News Source: http://searchenginewatch.com
Published: Jan 10, 2008 - 08:48 am
Story Found By: jeffquipp 1961 Days ago
Category: Link Building
From the page: "Fear has infected the entire Web community -- not just link buyers and sellers. Google’s public attack on paid links has caused a flood of scared Webmasters who are scared to link to other sites. Google’s assault on paid links has forced Webmasters to ask: What is a paid link?"
7 Comments
Comments
"Webmasters scared to link out" - seriously?I have a hunch that a hotel chain running a promotional campaign or a web dev firm waiving a fee isn’t going to give a second thought to the fact Google might destroy them in some paid link misunderstanding. Just a hunch mind.....and another teeeeeeensy hunch that maybe, just maybe, the hordes of PHDs at Google might consider for a second that not every action on the web relates to SEOs whoring links.Andthat’sPaarraa-nooooii-AAAAH! ;)My prediction for 2008 is that business will continue as it always has done, paying limited notice to SEO in the grand scheme of things (granted, perhaps less than they should). The only thing that will continue to change is the acceptance of SEO as an integral part of marketing and maybe come closer to requiring SEOs to not approach their jobs in quite the Wild West manner is has been done in the past.Link whoring out. Marketing in. Google will compliment that, not act as a barrier.Scott
"Webmasters scared to link out" - seriously?I really have to agree with Justilien there. Especially right after several newspapers got hit by Google’s PageRank penalty for selling links to irrelevant websites, I’ve noticed a drop -although it’s a slight one- in outgoing links in their articles. Remember that the average journalist or online editor knows squat about SEO and/ or links. If he or she hears somewhere that "paid links can harm your website", I’m pretty sure that he or she will be more cautious about where to link to.
I think the adage is ’a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ - word of paid link penalties will continue to filter out beyond the SEO community and people who don’t know what the official position on them is (everyone) will play it on the safe side.Remember that most people equate PageRank with SERPs in some form or other, and hearing tales about sites getting their PR slashed will scare them stupid.
Scott- The issue is the webmaster on the other end receiving the promotion. Anyone who follows my link column at SEW or my link blog knows I advocate marketing to gain links. I also consult with other companies who use marketing for link development. Yes - there has been a decline in responses rates and straight links.
Great sphinn, Jeff. Thanks for posting.
Good post. We must know the right things to do and have to be eager to learn so we could improve doing the correct way of link building.
Good post, well done.