Paid Links - Good or bad - a UK SEO perspective part III

It was only a matter of time before part three came along….

I would have thought by now, my thoughts on paid linkage would probably be fairly clear, if not heres a recap

Paid Links - Good or Bad - a UK SEO perspective

Paid Links - Good or Bad - a UK SEO perspective Part II

I was however reading Matt Cutts presentation to SES San Jose, regarding paid links - which I have to say was highly informative, however one slide in particular got me thinking, in particular Slide 2

Are paid links evil?
That’s the wrong question.

The right question: Do paid links that pass PageRank violate search engines’ quality guidelines?

The answer to that question is yes.

This has lead me to evaluate Googles quality guidelines in order to evaluate just which aspects Matt Cutts refers to. The quality guidelines are taken from here, and we will refer in particular to the quality guidelines only
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

The analysis

Guideline 1: Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”

I would suggest this would not apply to the issue of paid links. The development of pages for increased visibility in the search engines would not apply in this instance

Guideline 2: Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

Now this may be the guideline in question. My feelings on this have been previously outlined in the posts above - I as the competitor do not have a problem with competitors buying links (if they wish to buy links on the basis that Google may change the algorithm -as they have - let them - i will have to find more creative ways - and anyway - if buying links for SEO purposes only is bad - why isn’t getting links by any other means for SEO purposes only bad ie directories). Surely this needs further explanation.
Secondly where do you draw the line here. Using a real life example, I noticed a number of ads down the right hand side of a well known marketing/consultancy portal in the UK. The site itself fairly enough offers advertising, paid advertising to clients, and some of these clients have contextual linkage to their site included in the ads to a number of well known SEO companies based in Scotland and England. These links are neither no follow, nor is the page nofollow, nor is the link 302′d, nor is the page protected by robots.txt.

Does this therefore constitute paid linkage - and if so have these links been waited down? Looking at the performance of both sites, I don’t think so. So therefore it brings into question - just what is ok and what is not.
Finally, and this leads on from point 2. Intent. How is Google going to determine intent. Yes, there will be tell tail signs on some link patterns but using the self same portal above. I will give these seo companies the benefit of the doubt, and say that these adverts were brought purely on a brand awareness basis, and any link juice gained is purely co-incidental. However how can I be 100% sure this is the case - the point is I can’t and the same applies to many of these paid links. How can Google be 100% sure that the link has been purchased for SEO purposes only or is this to be selective - and if so this needs to be very definitively explained.

However according to Matt Cutts presentation ‘Buying paid links that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines’. Surely that doesn’t even bring intent into it. Again the presentation goes on to say - Google is willing to take strong action against PPP links, and is an area Google is focussing on.

If this is the case - I would suggest further advise is required by Google to webmasters and SEO specialists in order to educate as to what is good and what is bad.

Guideline 3: Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links. 

Now again this could be one of the points in question. However this is still quite a grey area, as Google are yet to say submitting to directories is bad - and lets face it - I would suggest many SEO specialists merely submit to directories for SEO purposes only. Whilst I agree with people such as Andrew Girdwood and John Andrews when they say that content development is the best way forward, there is no way of getting round the fact that people do ‘acquire’ linkage for SEO purposes only, and thus if paid is bad, surely any other form of link acquisition in order to facilitate increased visibility in the search engines is bad - and the line can not be merely drawn at just paid links.

Guideline 4: Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Again - would suggest this wouldn’t apply here.

Finally the specific guidelines - going to do these in one as I don’t think any apply

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Don’t create pages that install viruses, trojans, or other badware.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first

To conclude - maybe I along with many other search marketing professionals would be more open to the nofollow campaign if it didn’t appear to have as many gaping holes in the guidelines as it does. I personally, do not want to go against any guidelines, and thus see any clients online visibility therefore impacted, hence why any queries/objections are therefore highlighted via a medium such as this.

However I would suggest the policy of nofollow does need to be significantly further though through in order to be fully implemented (correctly) by the search marketing community as a whole.

14 comments September 3rd, 2007