doses of salt. It's like politics, what they say is not always what they do. What they say has a purpose other than what you think it directly means.

If your smart you can create a "natural" linking pattern. Vary your sources. Buy some links, trade some links, get some free links, spam a few links. Diversify, diversify, diversify. It's not about one type of linking being a magic bullet.

1000 recip links on their own are shit. But 20 recips + 300 free directory links + 10 paid directory links + 25 article submission links + 10 3-way traded links + 10 spammed blog comment links + 5 awesome relevant links from high PR sites (you paid dearly for these), will do wonders for many sites. Make your anchor text natural too. Mix it up, but weight it more heavily towards your targeted terms.

I'm pulling those numbers out of my ass, but you should be getting the picture.

 

Well said.

I spend a lot of money for the site I manage buying relevant links for traffic and organic growth purposes.

The comment I made earlier about not seeing much of a change was mainly on the front of buying links. The niches I watch I have seen 0 change in the SERPS. (granted this is a niche where the first 2 pages of results are sites that people buy links for)

To me it seems like google is just touting there horn and scaring webmasters.

I am still curious though if reciprocal links/ exchanged links are really losing all there weight.

To me it is ridiculous to expect webmasters who create websites, especially ecommerce sites, to have to use link bait as the ONLY tactic of increasing their ranking in the SERPS. Which is basically what I gathered from their post.

 

Since W3C add NOFOLLOW tag here is a question ? Who will buy this links ? That small-to-middle guys who think about such case ? No, some big buys just for branding. Google based on linking so it's their job to improve it, not to tell webmasters what to do. "in exchange for donations" LOL, well said.

Also "build website for users and not for SE" - also another BS, however well promoted. Need to be "and for SE even more" cause nobody will find it if you just average Joe and don't give you that one-ways. And it's questionable what is worse - relevant exchange with established site with few links on page or spamming blogs (with intention not to say something usefull, but simply short post with links with keywords in signature)

Googly simply force people in inderect way to use their moneymaker - Adwords. They simply don't have enough power to control that crazy link schemes so why don't just scare webmasters with new PR story (using established SEO gurus of course) ? It works. As you can see it works.

Google clearly stated their policy on their website and I can still can't find something about any particular link scheme.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

Until it's based on money "Make pages for users, not for search engines" will not work.

Question for Google. How small shop selling gold jewelry or gift baskets can compete in SERPS if he don't allow to pay for links and/or exchange them ? Maybe submit phony stories to Digg ? How much customers it will give comparing with top SERPS ? Maybe spam blogs ? Well, there is no common sense Oh, I forgot... he can just use Adwords

And I agree with manageyourlinks and axemedia. Just typed when they already post

 

nofollow is a tag used in the a href like this, not what you stated:

<a href ="http://www.example.com" rel="nofollow"> text links </a>

Just thought I would clear that up

 

Tyler, and I disagree with you. The proof needed. I don't fall for gurus.

I can show you the link for which I will fall.

Here it is:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

Oh, and A. Wall was a nice guy but just fall for money. I am not saying it's bad But he just give not so sure reply why SEO-Guy still using reciprocal link campaigns in compete are like real estate Also I can't see any site in his post who was devalued or whatever.

 

If Internet marketing was non-competitive then this *advice* is fine. *cough*

For any webmaster who is not simply running a site as a hobby, doing whatever is needed (within their own scope of ethical behavior) is what they need to do. If buying links works, then it is what needs to be done. If link networks work, then that is what webmasters need to do.

The basic problem is that Google's search results are vulnerable to certain things. All Google can really do is ask that you play nice. Maybe they can catch certain people in certain situations but I think really clamping down on link selling is just not possible.

Yes, it may or may not turn out to be a good long term practice, but the basic problem is that you are competing with a huge number of people who ARE willing to take the short term risks.

If the scammers are dominating the first few pages of serps then you are simply out of the game for that market.

 

<----Watches the two linkers battle and eats more popcorn

 

Clint, please take away links from your signature, cause right now you are manipulating SERPS