Im starting to think that this paranoia about getting caught buying links is a bunch of HYPE I mean everyone is all worried... but all across the internet I never see anyone saying they have been penalized for buying links What do you guys think? Isnt Google penalizing link sellers, and devaluing paid links? They cant possibly be kicking sites off for buying links... since competitors can buy links to sabotage competition. Whats the consensus here.... is it just hype? Do you actually KNOW someone who got penalized for buying links, or have you yourself been penalized? Lets get this cleared up right here right now!!
your exactly right, i dont think that anything you do outside your website can hurt you. It might not hurt you, but it will not hurt for exactly the reason you stated. Competitors can easily and will sabotage.
Yeah, I second that. By penalizing the site that is selling links and devaluing the paid links, Google is penalizing both the parties.
I have never heard of anyone actually getting penalized for buying links, but I know JohnChow.com did get penalized for selling links. His site is back in the index in doing well now though now that he stopped and begged to get back in.
I think Google would punish the site selling links but not buying links. But buying links from link farms might hurt your site in the long term. IMO.
yes,this is right. johnchow get penalized for selling links, after he knew it, he encouraged people to not sell/buy links.
I also never heard about this, except once i Read an article in same this forum about Google japan , that google japan lost pr because of selling links, otherwise never
@chosenlight - This is completely not true. There are PLENTY of things that evil people can and DO do to keep their rankings. We've seen it all.
To do a little clarification on penalties. Google is subtle about these kind of things. They don't necessarily ding you for buying a single purchased link. But if they notice certain patterns, they will "discount" the link's value and include it into the algorithm for your site.
Google has penalized people very hard for selling links, you would be nieve to think they aren't at the least de-valueing the links you purchase. De-index? Probably not, but if they ever figure out that website is selling links, don't expect that link to count for much. It will still help for yahoo and bing though, they don't care how many links you buy or sell.
They may not penalize you, but there are certainly cases of them "discounting" all inbound links (which is effectively the same thing).
I have heard about a dozen of websites getting penalized for buying links. They disappeared from Google's main index after a big link-buying campaign. One guy even paid the people he bought links from to remove the links from their websites, so he could file a reconsideration request to Google. I don't think they will care if the campaign is smaller (like 2-3 links per week), but if you're buying big (10 PR6-7 links per week), you'll be going down.
I think one of my blogs was penalized because link with anchor "Buy and Sell Links". I'm not sure but that's my feeling.