Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

| This News Blog is dedicated to bringing news, information and innovations targeting the Search Engine Optimisation industry.

Google's paid links crackdown causes uproar.

Google's request for webmasters to report paid links has not been well received in some quarters.

It is no secret that Google has never been happy about paid links (the process of buying links on sites for the purpose of the link, not the traffic) as it believes they have a negative influence on the algorithm. And there is a general consensus in the SEO community that paid links have become an impediment to Google's ability to deliver good results.

However there is genuine concern because there are lots of websites that live on selling links. Indeed it could be said that Google itself lives on selling links, so this is where Matt Cutts has been placating some sections of the industry by clarifying that websites can continue selling links for traffic. But where Google remains firm is that it does not like links sold for pagerank.

He is quoted as saying: "I believe AdBrite constructs their links with JavaScript so that links are being sold for traffic, not to affect search engines. Things like JavaScript, the nofollow attribute (or meta tag), or doing a link through a redirect that is robots.txt'ed out would be techniques to sell links for visitors/traffic, as opposed to trying to influence search engine rankings."

The forums are full of discontent and questions have been asked as to why webmasters should be responsible for helping to fix a weakness in Google's search algorithm - especially when the problem is visible links and not hidden links, cloaking or spam.

Previously the whole SEO process, according to Google, has been based on the acquisition of links. Matt Cutts has spoken many times at conferences on what Google want webmasters to do - in a nut shell "market your website". I would freely admit that exchanging indiscriminate links for money is far from ideal, but is there not a possibility that the backlash would result in all sites withholding their PageRank - would this not lead to Googles results being made more inaccurate, if the algorithm is still based as such.

Google has in the past made a big play on how good it is, only a couple of months ago I listened to Matt speaking at SES explaining how Google was looking a page placement to determine how important a link is. If it is on the far right or in the footer it is has less importance than links on the lift, top or middle of the page. So given that most paid for links would be in the less important areas of the page, isn't the request to tell tale on sites selling links a little strange…unless of course Google aren't actually as clever as they make out to be.

M.P

Comment: