Paid Links - a UK SEO perspective Part II

August 28th, 2007

I have just read John Andrews recap of the SES session on Paid Links (hat tip to Andrew Girdwood for the initial post on this), and have to say from my earlier post, possibly one aspect I missed was the subject of content development.

Both John and Andrew (and Google from the afore mentioned session) make reference to the value of unique content, which I would suggest all SEO specialists would agree with, is one of the most important aspects of SEO. However I do have to still stop short of the ‘Paid links are bad’ argument.

Whilst I would agree, a campaign based purely on paid linkage is surely not advisable or indeed should be rewarded, I still personally don’t see the problem with paid linkage (again I would highlight the fact this is coming from someone who hasnt employed such tactics to any real effect on the past).

However, move back to my original references to the offline model.

If I were to market my product offline, I may use a PR campaign (lets compare this to Content generation) and some direct offline marketing or magazine advertorials (lets compare this to link generation whether it be paid or unpaid). Offline works with a combination of the two factors (albeit the example above being wildly oversimplified), however the point is - surely Google’s algorithm could factor in such factors as uniqueness of content, depth of content, link density, link relevancy and weight accordingly.

Paid links aren’t bad - over-reliance on paid links is bad, however my concern with the approach of such radical action is it merely serves to focus hardcore OVER-SEO activity elsewhere, like reciprical linkage before it. I personally understand what both John and Andrew say about content, however the mere fact Google have said Content is good will no doubt result in millions of pages of so-called unique content being produced thus diluting both the value and quality of content, and I would suggest we may find ourselves in a similar situation regarding content generation in the future.

I will however end this post echoing some of John’s thoughts. Whilst I personally may not agree with some of the factors of Googles recent approach to paid links, we have to live with them, and I will end with a quote from Johns post

“Is Google right in its approach to the web? Is Google just in its delivery of the carrot and the stick? Is Google fair in the way it operates? None of that matters to the search marketer/SEO. …You need to get to know Google, and listen to what Google says. You don’t need to agree” - John Andrews - johnon.com

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