It isn't against Googles rules per se, but it does infringe on what Google would call 'their recommendation'. Buying/selling links is against Google's recommendations, and, if they want, they could remove/ban your site from their listings. Remember, Google indexing your site is a privilege, not a right
Yeah they are not strictly against the rules, but quite blatent, its even harder to fight the argument with them as its clear what they do.
paid links against google's rules. but i think it's no difference between paid web directories and bidding directories.
Google will eventually start removing their PR like they are currently removing the PR of paid and free directories. It is only a matter of time.
Yeah they pretty much are. Most bid directory owners are very weak. If a total crap site bids $200 do they refund? Nah....but they still "charge a review fee" sure......
Google prohibits all forms of selling and buying links. So in theory this includes all bidding directories, paid directories and even free ones that offer featured listings. IN reality it is unlikely you will get caught or penalised, they are more likely to target the biggest ones. And all Google can do is reset the pagerank to zero or remove you from their index.
There is definitely a difference between them as they stand but that can be changed which should then lesson Google's dim view.
Wrong. Google does not see a paid/free directory the same as a bid directory. Like Matt Cutts has said many times, charging for a review fee is acceptable.
That is not true. Their beef is with people who sell links for the sole purpose of transferring page rank.
through bid directories people can buy their way to a higher page rank and that is against the google rules which means that bid directories are not keeping to the rules...however bid directories do maintain a high page rank for some time 1-2 years which is good for both the sites that advertise and the bid directory owners.
Those are the people who are caught because they are bigger, the smaller people are breaking the rules, just Google can't catch millions of them.
I had a PR 5 Bid directory and got bumped to PR2. I dont think they are worth it in the end as google smacks you site down for any "paid" links these days
You may have naturally lost PR if your backlinks were cancelled or it was a dropped domain. Google is against paid links that manipulate page rank - for obvious reasons.