Report Paid Links?

Ok then well I hereby speak for everyone that is selling links in that we are not selling links, we are accepting payment for consideration to be included in our links page.

 

Paid links will probably be done on the quiet now....

 

That's it, you've got it

As many have said before, all that will happen is terms of business and wordings of link sales will change.

You may well find yourself paying for a revue of your site before your url is included in the trusted partner sites section

 

"Don't do this...don't do that." It's like Google is channeling the spirit of Adolph Hitler when they deal with webmasters now. Phooey!

 

I'd been toying with putting the words "jackboots" and "Google" in the same sentence for quite a while but figured I could do without all the death threats for dissing the great and holy god of search engines.

You obviously got bigger nads than me, Lexiseek lol.

 

You're right - this is as stupid as when they made laws, and just opened the floodgates for people to report their business competitor murders people and thrives on child labor.

Oh, wait, it turns out they actually look into things and give people the benefit of the doubt when it's not clear and looks to be in good faith. Just like how if you call the police and say the guy you compete with murdered a bunch of priests, they won't throw the guy in prison based solely on your word. Shocking!

 

You know the rule of internet debates that whoever is the first idiot to invoke the Nazis automatically looses. There's a particular newscaster who would call you the worst person in the world - for the day - for the stupidity that just came out of your monkey brain. You actually just said Google is the Adolph Hitler of spam fighting.

And for the record, Google isn't saying "Don't do this...don't do that." They're saying "If you'd like a listing in our index, for free, these are our guidelines." Some people complain the guidelines aren't specific enough ... here you're whining because there are any at all?

 

You actually don't understand the issues here, and you really shouldn't try. This falls under the classification of anti-trust laws and the Sherman act, which states:

I know you feel the deep seated need to preach, but you should just stick to subjects you have a clue about. This isn't one of them.

-Michael

 

Will this affect textlinkads? They do this buy/sell of text links.

 

This whole thing has really gotten ridiculous. Here's reality:

1. Google created a new advertising market by factoring links into Pagerank.

2. Google convinced webmasters the world over that Pagerank actually means something. Advertiser demand was born.

3. Publishers respond naturally to advertiser demand. People are making a lot of money with this new market; Google not included.

4. Advertisers are also getting a lot of value with this market, which takes away at least some interest in other advertising models (Adwords anyone?).

It's easy for Google to try to pretend that they're just being altruistic in wanting cleaner search results. But if that were the case, they'd really have to scrap pagerank almost completely or at least stop factoring it into search results and let it just remain the little marketing tool that it's always been for them.

Does Google have the right to work inclusion in their search engine any way they please? Sure they do. Does Google have the right to decide to devalue paid links? Sure they do.

But if Google wants to operate under a certain kind of business model, it's their responsibility to make it work; not the webmasters'. We have no responsibility to add no follow to our paid links. We have no responsibility to report paid links. Frankly, the only people who are going to have the time to go around doing all of that anyway are the ones with too much time on their hands because they're not out there earning money (that and the competitor saboteurs as someone else mentioned earlier). I'm all for cleaner search results. But why should any of us spend time that would otherwise earn us money cleaning up the mess of Google, because they didn't think things through before jumping into their current model?

It's up to Google how they choose to run their search engine. And it's up to each webmaster how they choose to run (and monetize) their website. I say, if we're going to do all of these favors for Google, what are they going to do for us? When Google starts making algorithm changes in your favor as per your personal request, you should certainly return the favor and change your own business model to suit their needs in return. Until then, it's wishful thinking.

You have to choose what kind of business you run with your websites. It's up to you whether you choose to be "choosey" in the links you'll link to, or whether you'll post a link from any Joe Schmo willing to pay you. My personal stance on this one is simple: only post links that would be of some actual value to your readers, and then it's nobody's damn business how you're monetizing them. Your readers are the ones you need to be transparent with, and if you are, you'll keep the trust and help ensure that you'll always have other monetization models to fall back on if you need to. If you plan to run even remotely successful sites, you'd better have better things to be doing with your time than playing "clean up" for Google.

 

Jenn,

Did you read my latest blog post by any chance? I'd be interested in your opinion on it:

http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.co...id-links-and-priorities-slightly-out-of-whack

-Michael

 

Google motto is "Do no evil", but is totally rediculous.

Some people work fulltime with internet business and this is one of their revenue streams.

 

I just took a look of it, and agree that this whole topic is really just a "bandaid" for a bigger problem. It's a case of Google being reactive rather than proactive in dealing with spam results. Here's something else on this issue:

Google's got two options: Admit their algo sucks and can't adequately differentiate spam sites from more legitimate sites with useful content (accepting the blame, and then dealing with that root problem), or they can put the blame on webmasters in general, essentially equating those who do purchase links with spammers. Despite their desired role as some kind of corporate "hero," they're passing the blame like most companies would.

Can they do what they want? Yes. Is it a good business move in the long run? I'd imagine not. Without webmasters actively optimizing pages by their standards, their rankings will get more and more off-base. As that happens, users are going to get sick of spam results, and go elsewhere. Google snuck up on the SE market. Believing the dynamics couldn't change drastically again is completely naive. Google shouldn't be working to alienate webmasters providing quality content. They're going to eventually dig themselves a PR (public relations) hole that they can't climb out of.

 

Well unfortunately I fear that is not true. dir.yahoo.com are selling links, you can't put it any other way or try to diguise it. Anyone can say they're 'reviewing' links every year for $299 when in fact I doubt they look at the sites ever again after first accepting them. But will Google do anything about these paid links that clearly pass page rank to the sites on their pages and affect their rankings in the SERPs? No I think not so I don't agree that they are "looking into things".

What they are doing is trying to hurt the little people to get even more money out of them.

 

Actually, that's not true. Unless I'm mistaken, Google even already stated that things like Yahoo's directory won't be penalized, because the payment is for review and not for a link. And quite a few directory owners with annual fees do in fact review submissions regularly (I believe it was even something touched on with a recent live interview I did with Jeff of Aviva Directory, just as one example).

 

Isn't that the point? How many threads have we seen here on DP with members saying their sites have not been accepted into the Yahoo Dir yet they paid their $299.

I would have thought that because of G's change of policy re link buying/selling Yahoo will possibly tighten up their inclusion policy and we will see many more 'I paid $299 for my sites link in Yahoo and they have rejected me' threads.

Other quality directories may well follow suit, infact, rejection of sites from paid reviews could possibly do a directory more good than bad as 'G' may possibly see this as an indication of a directories credability!

 

What about sites like ReviewMe and PayPerPost? I mean, are we not allowed to advertise? Put out PR? Try to get a buzz going about our sites?

It seems like the paid blog posts should be a different case.

 

Google doesn't seem to care about it, as long as you make the links no follow. But in the end, what business model you operate under is completely up to you. Base that on the whims of another company, and you're asking for trouble long-term. Just make sure you have more than one income stream for your sites, and more than one promotional venue.

 

Oh gosh, I found that Google selling links at their search result pages. Look at the sponsored ads section. Should I report it?

 

This sounds like a very unsustainable thing. Google has really gotten themselves into a gaggle of a mess when it comes to these things.

Once they (or others) can figure out a better way to prevent people from skewing the system in their favor... despite less relevant content... it seems that they will have made a big accomplishment.