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I just read the following in WebProNews and thought I would pass it on:
Quote:Cutts (Finally) Answers Paid Link QuestionsBy Jason Lee Miller
Awash in good intentions, Google’s Matt Cutts paved a hellish road for himself by asking people to fill out a spam report for paid links. Matt followed up over the weekend (and while on vacation) with details that may have saved him some initial grief.
It must be surreal, from Matt’s side of the fence, that there are mobs of people that know exactly when he takes vacation, when he’s coming back, and are miffed about it in general. Cutts and Scoble both are examples of why you blog at your own risk.
Instead of a new post, Matt updated the original thread that caused all the trouble – and over 600 comments – and swallowed up more than one weekend now. His update is lengthy, so we’ll just cover the highlights.
Do all paid links violate Google’s quality guidelines?
Not necessarily. Cutts says the only paid links he cares about are ones designed to game search engines. He cites an example of a Linux site with a group of sponsored links for casinos, drugs, and gifts. Aside from apparent spamminess, the links are presented in image format, which Matt thinks is to avoid detection.
“I’m sure,” he writes, “some people will happily defend links like these, but in my experience people who search on Google don’t want links like these to affect Google’s search results.”
Cutts says Google is not interested in reports on affiliate links or directories, just spammy gaming attempts like the example mentioned.
Reports used to make the algorithm better
A purpose of the spam report, is to add manual review of sites the algorithm may have missed and to bolster the algorithm’s accuracy in the future.
“Our current algorithm detected the paid links above just fine, but these outside reports are a great way to measure (and then improve) the precision and recall of our existing algorithms on independent data. Next, the reports help build datasets for future algorithms.”
What about corporate sabotage?
Cutts says: We’ve always tried very hard to prevent site A from hurting site B. That’s why these reports aren’t being fed directly into algorithms, and are being used as the starting point rather than being used directly.
Make sites for users, not search engines
Cutts says: It would be a misinterpretation of that guideline to think “Okay, I can only do things for users, I can never do things for search engines. Therefore I can buy text links, but not in a way that doesn’t affect search engines.”
That same philosophy would mean that you wouldn’t create a robots.txt file…never make any meta tags…never create an XML sitemap file…and wouldn’t create web pages that validate…. Yet these are all great practices to do. So if you want to buy links, I’d buy them for users/traffic, not for PageRank/search engines.
Don’t trust sneaky link sellers
Matt cites an interesting example of someone advertising that their paid links can’t be found by Google. That’s a red flag for someone that’s not on the up-and-up, but is trying to game the search engine.
About the Author:
Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews editor and writer. Currently pursuing an MFA in Writing degree, Jason received his BA in Communication/Mass Media. Certified in print journalism by the Kentucky Press Association, he has been noted by several online news publications and his work has been cited in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. Email him at jmiller at webpronews dot com.Yeah he took alot of flack for his comments because one of the VP’s at Google owns a site that sells links.
Not to mention that adsense and adwords are people buying and selling links.
Google = Evil hypocrites
This was a huge mistake on google’s part. I am glad that with all the negative attention they had to go back and clear things up.
They didnt have to clear anything up; it was obvious from the get go that they were interested in going after those gaming the system. Just because a site sells links doesnt mean they are doing it for SEO; in other instances its pretty obvious and those are the cases google/cutts wants to target.
I read Matt’s blog and he seems to be going around in circles.I think they are fear mongering and trying to get more money in their own pockets.I personally will not change the way I do business. And i own 3 physical servers ,one in canada , USA and Europe.How will he know that i own all 151 websites ?I give myself links back and forth so i really cant see how they can prove money going back and forth.
Would be a nightmare for them to prove .
The problem is this CBG
1. They have access to top level registrar information. Even “private” registrations.
2. They know what domains you own.
3. They dont have to prove anything to anyone. If they get annoyed with you for any reason they can penalize ALL your domains no matter where they are and not serve them up in their serps.
They HAVE done this in the past and they continue to do it. If they believe you have too many domains on a given topic they make you vanish from their returns because they assume you are a “spammer”.
Well Lou can i get google’s number if you have it because i dont even know what domains I own LOL.
I have all my links that i sold expiring july 7 or sooner and i dont plan to sell anymore on the websites I value in terms of income.But I do have exchange scripts on the websites now.There is also the snitch factor, if you have high serps as I do , all it takes is your competition to stab u in the back by paying for a link then turning you in to google.
If you read his entire blog post it says that he has no problem with link selling for relevant traffic but he has an issue with link sales that aim at SEO. He stated that he doesn’t take issue if sold links are clearly marked as “Sponsors”, “Ads” or whatever.
But I agree, it sucks that Google strives for world domination. Now you can even end up on thousands of Blogs if you sunbathe in the park and your a*s crack is showing thanks to “Street View”. What’s next “Toilet View”?
