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Is it really unethical to buy PR?
I personally would sell my Grandmother for a PR8 link and have been thinking a lot about the morality of doing so.
I think the real problem people have is that they have worked very hard to get where they are and them someone comes along and buys a better rank.
Money has always and will always be a short cut - those who toil hard to achieve something always have to face that there are people who can wander in and achieve the same thing with a wad of cash - after all at some stage someone worked hard for that money - so maybe money is like a token of hard work already done?
I would appreciate peoples feedback on this - am I just convinving myself that something unethical is right coz it suits me to or is the 'unethical' stamp just sour grapes?
BTW She really is a sweet old lady - comes with a secret recipe and all, any offers? :)
Are you for real?
Why do you think high PR links can be sold for 5k per month? Do you think the people spending this money simply hope the link will help them make more money?
A site, in an extremely competitive market, can go from the 2nd page, to high on the first, by buying PR. This move can increase traffic by 100% or 200%. If the site can convert the traffic, they may increase profit substantially.
There are people here making $100k per month and battling every index to stay on top. I know a couple, and argue with them, and I can tell you that buying PR has become a way to keep your competition at bay.
That's the value of buying PR. It is a very real measure.
Dotbum,
I believe you said something about the "PR aisle", something about looking for what was on special. I hadn't seen the post above mine because it wasn't there when I started writing my reply.
The decision seems an easy one though. If you are an ethical person. You will not buy PR.
Buying what is meant to be voluntary is unethical.
I'll give you $10.00 to agree with me.
Page rank is essentially a measure of the quality of your information or services as judged by other webmasters. If you purchase page rank you are engaged in misleading the public
That seems pretty rock solid to me.
c1bernaught - sorry for the misunderstanding - I was being more jestful than making a serious point
I know there is a tendency to lump a lot of stuff into the 'spam' bucket (or should that be can?) whenever it doesn't suit and I don't want to fall into that trap.
I have a client that is going to be selling text links on PR7 and PR6 pages. I know he's doing it because he realizes that the high PR is worth $$$.
However, I've convinced him to only accept links that are related to the theme of his site. There will be no unrelated links at all, the links will have value to his users, the links will also send direct traffic to the advertisers, and when advertised PR will not be mentioned.
Is this still unethical? I'm not sure, but it seems much better than blatantly selling PR to just anyone. Comments?
Perhaps you're right. However, I see only a couple reasons to buy links.
One, you want PR. This is not ethical.
Two, you feel that you will get enough traffic from the site in question and it's worth your investment. This one does not seem unethical to me.
However, either gives you PR.
Hmmm...... I guess scenario 2 is only unethical if it's simply a justification for 1.
Dotbum,
would you go $2.50? 8,)
that is to say, i am right behind search engine optimisations, and (hence being here) do it myself somewhat. but i am not behind what comes down to blatently trickery of google. optimise yes, trick no. i think google should set up a hit squad to go and PR0 any site who they suspect has paid or sold a link. A few of those would soon make people think twice about paying $5000 for a link.
vincevincevince - I see you're in the spanish inquisition mould of seo! ;)
Yeh, I think so.
>Why do you think high PR links can be sold for 5k per month?
They have more money than sense? The sellers have great sales people? The buyers recieved uneducated advice? They are paying for the branding exposure?
>Do you think the people spending this money simply hope the link will help them make more money?
Yes. They have no evidence that it does make any difference. Noone does. It's all theory and conjecture.
>A site, in an extremely competitive market, can go from the 2nd page, to high on the first, by buying PR.
A site in an extremely competitive market, can go from the 2nd page, to high on the fist without buying PR. What's your point?
>That's the value of buying PR. It is a very real measure.
What's the measure? There is no measurment there.
They forked out cash and saw a difference. Not exactly conclusive evidence.
So they didnt make a single change to their site in all that time (PR change was the only factor)? And Google didnt alter the algo? And the competition didnt change at all (no more content, no more links). The whole web stood still for a laboratory environment test of the effect of PR?
Dont think so.
The fact is that the effect of PR, whatever it may be, is and will remain unknown.
People, myself included, can prattle on about what they think the effect is, but chances are we will be wrong.
Back on topic:
Is it ethical to buy PR?
Regardless of what effect it has, i would say no.
Google vision of PR was to use it as a voting / referal / endorsment system, so I would have to agree with lurker.
If you can't produce quality, then paying to make people believe you can is unethical.
Scott
So I guess they should PR0 Yahoo?
Cheers,
Nigel
I disagree with the above statement. PR is a measure of your site as measured by Google, not by the public. And buying PR exploits a weakness in Google's algorithm. I don't know if I would consider this unethical ... to many it is simply a shrewd business tactic.
It is not unethical to sell links or to buy links. It is unethical to sell PR because it is not yours to sell. Google can feel free to block the PR transfer of any link that it feels compromises it's system.
So according to this all buying and selling of links is unthical unless your site (page) is banned, penalized, or unranked... because all other pages have a PageRank.
hmmm... sound confusing?
This is simply a vantagepoint, an advertising point of view, nothing more, nothing less...
It really has nothing to do with ethics what-so-ever.
As far as not yours to sell, well the other side the page isn't Google's to rank.
The only ethical or should we say "legal" part of this discussion is if you have legal right to advertise a Registered Trademark property of another company without permission...
We all spend time working on sites to get them to the top of Google, that's no more ethical than paying for a link as far as I can see.
Cheers,
Nigel
Brand exposure / traffic / etc.
Regardless if someone was paying for PR, they could easily hide the fact under the guise of a "legitimate" reason.
Google couldnt prove otherwise.
Scott
I still think that all the seo's put way too much emphasis on PR. PR means nothing to me. Only use I see is to compare who has a bigger bar. ;)
The reason I say this is because I have one site that is PR0 and is on the second page of a very competitive term. The guy below me is a PR6. I'm sure he's pissed.
If you are buying to get a bigger bar, you are wasting your money.
I want to challenge your thoughts on PR relevance being some kind of mad conspiracy - take this example:
Travel is a growth industry on the web - if you were to optimize for that single word could you come first without comsidering pr?
Because I'm looking at the current victor and they'd get slapped silly if they brought that site in for their first homework assignment in Brett's Quick Rank 101 - but they do have a LOT of links...
Look, perhaps in your world PR doesn't exist and has no value.
In the world in which I live, and work, looking for good links is necessary. Why? It's because I see my PR go up. Why does that matter? It matters becasue I can SEE my site beating out lesser PR sites. It matters because my traffic increases. It matters because I can make more money.
PR may be a just a killer marketing ploy. However, see what happens if your site get's a PR0.
Perhaps that isn't verifiable, statistical evidence for you. However, for many people this is the way it works.
Now, I agree that buying PR is unethical.
You have a PR0 site that is higher in the serps than a PR6 site?
I've never seen that.
The reason that most people buy links is that they expect traffic from them. They are buying popularity and recognition. Whether or not google will count that popularity is totally up to google.
I think that too many people make the mistake of going for the one big kill. I will just buy that one PR8 link and my brand new site will be set. A PR8 link to an unrelated site with only 3 other backlinks will appear as attempted manipulation to a human reviewer. A PR8 link from a related site, to a site with good content, that is showing 3000 other backlinks would likely have no problems.
Consider a link from a PR8 site as being like buying an ad on the Superbowl. You don't see ads for Jerry's House of Chili Dogs Grand Opening on the Superbowl. You see companies that buy ads every month in almost every magazine. They buy other TV spots. If the Superbowl was their only ad, everyone would have a good laugh and then just ignore them.
It's true. I never saw it before either, until last month. I've been laughing about PR ever since. :)
But industries on the web are further divided down in to sub-sectors - ie more specific keywords.
Yes, being number 1 for "travel" will have a great traffic benefit.
But, you can still achieve excellent traffic flows and therefore revenue from the niche markets.
No-one should expect to be number 1 for a highly competitive keyword with a new site - but over time you can build your traffic and presence (and revenue!) to rival the big players.
c1bernaught,
In my world my site has gone from 2k visitors per month to 20k visitors per month within 5 months - on a consistent PR5, in a highly competitive market.
After only 6 months of operation (with no attention paid to PR and no budget whatsoever BTW) I am now being approached by industry leaders asking for me to exchange links / content or to work with them (including noted and highly recognised individuals and businesses).
>PR may be a just a killer marketing ploy. However, see what happens if your site get's a PR0.
It is a killer marketing ploy, regardless of its impact, and I find it unlikely that my site will be PR0 as i dont do anything that would warrant that.
Those who get PR0'd tend to be the same people who either tried to cheat the system and got caught or were unaware of the system and got unlucky. Im neither.
All the evidence I have is the increasing success of my site without any emphasis placed on PR. I conclude that PR cant have much impact if it is possible to succeed without being in the ranks of the PR 8 to 10's.
Scott
I think You're right. However, I think that it takes some time for a human reviewer to actually review a site. This factor allows, in some cases, unfair manipulation of an entire market for several months.
I'm becoming convinced that this strategy is being utilized and is profitable for people using it.
Regardless, it is unethical to buy PR. T.V. commercials are paid advertisements and are designed to sway opinion. The advertiser doesn't know how the public will react to their ad.
This is not the case when buying links for the purpose of increasing PR. When a PR8 link is purchased, regardless of whether Google actually passes the PR, the intent is to manipulate the serps. This is what is unethical.
I think you are missing the point.
You do well with a PR of 5.
You were saying that PR has no value and is only a marketing ploy.
I am saying that your site would crash and burn IF you were given a PR of 0.
The point is...... PR has value.
No one would be asking for links, you would not be ranking well and you would not be telling me how well you are doing, if you had no PR.
I don't think anyone here is saying it's the only factor or even the most important factor but you seem to be suggesting it's a figment of our over active imaginations :)
Oops looks like c1bernaught beat me to the punch line..
$5K a month for a Google Premium Sponsorship? That's if they'll talk to you. One of my clients spends $30 K a month on AdWords and wants to buy a Premium Sponsorship and is more than willing to pay, but Google won't sell it to us.
***
On the subject of paying for links. I spend a lot of time asking website owners for links to my clients' sites. Sometimes they say yes and sometimes they say no. But I bet over 90% have no idea what a Page Rank is.
How can there be a market when most of the participants don't even know there is a market? Site owners don't ask for money for a link because it never occurs to them that the link is worth anything.
the newspaper advertising is, in fact. a link - and it makes people come to your resource.
And google works in the next way - it shows the sites first, which would have more visitors, if no SE exist at all, as I understand it. So this is just the same thing :)
I'm not realyl for or against, but I don't see why I shouldn't create a huge, content filled website A-La "about.com" and get back my investment via PR sale.
To be honest, does Adobe.com really represent such a high value to deserve it's high PR? Or is it not rather a niche product for certain developer types... Just an idea...
SN
