Buying links for PageRank is now worthless

I decided to write this post after I have found, read and put together multiple sources of information. The conclusion I came across after the analysis is: Considering the new Google's back link indexation algorithm, buying links for PR becomes worthless.

Let me explain. There are 2 coordinates.

The first is the human fact. Webmasters having now websites with high PR won’t sell links anymore because this is a very risky job for their business and they are aware of this fact. In the same time, webmasters owning low PR websites or pages that were penalized by Google during the last PR update (that is still happening) are also aware it is worthless to buy links. Even if they still have the courage to do this job, it’s more than possible they won’t have where from because the first category of webmasters won’t get into business risking their websites to be penalized. Thus, there is gonna happen a breakage between link sellers and link buyers. Maybe I am wrong but the conclusion above is MY conclusion and it’s a logical one.

The second coordinate is the technical one. How Google detects that links are paid? Well, it’s not too difficult. I recently got across a confidential resource and I wanted to share with you only 3 ideas from there:

1) Paid links are usually shown grouped and eventually separated by common separators like: “<br>” “,” “;” “|” “-” etc… or even white spaces. Google analyzes these strings and if it finds repeated <a href=…>link</a> {a common separator here( + a possible piece of text)} <a href=…>link</a> {another common separator here( + a possible piece of text)} without the “nofollow” tag, this is a possible paid links case. Moreover, if the “piece of text” is not related to the rest of the text, the possibility of a paid link case increases.

2) A website “A” sold links to “B”, “C” and “D”. Let’s say “A” is content related to “B” and “D” but “C” is not related to “B” and “D” nor to “A”; but “B”, “C” and “D” are in sequence (for example separated by a comma). There are many other combination possibilities. 1) + 2) represent a paid link scenario easy to be detected.

3) Paid links are shown grouped in sections labeled “Sponsored links”, “Partners”, “Related links” or simply labeled “Links”. This possibility combined with 1) and/or 2) above, represents an evidence of paid links.

And, in the document I read there are some other techniques but I won't speak about them here. I prefer to keep them confidential.

 

Nice post. I can not believe it took google so long to change this.

 

I agree with You thats why now I sell blog posts and directory links and I will think it's a good idea to sell "normal" sitewide links on homepage it's very risky...

 

If they are not related to the content of your blog, they will be detected for sure. Selling links in a directory, that could be ok... i think.

 

Personally, I think this whole debacle is going to "shift" the way private link selling is done, but it doesn't make it worthless necessarily.

What I can see happening is more in-content link selling taking place rather than the more traditional sidebar or menu link groups, and a rise in the pricing for decent PR links given the increased risks webmasters selling links are assuming.

The bottom line though, is that links are still (and will continue to be) an important factor in online promotions. I don't think its worth-while to buy them strictly for PR values, but as long as PR exists the sites with higher PR are going to be able to charge more for links than those with lower PR's.

 

100% truth what you have said......REP added

 

I agree 100%... Wondering how long Google's been keeping track of paid links for...

 

Thanks to share

 

Its simple.

Sell relevant links in relevant text and you wont have any issues

 

This is nothing new.

Artificial Link Building, has been in Google's sights for several years.

You should read the blog post where I discovered 1,000,000s of businesses without page rank!

 

Great article , as some one said above artificial link building do more harm than good.

 

thank you for rep, sudarshannus. really appreciated.

 

I wanted to share all ideas from that document but the person who found it and provided to me pleased me to keep it strictly confidential. Anyway, I couldn't resist, and I shared with you some of the ideas. Hope they can help us all to avoid further mistakes.

 

I don't see it would be too hard to fool Google...

1. Don't mention anywhere on the site (or post the URL on any forums) that links are available to buy (on forums get people to PM for the details)

2. Don't group links together in bunches.

3. Don't have any site wide links, distribute the paid ones throughout the site.

4. Do include the links within the natural flow of the content.

5. Do make sure the links are in some way relevant to the content of the site.

Of course the above isnt easy to do and requires extra work, but doing so would almost certainly fool the Google algo into taking the links as organic and therefore passing PR for them.

I think PR, and the desire for many people to have it, is a long way from dead.

 

Excellent post.

 

I think its been obvious for a while that links should be put within the posts as well. I mean its obvious what people are more likely to click on. A link within a post they are reading rather than one on the side bar thats huge and obtrusive. It is just common sense when selling links.

 

I believe by the time next pr updates google will come up with some more solutions to stop it once and for all.

 

a newbie question guys... getting backlinks is one of the more important ways to increase your serps... i think thats right...

now when someone builds a new site, what should he do in order to establish his site??? I mean you can add high quality content regularly but without links, will your site still rank better and better???

please help me.

 

I agree 100% on what earticles wrote.

Pages have high PR purely because of the content..

People link to that content & Google picks up the link, the publisher gets there reward, Simple as.

But here comes the bad part, these supposedly "important" websites who pay for backlinks is outrageous, They are scamming the system and stealing rare creadability!

 

Thanks, I will do this.