Sphinn - Update On One Of Google's Paid Links Info Pages?

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Update On One Of Google's Paid Links Info Pages?

Went Hot: November 23, 2007 - 12:17 pm
Posted By: tnash 596 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://blogoscoped.com)
Category: Google SEO

So finally something official and not just from Mr Cutts unofficial sponsored witch hunt blog. By the way Google say Paid Links are bad just in case you missed it ;)

10 Comments

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Comments

from AndyBeard 595 days ago #

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I assume they are going to set a good example and give themselves, Yahoo and Microsoft a penalty before anyone else.

from IncrediBILL 595 days ago #

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This is how the monopoly works with the search engine side crushing AdWords competitors under the guise of stopping sites that sell links for PR purposes.

Riiiiiiiiight.

This is exactly what I was talking about regarding Nollow FUD because Google doesn't know the link intent otherwise they would just filter out the PR themselves.

That's why they're making some high profile hits to scare the rest of the herd into behaving properly.

from Lodispoto 595 days ago #

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Andy you're hilarious. They are above us mere mortals and regular sites. Google is now 'the elite' along with Microsoft and Yahoo. To penalize themselves and their 'league' would be utterly insane to them. They care not what you and I or anyone else thinks any longer.

from TheRealTerry 595 days ago #

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It's time for Google to take a reality check and redefine their role. This in my opinion is crap:

"Buying links in order to improve a site's ranking is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."

Becomes:

"Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."

What I find more troubling than that "or selling" is added is that the intent statement is removed "in order to improve a site's ranking". Not that Google could ever really determine intent, but this just goes to show they don't even care about that anymore, they simply want to stop all paid links. Problem is, if they couldn't determine intent with their algorithm, then I don't think they can determine if something is flat out paid or sold anyhow, without some kind of blatant "buy a link" statement. So in effect, it's FUD because they aren't going to devalue the factor of links in ranking since that's the core of their algortihm and what set them apart from other engines in the first place.

The reality is that Google is attempting to eliminate an industry, whether that reason is because they want to boost AdWords or just that they reached the limitations of their algo and realize that they AREN'T smarter than everyone else, regardless of how many PHDs are on staff. No matter how you slice it that's some grade A fodder for a law suit, attempting to push an entire industry out the door using their market dominance. Google, why don't you just put your PHDs to work and leave people alone, it's not your place to tell people what they can and can't sell. Contrary to what your vanity tells you, links are not always bought to game your engine, there is a such thing as paid advertisement outside of your world.

from hugoguzman 595 days ago #

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Has anyone bothered to ask the obvious question? Now that having paid links can negatively effect your rankings, won't unscrupulous webmasters just go out and buy links and point them to their competitor's sites?

from LinkXL 595 days ago #

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It's obvious that Google does not like competition nor do they like the manupilation of their search algo to be used to gain profit for others than themselves.

There are other alternatives out there that are unseen and still achieve the success of building your link popularity.

Anyone going to PubCon? Hit me up to meet up.

from Jill 595 days ago #

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Yep, good point, Hugo.

from Woz 595 days ago #

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>won't unscrupulous webmasters just go out and buy links and point them to their competitor's sites?

Or report competitor sites as selling links, regardless of whether they are or not?

Or report competitor sites as buying links, regardless of whether they are or not?

Or post anonymously that site XYZ got a great SERP boost by bying links from YYY?

Or ...

When one tries to close a Pandora'sBox, one usually find many more Pandora's Boxes opend up in the process.

from TheRealTerry 593 days ago #

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Why don't they just ignore them in regards to how they rank sites. Penalizing opens up that box, ignoring elements they disagree with always seemed to me to be the best approach.

from g1smd 592 days ago #

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*** Now that having paid links can negatively effect (sic) your rankings, won't unscrupulous webmasters just go out and buy links and point them to their competitor's sites? ***

I think that new links will simply not count towards anything. There will be no negative effect for those, just a lack of positive effect.

Of course for links that were pre-existing, and which did previously count, the point at which they no longer counted was seen by many as being a fall. I'd think that this wasn't that the links now count against you, but instead they were simply removed from the total that were counting for you.