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Selling Links & Google
March 29th, 2006 by Scott Polk
Late last night Matt Cutts posted some Q&A up on his blog. One caught my attention as it appears to be another bold and ominous statement in the world of SEO.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/q-a-thread-march-27-2006/
Q: “If one were to offer to sell space on their site (or consider purchasing it on another), would it be a good idea to offer to add a NOFOLLOW tag so to generate the traffic from the advertisement, but not have the appearance of artificial PR manipulation through purchasing of links?”
A: Yes, if you sell links, you should mark them with the nofollow tag. Not doing so can affect your reputation in Google.
Could this be another clue in the puzzle for the future of Link Popularity? I think so … at least with Google.
10 Comments | Filed under: Search Engine Marketing
10 Comments
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That’s the kind of thing thats hard to tell sometimes. I have pages where I naturally link out. Google can’t tell the difference between a natural link out and if the site I’m linking to, paid me. It’s also something they should put up under Webmaster Guidelines, not just a mention on a blog.
I have to say that I do believe Google can determine the difference between paid links and natural ones in most cases (not all). Simple words/phrases on the page such as “Sponsored Links” can trigger a flag to have the page scrutinized at a new level. Can you sell links (for inflated Link Popualrity) and get away with it? Sure … but, to think that you will by default is irresponsible at best.
Scott is right on with Google being able to detect paid links. Their methods aren’t very sophisticated yet, but I’m sure they will improve over time.
Absolutely .. anyone thinking that Google cannot detect most paid links in the current environment will have serious wakeup call shortly - I would bet on it (and I don’t bet usually).
I haven’t seen that ability. A straight text link is a straight text link. Google can’t tell if it’s paid or not. How can you? Most people that sell text links don’t advertise that they do. As far as sites that sell “Sponsored Links” as a straight link, they can be penalized because Google didn’t inform them. Point is Google needs to do a better job at communicating with webmasters. Transparency, a favorite word around here
Correct a straight text link is always going to be a straight text link, but it can also be a paid link.
And, Yes, I do believe in most cases Google can tell the difference. Most sites that sell text links will have some sort of indicator on them that states they are paid (in some form or another) … even having a page on the site that discloses its advertising policies and pricing is an indication that there may be paid links on the page/site.
I definitely stand by my statement that Google can detect most paid links.
I guess this is another case of agree to disagree
I don’t think they can for the most part. I can go to a site and the site could have a “My Favorite Sites” section in the navigation and they can all be straight text links to various sites. I don’t see how you can tell if the person put them there because he likes those sites and felt they were useful or he was paid to put them there. A lot of people who buy links (who know what they’re doing), don’t buy from sites that advertise that they sell them. That would be too bright. They usually find sites that don’t and contact them and ask if they will. Would you want your link on a site that already has a lot of paid links out? Talk about waving a flag to Google. But yes, if you sell links it’s good to have the nofollow tag so you have a good rep with Google.
We need an edit button here
That would be too bright.
should be
That wouldn’t be too bright.
Well I’ll agree with both of you and say that they are hard to tell, but I figure Google has a way that they think works good, but what about the webmasters who link to sites that buy links? Are they automatically going to lump everyone that links to them as selling links? What happens when their detection method detects sites that aren’t buying them as buying them? I think it a bunch of crap, google is basically saying it’s bad so don’t let us catch you making any money this way or else.
I wonder what google is going to make of the links that assume the form of my name every time I make a comment on a blog.
In terms of a paid link, though, it kind of makes sense to include the “NOFOLLOW” tag. In fact, it’s only because this is new that it is causing so much controversy. It makes so much sense, it’s entirely stupid that no one thought of it a long time ago.
Then again, hindsight is always 20/20. Search engines and the net kind of evolved in unison. I guess it would have been hard to foresee a need for such a tag. If anything, the Wikipedia case provided a reasonable incentive for major competitors to agree on the initiative.