Don’t let Google push you around, link buyers and sellers
by Sapphire (April 17, 2007)
At least once a year, Google announces that what used to be fine is now evil, and they’ll use their magic powers to determine if you’re doing something or not, and penalize you. This time, it’s paid links.
I can’t find it now, but I know just a few weeks ago they said paid links would be looked at for the same criteria as unpaid. After all, if it’s a good, relevant link, visitors don’t care if you got paid to put it there or not, and neither should search engines. Then, as you’ve probably read somewhere, Matt Cutts announced over the weekend that Google will be punishing paid links. I lost two links, and you know what, folks? That’s all Google was really after.
Matt’s post began talking about truly hidden links to porn, which I really wouldn’t mind Google doing something about, if they can. Then he wanders onto paid links in general. Then he spends most of the comments talking about PayPerPost type links - as opposed to sidebar sponsor links - which, you know, arguably should be disclosed and there’s nothing wrong with Google taking that position. He claims Google’s concern is for visitors getting duped, but advises using techniques that are invisible to visitors to tell robots not to follow paid links. Let’s face it: Google’s own “no-follow” potentially perpetrates a fraud on visitors every time it allows a webmaster to link to anything without fear of pagerank reprisals.
So what’s Google really up to? It’s simple. Text link ads and paid posts are cutting into AdSense’s market share. This makes Google unhappy, especially because their own pagerank metric is being used by people choosing who to buy links from, and Google’s confused trademark ownership with owning a concept. Pagerank is just a metric for something that’s always been around. Before Pagerank, we had to get links from relevant sites who could send us traffic. After Pagerank… nothing really changed. We just had the delusion of a reliable shortcut to making educated guesses about which sites could deliver good traffic. I say “delusion” because I’ve never believed Pagerank - designed for Google - told webmasters all they needed to know.
You know what? Here’s what I don’t understand, and honestly find a little suspicious. Why did Google ever make pagerank public? And why don’t they “solve” this problem by making it non-public? Just take pagerank away from the rest of us, Google, and keep it for yourself, like you always should have. Then we’ll go back to our educated guesses about who can send us good traffic.
Don’t let Google push you around, people. Forget about pagerank. Google wants control, but they know that if they don’t deliver good sites because they dislike the webmasters, people will find those sites through social bookmarking, other search engines, etc. And then they will stop trusting Google.
It’ll be interesting to see what scare tactic Google uses to force us all away from social bookmarking, the next great threat to their 80% empire.
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April 17th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I’d heard about this too. I think it’s totally frustrating… and I’m starting to feel bullied. I think we’re entitled to make money through text link ads - in a way it’s the easiest way to get links rather than slogging around for hours trying to do link exchanges (that often don’t work). So here we are, making a little extra cash with them.
The whole disclosure on the Paid Reviews - understandable. I get that. I’m just totally peeved. I also know that I have to find more about this before really freakin’ out.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:12 am
It looked to me like what Matt was saying was that webmasters need to treat paid links one way for human readers, and another way for search engines. And I don’t buy his “you already do that with meta tags and validated code” comparison. Google played a huge role in creating the link-based economy, and now they’re bummed out because they can’t completely control it.
I agree that we as publishers need to be prepared to accept responsibility for the links we put on our sites, paid or non-paid. If choosing to include a paid link on my site means I risk getting a spanking from Google, then so be it.
As you’ve pointed out, the link-based economy that has been dominated by Google is already evolving into something else. Something based on attention, influence, and connectedness that don’t necessarily have a lot to do with links.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Empress: I think this will just make a lot of noise and then go away once it’s scared off a few link buying customers. Because I really don’t see what more Google can do about it. Only webmasters are going to report the evil paid links, and we have every motive to abuse the tattle-tale system to hurt each other.
Wil: I totally agree. And as I’ll be reporting soon, I am not seeing any huge differences on Project Mai Tai since Google finally indexed it. I really don’t think we “need” Google as much as we imagine.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:03 am
That is true…
But I can’t help but feel a bit bullied by the almighty Google. (and it isn’t like I’m a big fish in this sea).
April 18th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Any comments on this?
Pay Per Click is a big loser for many large ticket items like we sell. We sell medical mobility products. Most of the people visiting our site are using it for a catalog never intending to buy. I think there is a lot of waste and fraud with pay per click for many products and services on the web effecting a large percentage of companies. Google and Yahoo are aware of this and they have the data and have not released this data to the customers. Do you think google/Yahoo is going to admit that a large percentage of poeple doing PPC are wasting their time and money? NO WAY! I think people are figuring this out now in a big way. That’s why Pay Per Action is being offered by google. Google/Yahoo know the secret is getting out now. If people knew what google and yahoo know they would not even try PPC for many products people are trying to sell on the web. The word is getting out on this and will soon shock the PPC biz and the big search engines. Pay Per Sale will save google and yahoo and others will follow.
It will take a while but the pain for the publishers and google/yahoo will be worth it.
The big secret is now being exposed and will save many of the advertisers and google/Yahoo.
Thank God!
April 18th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Empress, I totally understand.
Harvey: oh, absolutely! I’ve written more than a few pieces about click fraud, mostly back when people were insisting it wasn’t a big problem. Well, yeah - not for the publishers! It was great for people making money off AdSense and similar - including the engines themselves.
I’ve known more than a few people over the years who claim they’ve paid for significant fraudulent clicks, and common sense tells me it’s true. Besides, there are freakin’ “paid to click” rings all over in which people submit their AdSense sites to paid email campaigns, and the people who receive the emails are strongly encouraged to “just do one or two searches”. It’s pretty filthy.
April 18th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
I find this all to convenient. Nofollow was Googles
solution to blog spam! If you ask many blogger it failed in a major way. I think that nofollow had more motives then talked about at first. I mean what’s the point of a paid link if it’s worth nothing right. Why should I pay for a link that’s worthless? Now they’re saying you can report a paid link as spam to Google. Well I say no to nofollow that includes paid links. I mean if it’s relevant to a site and has good content just because it’s paid does that mean it’s not relevant.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I think you’re right about NoFollow. Many bloggers pointed out at the time that it was not going to work, and I think some SEO types speculated on what it was really about.
I’m still not sure what to think, but I do know that when someone first explained no-follow to me in terms of “bad neighborhoods” and “linking networks”, I misunderstood at first and thought they meant this was something anti-Google webmasters had invented so they could link to kiddie porn virus downloading sites without losing pagerank. So you lose your visitor’s trust but continue to be a top result in Google? Yeah, that’s great for the web.