Everybody knows you need to be careful about building links to your site to fast, you know "make it look natural", "don't build links to a new site to fast", etc. because it's against Google's TOS to try and manipulate the SERPS. But at the same time they allow their PPC advertisers to sell backlink packets in their advertising. Just do a search for "backlinking" and you'll see a bunch of advertisers. Would seem to be shooting themselves in the foot in order to generate revenue don't you think? I mean they're not going to stop backlinking anytime soon, but...
I don't think you were clear enough in your question. Who do you mean by "they"? Google? Google, as a rule, does not "allow" any activities that aren't designed to provide a better user experience (so for any backlink you place, this is the question you should be asking yourself)
Google does a lot of stuff that are contradictory. However, PPC is their bread and butter, so they won't interfere with it.
Yes you are right jasedona, PPC is the main program of Google for earning money so it depends on how Google would rule it to earn money. While search engine of Google is mainly for society....... Google is helping the society giving quality result through searches.... it is helping the society thats why it is on top today.
While yeah I agree that they have to make money to keep their services free this isn't even close to being a tiny fraction of a microscopic drop in their revenue. Just seems kinda funny to me that their algorithms are based on not being able to manipulate the SERPs yet they're letting advertisers promote something that does exactly just that.
I think google is getting on my nerves as a site owner too. They never show the backlinks I build but they sure want me to buy their ppc.
I just find it kinda ironic that people need to go through so much trouble to disguise their backlink building because of Google's TOS on manipulating the SERPs, yet here they are allowing advertisers to promote things that help to manipulate the SERPs.
The Search Engines are okay with you buying links, so long as those links are nofollow. By making them nofollow you are telling the search engines that this link is for traffic and promotion only, and not an attempt to manipulate organic search results. However, does this mean that you will get punished if you purchase a link that is not nofollow. Absolutely not. Otherwise your competitors could purchase some nofollow links for your site and see you get knocked down in SERPS. The worst the search engines will do is not give you any credit for a link. Let me say that again: The worst thing that can happen if you purchase a link is that you won't get any credit for it. In fact, many if not most high pr sites that are selling links will not help your site at all. This is because if the search engines suspect that you are selling links on your site, they will simply not allow those links to pass pagerank. I am already pretty much convinced that the search engines are already ignoring footer links, blogroll links, lists of link partners, link pages, and lists of sponsors, etc. And if they are not completely ignoring these kinds of links, at least they are "almost" ignoring them. So how do you get the kinds of organic links that search engines love. I have some ideas, but if I really knew for sure then I would be so rich right now my time would be way to valuable to be posting this on here. ;-) That's why I get so frustrated when I hear people here on DP promising top ranking positions. These so called SEO experts claim to know how to build links and make your site number one in the SERPS. If that were really the case, then they would be building their own websites and making millions of dollars off of them. For example, they could easily start a dating site with a dating script and then make millions each month off of all the traffic they get for being number one for keywords related to online dating. They definitely wouldn't be worrying about making a few dollars here and there doing SEO for other people's websites.
That makes sense about to nofollow links and I agree that off page factors will not do anything to get you penalized or it's to easy to sabotage competitors. But i really wonder if all are nofollow links. On the search network they might get away with it, but on the content network it has to be reviewed before it goes live and I did see banner adds advertising backlinks. I can see the part about buying links for traffic, but I think the majority would be buying them to manipulate the SERPs. But if they're nofollow I guess Google's thinking is that if buyers are buying them to manipulate the SERPS they'll get what they deserve Edit: You know but they're being sold as backlinks (do a search for backlinks on Google) and not banner or text ads. Hmm... Thanks