Who's Still Buying Links?

Nah, it's up to the webmaster if they want to include a nofollow. Maybe I want to pass juice along. Maybe I really like the other site. Maybe it's my Mom's site and I want her to benefit more than that evil neighbor who just happens to have a related site, but I'm linking to it for the benefit of my visitor.

Oh, please. There are many, many other fish to fry of all the MFA sites, link clouds, and others that popup all the time. Google is busy enough with them. I think the rules are pretty ambiguous. Why don't they punish Yahoo Directory or the DMOZ (Google's pet directory)? Matt Cutts specifically mentioned these two as good places to list. One costs $299 per year and the other is next to impossible to get listed (and there are serious allegations of editors getting paid to list!).

Most small businesses don't have the budget to afford the expensive advertising alternatives. Organic traffic is their best bet and that means paying for someone to blog about their site then more power to them. Also, is Google, Yahoo, MSN, or Ask seriously going to question every link? No, they won't. Just because it doesn't have nofollow does not mean it's a paid link.

 

I don't think I will stop buying links in blogs - it totally ridiculous how google is trying to take over are rights to buy links. There has got to be a compromise somewhere along the road.

 

You are not going to get penalized.. Google has no idea whether you bought a link or received it naturally...

 

Thats how you should do it, not because they are paying for the link

 

Tell that to the 1,000,000's of sites that lost PR and SERPs. Remember, not just selling\buying sites were effect, all their backlinks were as well since their PR juice went down per link, this is a chain effect.

 

Heres My question, or rather statement

If everone used "no follow" the ultimately no links would ever count for anything if they were all no followed,

So like others say , how the heck will google know what is what with private sales etc ...

Ok - I can see TLA, link brokers and that kind of crap by doing things like code searches but they will never catch all link sales,

Thats like saying "uncle sam" will find all the people working off the books......

 

I think its you that isn't quite sure what you are talking about. Matt Cutts has said make your pages for humans, not search engines. But then he says we should apply nofollow tags. Why should we? These are clearly for search engines. Seems he can't make his mind up.

Well the google bomb thing doesnt work as the anchor texts weren't mentioned on the url's they were pointing too at all. If you make a site and put point enough links to it, if they are good links (bought or otherwise) you will rank for your terms.

 

Never have done. Never will.

 

I've never bought any links. But I know Marapets.com is spending thousands on links to rank for "games".

 

A lot of sites lost PR and SERPs... Not all were buying links... I have yet to see any solid evidence proving that Google has intentionally targeted sites that have bought links.. How on earth would google even know if someone bought a link or not? You give the algo too much credit...

This is about as silly as the directory de indexing claims that have been flying around here as well..

It's all bunk...

 

For once I actually agree with sundaybrew and don't agree with SSandecki. How weird is that?!

Hmmm, I am suspicious about the sudden drops in the SERPs for these. It was the same effect as on text-ad-links.com not coming up for their own domain name as a search. I think they were penalized. Then again, I haven't looked lately. Maybe it's returned to normal for these directories.

It may have been a shot across the bow from Google.

 

This tag was created for search engines, if you cannot understand the meaning then it doesn't surprise me.

Well, the nofollow is to be used in certian situations, not in every link. I sell traffic on my websites, I use text links to do this, I use the ref="nofollow" because its just an advertisement and i'm not trying to provide link popularity or SERP benifits since its a temporary link.

99.9% of the people who buy text links is to manipulate their SERPs and Pagerank, lets me agreement on that point at least.

Yes, did you consider this....

Many of the sites who lost PR and SERPs weren't selling links, but they did have backlinks from other sites orignally to place in SERPs and have Pagerank. Most likely, somewhere down the line of backlinks to backlinks someone was penalized and in basic terms the shit rolled down hill. Remember, this is the world wide web, most sites are some how linked to one another

I actually don't recall hearing about this, but personally I never use directories anyways. Rarely do any web directories get used by people looking for certian sites, they just use Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc

For some reason this made me laugh so hard, heads turned at work

+Rep for making me laugh!

 

Millions of sites penalized?

Did I miss that?

A large number of sites lost PR (those that sell links and those that don't) and people make a conclusion it is paid links cauing it. It could possibly be - it could possibly be something else.

Still most rankings have remained the same - its not like the update in 2005 over reciprocal linking where people's rankings plummetted - where there was clear evidence reciprocal linking was to blame.

And for anyone that missed it here is what Matt Cutts says the penalization will be:

source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/

So Google stops link sellers from passing link juice - so what - they still get traffic.

 

As for ssandecki comment that eventally someone will report you to Google.

How will these reporters prove it? Send copies of emails - that can easily be faked.
I could claim any number of sites were selling links - doesn't mean they actually are.

As a result it makesit hard for Google to act in the circumstances where paid links appear in a natural fashion.

 

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/undetectable-spam/

You might want to view this, which includes information about so called undetectable paid links, doesn't so much lean to the private industry, but never the less is still related to the thread.

 

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/

As far as the details, it can be pretty short. Something like “Example.com is selling links; here’s a page on example.com that demonstrates that” or “www.shadyseo.com is buying links. You can see the paid links on www.example.com/path/page.html” is all you need to mention. That will be enough for Google to start testing out some new techniques we’ve got — thanks!

 

Sudden drop for who/what? Does anyone ever give any specifics when claiming that Google some who single handedly targeted certain sites? Did it ever occur to anyone that the algo may have just stumbled upon something it did not like? I highly doubt the algo, or even a human being detected purchased links... That is really very unlikely.

Those claiming this need to show some actual proof rather than just making broad claims with no base.

Of course this is the www, and yes, sites link to one another.. If they did not, it would defeat the purpose of the internet, would it not? Well, you kinda said, that..

That said, do you really think Google is going to go around delisting every site that links to another, regardless of whether they paid for a link or not? Seems beyond unlikely... If they are, Google could likely shut down all their data centers and run off one server because there will be no more sites listed in their index.

Ah, Directories do get used by actually people. Again, another blanket baseless assumption which is completely unfounded...

 

Ok, who was the funny guy that gave the negative rep on http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=5203026#post5203026 cause it was mis-informative. Tsk Tsk

 

I still buy links

 

Though it cannot be proven, I'm sure there are more directories then there are people who use them, I never use directories, I've never seen a DP post where someone said they did use them for reference purpose.

You keep claiming peoples information is unfounded or not backed up, when there opinion is just the same as yours, it is their belief since no physical evidence is availible. Your opinions can be considered just as baseless as mine.

I've spent my time and believe knowledge of SEO to be listed in the top #5 for many competitive keywords, the least competitive being funny pictures at #3 on most US dcs. To assume my information related to SEO is baseless would mean all my high ranking SERPs were pure luck?

Maybe I can sell this luck.