Google Filtering Paid Links?

Is google devaluing the paid linking?

[aakash]

A big shift is being seen in the G SERPs Listing nowdays. Some have seen it as a algo change, and that is ture. There is some hypothesis that G is filtering the result and it has devalued the paid link or sponsered link. To some extent I feel it is true. But I good discussion is required on Is G really filtering the results? What do you have to say?

[walkman]

"Because you're trying to corrupt Google's search results. You're free to do whatever you want, but then again, so is Google."

I agree with EuropeforVisitors, but where I disagree is letting the algo determine if a link is paid or not, as the case seems to be. Especially if the site is penalized. If the links are disounted only, then it's different, but you have to be careful before hurting a site (and many people's livelyhood) because they have sitewides.

[glengara]

Thing is Walkman, sitewides are nearly always just one part of a linkage pattern that screams "links scheme designed to improve.....".

[Rollo]

algo changes happen to improve the system

I'm not so sure you can say this across the board; some of Google's gimmicks to enhance revenue don't serve the public but rather shareholder value.

Google better be careful about how it uses its highly concentrated market share. Ownership society or not, businesses whose services have become essential to the public can and eventually will be regulated.

Anyway, based on observation, it seems that G$ is downgrading links, but not necessarily paid ones. I think, on-topic versus off-topic matters far more than paid versus not paid. I don't think Google is cracking down on paid links, though I'm sure the probably could figure out a mathematical solution to the problem (that would take even more innocent sites down in the process).

[Elixir]

Bess, you are absolutely correct you made your money now go ahead an buy advertising wherever you choose, just dont expect Google to give you a good position for a paid link anymore. Think about it if all the sites in the top 10 are there because they bought links how does that help the consumer or the searcher. It means you bought your way to the top there is a perfectly legitimate way of doing this its called "Adwords" Be very very careful who you "buy links" from if the link is not going to bring you traffic dont waste your money.

[walkman]

nearly always isn't good enough to ruin someone's business in my opinion. Especially not from a company that claim that they do no evil. If I add a sitewide link to your site, should google ban you without checking?

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Thing is Walkman, sitewides are nearly always just one part of a linkage pattern that screams "links scheme designed to improve.....".

[Rollo]

...sitewides are nearly always just one part of a linkage pattern that screams "links scheme designed to improve....."

I don't think this is the case, nationwide and global businesses have numerous sites all linked togehter. I have three related sites in different langauges on differnet domains and I have a sitewide link in a js. When you have a big site, putting content such as links in a js used by hunders of pages is common. Nothing spammy about it and not done to improve PR.

I don't think Google punishes sitewide as long as the content is related. It's sitewides links to Poker Rooms from sites about Opera that screams blackhat.

[mrhazelj]

I thought i might jump in and give some type of insight if I could. I have five paid links (three pr7, one pr8, one pr5, but all related). The rest of my links are reciprocal. what's funny is that yahoo has picked up every link (or at least i think they are counting all of them). I'm still #96 out of 34,600,000 in yahoo. not bad for a two month old site :) i have what would be ROS blog link (300+ pages) and those are the only links that are counted right now in google. if they pick up (or count if they already haven't counted the other reciprocal and paid links), i should at least have a pr6 and be #1 or 2 out of 16,300,000 on google and the same on yahoo (of course all on-page seo is done). data centers show me at either pr0 or pr3 so far, so not all of the links are being picked maybe because of penalization (?), in which case if they were not picked up via penalization, they shouldn't have picked up my paid blog links either. guess I'll have to see and wait.

Almost eveything seems to be specualtion here as different things happen to different sites. In my case, it seems that sites in my category would have to have pr4 to pr7 to rank high because my category has no pr0's at the top of the list. I think it's best to just mix the two (paid and reciprocal) and not lean too much to one side or the other.

just my 2 cents.

[wordy]

You have a new site - so what to do?

You pay for text links to achieve first page on Yahoo! and MSN...and maybe sandboxed or penalised by Google!

You don't pay for text links and don't achieve first page on Yahoo! and MSN...and still maybe sandboxed or penalised by Google!

[WebFusion]

Google better be careful about how it uses its highly concentrated market share. Ownership society or not, businesses whose services have become essential to the public can and eventually will be regulated.

Sure they will....just like the Airlines are regulated.

If I add a sitewide link to your site, should google ban you without checking?

No...they should simply remove any benefit those links would provide (i.e. block the passing of PR). A site should NEVER be banned based on incoming links.

[mrhazelj]

I doubt they're blocking pr, because Ive seen sites with pr6 that have lots of paid pr5 and 6 links, some of which i want to buy but for a different search term. Soem of them ros too. They do have some (but few) reciprocal links. I'll just wait it out and see what happens to my own site.