Matt Cutts and the paid links

That is a wonderful idea, and my only real complaint. I'll GLADY stop selling blog posts, I'll gladly take that link out of my footer, but please, please, please don't punish me because I liked another site and decided to spread the word naturally.

As there has been several times where I've posted in a topical forum about something that was off topic, and there have been several times where I've posted random content on a blog that is not so random. A computer can not tell the difference between a 'public service announcement' and a commercial one...

 

Perhaps if we all offered to pay a % to Google of what we earn on link sales they'll leave us alone -- the Tony Sopprano school of business ...

 

Sorry but, this is where it all gets a little murky, to many 'non techie' web surfers, GOOGLE IS THE INTERNET. They believe that 'G' has scoured the whole of the internet in order to bring them the results of their search.

If 'G' starts to ban, remove or disadvantge one site over another based on how that site chooses to market itself or worse still on the sayso of a competitor then there is a problem. They should have to state clearly on each search page that this search does not contain sites that they believe may have sold links or bought links etc.

One of the arguments about WP theme sponsorhip that I have read is that many readers of sponsored themes belive that the site has given its OK for the sponsor link and assume that this somehow gives creedance to the sponsors site, if you accept this premise, then do we not have to look a 'G' and use the same argument with its search results?

Are these same web users not assuming that 'G' has searched the whole of the web and has delivered sites based upon a) their relevance to the search term & b) the quality and popularity of the site?

How are they to tell that there may be very relevant sites out there that could have been ignored by the search engine on purpose?

 

If Google will ONLY count natural links, then how the hell is someone supposed to get a new site indexed and ranked at all, if you cannot get the word out about the site, noone will see it and noone will link it. No matter how good the content is.
All of this natural linking assumes that you already have a strong visitor base who is willing to link you. This assumption is flawed for new sites.
Google already gives an (to me) unnatural bias towards old domains. This means newcomers already have a hard time ranking.
Now they just make it impossible.
You can have the best content about a subject and never see the light of the day. This is simply ridiculous.

 

There are two reasons to allow a link on a site that you run:

1. Your users contribute it, as part of their contributed content, which brings value to your site...

2. Someone pays for the advertising, or the link, and you allow it because it brings value to your site.

Either way, google should not punish those who sell, but rather those who buy the links..
This said, they should be very very careful about who they punish.

If you spend the time getting unique links to your site, then you should not be punished...

If you join a link farm of sorts for the purpose of building up each other sites, then there is more of an issue there, as your goal is being achieved with less integrity and actual work...

I think a link market is good for the web, but I think that people should not be rewarded for having links from less than popular sites. With this in mind, I believe that the current system is doing a good job of rewarding good links, and if you buy it, who cares, because that is the investment you chose to make.

The punishment should be the exception, not the rule, therefore only hurting those sites that do it with the goal of turning a spammed site into a high ranking one with no content.

With all the money google is bringing in, I think they could handle investing a little in monitoring some of these particular sites. If your site is spammy, no one is going to try to link to your site with the goal of getting you "unranked"

They will though if you are high ranking, and so this makes it important to leave the punishment only to those sites which are spammy and useless, and leave all the rest of the web alone in these regards.

 

Exactly! Now they are trying to dictate how we monetize our sites? Screw that!

 

You should read up on Web Pro News and see why they say 7 Reasons Why Googles Paid Link Snitch Sucks.

Rich Ord is pretty much saying what I have been saying. It's a push for their Adwords program

 

And I have just said that on his BLOG comment.

I also said --some-one is going to have a Golden Hand-Shake with Google in few months time and that will be who proposed this idea to Google board. ( Most probably Matt Cutts after attending some ideal SEO conferences)

My point is --this policy has met strong resistance from webmasters --and ultimately Google will see its revenue shrinking if many of us boycott their AdSense/AdWords.
So Matt gets FIRED

 

Probably he will be FIRED if they follow up on his idea, (which really sucks). Bringing down all webmaster's income, in return webmaster's boycott G products and result in... as you said above.
an Ideal End.

 

In reality he will likely get a bonus because link buying will decline which will lead to an increase in adwords spending thus raising google's bottom line.

 

Imagine, if webmaster's start boycotting Adsense, then who will buy adwords?
Probably it will increase G's competitors such as ypn and live

 

Just sniff it? really. It is so full of it, for a push for webmasters to use Adwords. It just reaks the smell of it.

 

I seriously doubt he'll get fired... I'm not even sure these are his ideas!

Ever listen to Morning Radio? I used to listn to Bob & Tom (loved'em) and I always thought they were hip, fresh and original, but then I only listened in for the 30 minutes it took me to get to work. One day I got up early and turned the radio on to listen in a bit more. I also got a chance to listen in a bit late on a few occasions. I was aghast to find out they repeat the same jokes every two hours (sometimes word by word).

Also, with all that extra listening I did I came to find out that they sit around after the show to discuss what jokes were good & bad, which I guess makes sense, but they also had a morning meeting before the show to set up their jokes.

I'm willing to bet that Matt's blog is Google's morming show...

 

Screw it, nobody can tell a webmaster atleast me, what to do with my sites.

I am not going to surrender my freedom of earning money, freedom of online expression just because a power hungry , monopolistic behemoth company asks me to do so

 

lol very well described the G show. :d

 

Yeah your right. And the shift away from Googleolopy will go to their competitor Yahoo. The draw back is not being indexed and or PR in Googleolopy SE.

It is also pointed out in the 7 reasons:

#6 also says:

 

I have one hillarious IDEA
Can it be that some Google competitors deposited huge sums in the bank accounts of those board members who have convinced the board of this policy? So that webmasters get disgusted with Google and switch to other options?

Can't agree mate --internet is a market in itself --some one just can't dictate how webmasters should conduct their sites and get away with it.

As Web Pro News --is suggesting --SEO companies won't let Google destroy their bread-n-butter --and as the campaing for their client's sites -they will campaing against Google's this dictatorial policy, form public opinion, garner support and consequently Google's revenue will get a downhill.

 

The United States government has the War on Drugs, Google has the War on Paid Text Links. Both are lost causes and doomed to eventual failure. All the War on Drugs does is create a huge, underground black market for those sophisticated enough to provide what people want in an efficient manner. The same will happen for paid text links.

This is proof that Google is having serious trouble providing quality search results. Rather than scapegoat paid links and wage a war they cannot win, they need to take a step back and look real hard at how they go about determining rank in the SERPs.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty sick of our government telling me how to run my life Google dictating how I run my website. The sooner the government and Google work to resolve the core problem at the grassroots level, the better off everyone will be.

 

Hear hear. Google doesn't wage war on something that doesn't matter to them.

 

I'm still against buying/selling links, BUT there is one long standing rule that is still true: SNITCHES GET STITCHES. Not to mention that it's bad karma.