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Google Gives Free PR8 Links to Paid Partners, and Doesn’t Follow Their Own Guidelines
SEM News Source: http://www.wolf-howl.com
Published: Jan 08, 2008 - 07:20 pm
Story Found By: Eish 1963 Days ago
Category: SEM
Google and there double standards!
 Comments4 Comments  

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from Burgo 1962 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I agree with Rae in the comments; Matt’s comment of:"On link #3, I can ask, but I’m pretty sure that none of those sites paid to be there; it’s a listing of sites that use Google Checkout."... is going to be a MAJOR discussion point in the future.

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from Halfdeck 1962 Days ago #
Votes: 1

Another paid link non-SEO post I could live without, BUT Michael makes a good point in the comments:"Here’s the thing though like any big corp lots of times the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing, and things get done in complete contradiction of company policies. So how can Google expect everyone else to have their house in order when they can’t do it themselves""I’m pretty sure that none of those sites paid to be there; it’s a listing of sites that use Google Checkout." - Matt CuttsI can understand Rae’s reaction, but the fact remains Google doesn’t care that a transaction took place as long as the intent of the transaction isn’t to manipulate search results. The problem is, often its very difficult to tell from the outside why money changed hands, as Matt says:"When Adam and I looked into it, the links were editorially chosen."They have the luxury of "looking into" their own links, but obviously they will not invest that time when checking links on other people’s domains. In that case, often its guilty until proven otherwise, as I found out when my AdWords account was on its verge of getting deleted due to Googlers’ incompetence and inconsistency in approving ads.

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from TimDineen 1962 Days ago #
Votes: 1

@graywolf - you want it both ways? You say Google shouldn’t tell you how to design your own pages or create links. Why should you, then, tell them how or who they can link to?I don’t understand why one business shouldn’t be allowed to link to its own business partners... you, of all people, shouldn’t mind whether these are paid links (partnerships) or not!

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from dannysullivan 1962 Days ago #
Votes: 0

This is kind of old news, in the sense that we’ve had stories about X Google partner being listed on X page so therefore that’s a paid link. But it’s still a valid issue, underscoring the complexities you have to walk if you’re uncertain what’s going to be considered a paid link these days.

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