Reporting Paid Links to Google?

[Amateur]

Google now wants people to use their spam report to report paid links to them.

xxxhttp://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how...rt-paid-links/
(Remove the "xxx")

Questions asked here are:

How does one know if a link is paid?
How many "revenge" reports will they get?
Will these paid links be penalized, and how?
Do Yahoo and Google itself get penalized?
Is this to finetune the search algorithm, or to increase Adwords value?

Hmmmm....

[villa10]

<LI class=alt id=comment-101482>Matt Cutts Said,

April 14, 2007 @ 4:41 pm
Ash, there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank). At xxhttp://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ I mention a couple ways to sell links that Google would have no problem with.


No problem in Google if a site is buying/selling links for traffic or exposure.
The RED FLAG is when the offer of links is related wit the PR of page.
This for Google is a way to manipulate their Ranks, Algos etc.

[Amateur]

<LI class=alt id=comment-101482>Matt Cutts Said,

April 14, 2007 @ 4:41 pm
Ash, there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank). At xxhttp://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ I mention a couple ways to sell links that Google would have no problem with.


No problem in Google if a site is buying/selling links for traffic or exposure.
The RED FLAG is when the offer of links is related wit the PR of page.
This for Google is a way to manipulate their Ranks, Algos etc.

How do they know the difference? After all, Google itself sells links. That's how they make money.

Anyone shilling for Google, gets better listings for a given keyword, than those who don't.

[villa10]

My guess is that this movement is against the companies selling one way links related with high PR pages.

I don't think this will affect gambling sites selling links.
Anyway will be a good idea to remove all the PR references in the advertising offer.

How they know if it is a paid link?
Well a PR0 site with a link in a PR5 premium gambling page is more than suspicious.

[Dominique]

Matt says:

Ash, there’s absolutely no problem with selling links for traffic (as opposed to PageRank). At http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ I mention a couple ways to sell links that Google would have no problem with.

and following the link he says:

As long as we’re talking about links, this seems like a pretty good opportunity to talk about a simple litmus test for paid links and how to tell if a paid link violates search engines’ quality guidelines. If you want to sell a link, you should at least provide machine-readable disclosure for paid links by making your link in a way that doesn’t affect search engines. There’s a ton of ways to do that. For example, you could make a paid link go through a redirect where the redirect url is robot’ed out using robots.txt. You could also use the rel=nofollow attribute. I’ve said as much many times before, but I wanted to give a heads-up because Google is going to be looking at paid links more closely in the future.

The other best practice I’d advise is to provide human readable disclosure that a link/review/article is paid. You could put a badge on your site to disclose that some links, posts, or reviews are paid, but including the disclosure on a per-post level would better. Even something as simple as “This is a paid review” fulfills the human-readable aspect of disclosing a paid article.

[universal4]

Well a PR0 site with a link in a PR5 premium gambling page is more than suspicious.

I totally disagree!

If I find relevant content on a website, and I think that content would be good for my visitors, I very well 'may' link back to it no matter what the pr of the page is...or what the pr is of the page I am linking from.

I really don't understand the thinking behind how google really thinks they can make this work....

I think they should be spending more time trying to figure out ways to boot the sites that clearly are scraping content. I think they should also boot the sites that get the link exchange info and put it on their sites and then point the links to 404 pages...(another form of bastiness similar to scraping we found a year or more ago)

Rick
Universal4

[JR_Ewing]

I totally disagree!

If I find relevant content on a website, and I think that content would be good for my visitors, I very well 'may' link back to it no matter what the pr of the page is...or what the pr is of the page I am linking from.

I really don't understand the thinking behind how google really thinks they can make this work....

I think they should be spending more time trying to figure out ways to boot the sites that clearly are scraping content. I think they should also boot the sites that get the link exchange info and put it on their sites and then point the links to 404 pages...(another form of bastiness similar to scraping we found a year or more ago)

Rick
Universal4

I agree with you for one reason. I have some PR 5 links coming into my site. When they linked to me, I was only PR 1. I did not exchange links with them and I don't why they decided to link to me. BTW, I'm not going to ask, either.

As well, I don't always trust what M.C. says. He's said stuff that has not come to fruition. It is my belief (and I'm no expert here) that at least some of what he says is nothing but scare tactics and propaganda. Although, I realize Google is Google and they can basically do whatever they want. However, if they go too far they will definitely lose market share over time. They obviously know this.

One question I have is this: concerning paid links, who will be penalized? The site that [supposedly] paid for the link or the site that is linking? The fact is, a rogue can set up a site that looks like it's paid linking for PR when in actuality it's a secondary site that has good PR that is used for the purpose of destroying competition. There are so many strategic possibilities concerning this Google philosophy for a smart, enterprising person to take advantage of in order to destroy their competition.

Personally, I doubt Google will implement this strategy because they can't account for even a small portion of the exploits people will imagine and implement. Not to mention, M.C. has talked about this exact subject a long time ago and alas, it still has not been implemented.

Just my noob .02.

Edit: I forgot to mention that if they do implement this, it is for one reason and one reason only. To increase advertising revenue. Think about it.

[pgaming]

Well stated Rick and JR Ewing I would take whatever Cutts says with a grain of salt.

Greek39

[CasinoDawg]

I wonder if the purpose of setting this up is so Google can go after sites such as OneWayTextLinks.com that sell a large number of one-way links to boost traffic and PR of sites that participate. I can't per-say I disagree with people paying for links... it's a form of advertising that Google simply has no right or business trying to stop. Their AdWords model (which they make gazillions off of) is essentially the same sort of thing... users PAYING to manipulate their rankings. Anyway, I don't think there is much Google could do about it... maybe at best just penalize the site that is providing the links.

Oh, btw... clicked through the OneWayTextLinks directory and they link out to porn sites. I wonder if people participating in their program realize they are linking out to sites like that. Oh well. Like that saying goes "let the buyer beware."

[villa10]

[quote I totally disagree! [/quote]

Maybe, but a well established PR5 page hosting a new PR0 site is quite unusual.

There's around all the speech in the sense that in the future the new site will gain respect, PR etc etc.

Just try to do this with people that you don't know, and the positive response from premium sites will be near to zero.

[universal4]

Bringing in to play whether the sites are known to you or not doesn't say anything towards the policy of goole.

If I have a site about backgammon that is a pr0 and someone else has a site about backgammon that is a pr 5 and he links to me because he thinks my content would be a good read for his visitors, Google should not be penalizing me or him for the link.

And in fact....Google's own terms and webmaster suggestions state this is a good thing....

Whether the webmaster who linked to me knows me or not doesn't change any of the pertinent facts.

Rick
Universal4

[CasinoDawg]

Aye... PR should having nothing to do with who links to who. I mean, I've seen some completely crap sites that have a pretty high PR value while other (far superior) sites have a PR0. PR is Google's own "measuring stick" of sorts that shouldn't at all have any relation on who links to who. Other engines (MSN, Yahoo) don't even care about Google's PR.

[villa10]

In despite of the new Google policy about links.
Just try building a new site and then ask for recip. links in PR 5 pages.
In the real life that's near to impossible.

My last post in the thread just to share this good reading xxxhttp://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/04/17/7-reasons-googles-paid-link-snitch-plan-sucks

[joeyl]

Discounting paid links is a good idea.

Companies with a lot of money to spend outrank smaller ones, regardless of how good the content is.

For example: There are thousands of generic casino portals that offer nothing but waffle wrapped around a banner farm buying links left right and centre.

When I link a site or piece of information that is actually worth reading, it gets buried amongst the plethora of generic turd.

Link swaps are crap too. The reciprocated self serving up self serving garbage perpetuates the mess that is the internet for me at the moment.

Gladly, I know who's who & whare what is, but the newbie has bob hope these days & it's about time quality information rose to the top of the serps, not the fat cheque brigade.

[TheGooner]

I wonder if the purpose of setting this up is so Google can go after sites such as OneWayTextLinks.com that sell a large number of one-way links to boost traffic and PR of sites that participate. I can't per-say I disagree with people paying for links... it's a form of advertising that Google simply has no right or business trying to stop.

Of course you are right about OneWayTextLinks.com ... but wrong about the final conclusion.

Google and their PR is supposed to be some sort of measure of popularity ranking based on organic growth on the internet ... paid PR links are not.

Google have EVERY right to change their algorthyms as they see fit.

The problem for Google (and all search engines) is that commerce has altered the nature of linking on the internet - and google's altruistic ideal that people will only link for interest and not for profit has become outdated.

One upside of this chance would mean that those contentless blackhat sites that infest the indexes and only last a couple of weeks would probably never get there without these "link for PR" efforts.

Another example is that affiliate links should not carry any PR either ... which might make an interesting impact as I suspect that many casino / poker / sports sites are actually very poorly optimised .... and they would quickly sink below the level of their more savvy affilaites.

If this was ever instigated in the future the only way to actually find a site like Doyles Room might be to click through from an affilaite ..


With that being said - I have absolutely no idea how you could progamatically assume that a link is genuine or for traffic (which Google says is OK) and for PR only (which seems to be the target).

I don't expect to see any real chances anytime soon.

[chill]

Another example is that affiliate links should not carry any PR either ... which might make an interesting impact as I suspect that many casino / poker / sports sites are actually very poorly optimised .... and they would quickly sink below the level of their more savvy affilaites.

I solved that with a seperate folder for all outgoing casino links and refusing google to follow it. They don't get PR from me

[Amateur]

I solved that with a seperate folder for all outgoing casino links and refusing google to follow it. They don't get PR from me

Do you exchange links?

[Dominique]

Aye... PR should having nothing to do with who links to who. I mean, I've seen some completely crap sites that have a pretty high PR value while other (far superior) sites have a PR0. PR is Google's own "measuring stick" of sorts that shouldn't at all have any relation on who links to who. Other engines (MSN, Yahoo) don't even care about Google's PR.

I agree with that.

PR is for the birds, and google doesn't even show the real PR.

What matters is SERPS, not PR. You can have a site with a very low PR outrank a site with very high PR anytime. SERPS bring you visitors. PR does not determine SERPS.

I have never understood people's obsession with PR.

[JR_Ewing]

Discounting paid links is a good idea.

Companies with a lot of money to spend outrank smaller ones, regardless of how good the content is.

For example: There are thousands of generic casino portals that offer nothing but waffle wrapped around a banner farm buying links left right and centre.

When I link a site or piece of information that is actually worth reading, it gets buried amongst the plethora of generic turd.

Link swaps are crap too. The reciprocated self serving up self serving garbage perpetuates the mess that is the internet for me at the moment.

Gladly, I know who's who & whare what is, but the newbie has bob hope these days & it's about time quality information rose to the top of the serps, not the fat cheque brigade.

What I have gathered from your post is that Google should scrap PR. You didn't say it outright, but it makes sense. If Google gets rid of this monster that they have created called PR, they don't have to worry about paid links anymore. Of course, they won't get rid of PR. I don't know, maybe it's ego - they don't want to admit that their monster created such an internet disaster?

And let's not forget, Google created Black Hats. Then again, if it wasn't them, it would have been someone else. So ultimately, they shouldn't be blamed in total.

Competition is a great innovator (I hope I didn't plagiarize that).

[ck8795]

How they know if it is a paid link?
Well a PR0 site with a link in a PR5 premium gambling page is more than suspicious.

That's not so I had a PR0 and was able to exchange a link with a PR5. I have done various things to enable myself to obtain quality links without paying for them. From what I have been told link farms, people buying unrelated links to site with good PR will be nailed and have their links discounted. I think as long as you keep yourself honest than there won't be any worries.