Is this a good deal?

(also -- is it ethical?)

[Don Markstein]

I recently got an inquiry about a text ad to run on my home page, but I don't really do ads on my home page -- no place to put them that wouldn't mess things up, and the home page is hardly the point of my site anyway. I also had reason to think the guy had misstated what he wanted. So I quoted a price for running them on all my interior pages.

But no -- the guy wants only the home page, and what's more, he's perfectly willing to accept just a few text links, way down on the bottom with the copyright notices and stuff.

Is it obvious yet what he wants?

He was pretty up-front about it. He doesn't care if nobody clicks on it. All he wants is the link, so search engines will notice it and up his rankings. He quoted a fairly low-ball price for a year's placement, but then, he's not asking for much.

Now, the site he's pushing doesn't really have much to do with mine, topic-wise, tho one could argue there's at least a peripheral connection. But of course, the connection isn't all that relevant. He's quite frank about wanting nothing but my Google PR.

(One oddity is that he actually has a PR higher than mine -- I guess because he pays for a lot of links from a lot of different sites. Still, is a link from my site all that important to him?)

My wife says don't go for it -- a year's commitment isn't worth it. I say, commitment to what? A sentence or two buried in the legal crap? Looks to me like a quick couple hundred, with nothing very onerous required for earning it.

Of course, this doesn't address the ethical concerns. Is buying a link the right way to build PR? And would I be behaving ethically by going along? In other words, is paying for what you want necessarily a legitimate way of getting it?

I haven't accepted yet. Any thoughts before I do?

-- Don

[larryhatch]

Assuming you care about your own placement in the SERPs, pagerank or whatever,
my biggest concern would be the off-topic nature of the other site. -Larry

[TheHoff]

1) Since the topic is somewhat related, create a new page on your site related to that topic

2) Link to the guy's site from your new page

3) Have the guy donate to your favorite charity, like "Wife's New Purse Fund"

Better for you, better for him, dilemma solved!

[larryhatch]

If the guy wants a link from your main (index) page, and he's willing to pay for it,
AND he doesn't care where you put the link, its pretty clear he is buying links for the sake of his own PR.

Question: In general terms, what kind of site is he promoting? What kind of content? -Larry

[jbinbpt]

But no -- the guy wants only the home page, and what's more, he's perfectly willing to accept just a few text links, way down on the bottom with the copyright notices and stuff.

Multiple links on the same page? That is not my idea of a good deal.

[Don Markstein]

So, Larry, Google could actually penalize me for adding the links? Well, THERE'S an argument against it! (I figure I'm safe from that, because he does have a higher PR, and it isn't THAT off-topic. But still, I guess the possibility exists.)

But, Hoff, while an argument could be made for a tenuous connection between topics, it's so close that I could legitimately write a page on it, and plausibly claim I just happened to add that page. At best, it would look shoehorned in.

And good point, Larry, asking what kind of business he's in. I don't know if I'm allowed to state outright, but it's kind of an ever-so-slightly shady one. Not so shady that he can't be perfectly open about engaging in it on the Web, but there are people who don't think it's legitimate. (I'm not one.)

If I didn't think what he's doing is okay, I'd definitely turn him down. But the fact that some folks look askance at it could be at least a minor factor.

And jbinbpt, would that be not a good idea for him, or for me? Seems to me, I couldn't care less about multiple links. As for him, I haven't seen the links, so maybe they're to widely diverse URLs.

Thanks for your input. I think I'm starting to lean against it, but am still not sure how I'll decide.

[jomaxx]

ever-so-slightly shady one

Aha. In that case the reaction of Google, not to mention your regular site visitors, is something to be concerned about. For a mere couple of hundred bucks I'd say forget it.

I've both bought AND sold links for cash on occasion, so I don't see anything inherently unethical about it. But relevance is good and linking to dodgy or spammy subject areas is bad.

[julinho]

In case you haven't read it yet, you may find this article interesting: [mattcutts.com...] , particularly the section "Reading current feedback".

Some sites are having troubles just for having linked to the wrong places.

[Don Markstein]

I guess that decides me, julinho. My placement in Google is very valuable to me. While a single link doesn't seem likely to jeopardize it, the guy isn't offering enough to start me down that road.

But jomaxx, I didn't mean for the word "shady" to provoke an "Aha" -- that's why I was careful to mention that while some people think it's wrong, I'm not one of them.

And what the heck, I doubt saying it out loud is against the rules here, and if it is I'm sure our ever-alert moderators will be kind enough to just snip it out. The site buys and sells tickets. Some people call that "scalping", and have even made it against the law in some parts of the Land of the Free. But then, in some areas it's against the law to cut your own hair, and if you ask me, the main result of that sort of thing is to encourage disrespect for the law.

Personally, I see it as filling two needs -- people who have tickets they can't use, and people who want tickets they can't find. The Market at work. So I approve of what this guy does, even if I've decided against taking his money.

Thanks to all who participated. I'm much clearer on this issue now.

-- Don

[digicam]

Quoting "Is it ethical to buy links"

Well Google makes a nice living out of scraping webmasters content, go for it.