Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
"Google's view on this...Selling links muddies the quality of the web and makes it harder for many search engines (not just Google) to return relevant results."[radar.oreilly.com...]
Is Google really suggesting that selling links (and therefore buying links) is spam?
And what about asking another webmaster to link to you in exchange for a link back? Is there a difference? Money? And why, when the issue of pay-for-linking comes up, does the issue suddenly become one of ethics and morality?
Is search spam what you do, or what you are? If a legitimate site buys targeted, on-topic links to increase its ranking popularity but has the true content and services that searchers are actually looking for, then how can that be called spam?
That's whitehead webmasters for you.
If you have the money you would naturally buy links from other sites and directories to get traffic, right?
If you don't have the money you would naturally trade links with as many websites as possible, right?
If we're not supposed to buy links or trade links, all there is left is to pay Adwords and hope that one day someone will naturally link to our site for free so we can get spidered and indexed?
Then hopefully we don't get banned from the thousands of links we get from the scraper sites all over the net.
Come on Google? All links are natural, whether they are paid for or reciprocal or adwords or whatever.
A link is a link is a link...
All links are natural, whether they are paid for or reciprocal or adwords or whatever.
The main problem is, that Google sees a link as a vote, not just as a point to leave one page and enter the other. Google uses the PR and anchor of this vote to determine the position the linked-to page should get in the SERPs. Just as in many political systems--although not all--buying votes is unnatural behaviour, although the underlying system of voting itself isn't.
Matt Cutts didn't say on his blog that buying links is not allowed. It makes it harder for them do determine which link is a genuine vote and which is a bought one, causing the following problem in his words:
A lot of effort is expended that could be otherwise be spent on improving core quality (relevance, coverage, freshness, etc.)
if someone is buying a link with hard earned dollars he probably want to make every dollar count and offer quality stuff on his/her page to get these dollars back. spending money on a site is a quality sign, thats how i see it.
are links in press releases natural? no! they are paid for, big time! but would you release a press release, if your site is not working properly and the stuff you offer is crap? maybe, but then it is worth of being kicked MANUALLY!
Is a link from an exhibition site natural? for sure not, you pay thousands of dollars to exhibit on that tradeshow, maybe tens of thousands and you get that PR7 link from their exhibitors link directory.
As soon as money gets involved, one should assume that a site is a quality site!
I truely believe, we got the wrong mindset here, because some spamdexers are buying links to promote their RSS'ed, artificially pumped up affiliate based "just marketing, nothing more" sites pushed by buying links. Well, bad, but we should not start to think there!
"Innocent until proven guilty" (not a bad motto to build democracy and law upon, by the way) should be the basis of thoughts here. If someone buys links, goes to tradeshows, releases press releases, sponsors local sport events or universities and gets links for that: who would honestly define if his site does deserve a top listing or not? That site has to be checked manually. I understand that this is horror for quality assurance of the index, but if you produce an algo with link counting as the major quality indicator, you are just on the wrong path.
What if you donate 1 Mio. US$ to the red cross these days and they are so happy, that they link from their pushed site back to you? Will you be kicked?
I would really start by thinking positive about link buying and then kick the people who abuse it manually and not starting to think at "everybody is evil besides us, let them prove they are innocent"...
Why should purchasing ad ad result in a search engine boost?It shouldn't. But certainly the increase in search engine ranking makes the ad more valuable.
Sorry, bakedjake, it should! Do you get quality cars for free? If so, where, please?
Quality costs money. The "pure" hobbiest internet of the 90s is dead and places at the main shopping street are more expensive than the shops in a small village in the middle of a corn field.
If a link can be counted or not for a search engine is a manual decision and if there is a way to automate that: maybe i am not bright enough, but I do not see one!
just my opinion,
P!
>>buying a link as an extreme sign of quality, imho.
........
>>I truely believe, we got the wrong mindset here, because some spamdexers are buying links to promote their RSS'ed, artificially pumped up affiliate based "just marketing, nothing more" sites pushed by buying links. Well, bad, but we should not start to think there! <<
WOW... wait a minute!
Following your own standards "buying a link as an extreme sign of quality", but not when it comes affiliate marketing then its something else. Why is that?
Whats wrong with affiliate marketing? would you be kind to elaborate more?
(...) places at the main shopping street are more expensive than the shops in a small village in the middle of a corn field.
I understand your reasons why you say that buying links is important and gives a sign of quality to a site, just like the street where a shop is located in is a quality sign.
In this context, Google could be seen as the yellow pages. In the yellow pages each free listing has the same value, independent of the street where the company is located. For those who want to be more visible in the yellow pages there is the option of advertising. Google also offers this with their service, it is called AdWords.
Given this analogy, link buying IS a quality sign, but should not result in higher positions in the free SERPs. If a company wants to spend money for links, why not spend money for a guaranteerd listing in the SERPs for the keywords that matter?
lammert: i agree with you, that google is free to kick out, whatever they want from their index - it is their natural right. BUT, to keep up with your analogy of the yellow pages:
1st: the yellow pages try to create standard listings for free. they list people alphabetically
2nd: they do not kick you out, because your name is "AAA plumbers" nor do they kick you out of the "index" just because you hang up billboards in the city center instead of booking the big advertisment with them. They list you and if you have been smart enough to name your company "AAA car dealer" they even list you at the beginning of the index!
So, you do advertisment in the daily newspaper, which says: "look up our number in the yellow pages under AAA car dealer" - that leads a lot of people to the yellow pages, just looking for the tiny text row "AAA car dealer" and guess what: the yellow pages will not kick you out for that!
so: the yellow pages AND search engines have weak spots. should a business just rank higher in the yellow pages, just because they are named "AAA something?" Probably not, right? but they do.
Now the salto back to search engines: if you really want to run a search engine that ranks sites along quality factors, i would seriously ask if a site that spends heavy dollars on advertisment everywhere online, should not be considered to provide quality offers. I believe so!
Where would you stop in discounting links, that have been put up for money (directly or indirectly)? The Yahoo Directory accounts well for backlinks => bought links! Newspaper articles account good for links => bought links, by press releases! Links on sponsor lists to fight cancer count strong => bought links!
Where would you start and stop? All I say is: discounting bought links per se is the wrong approach, the "signs of quality" MUST be something else...
peace,
P!
The problem with this is google uses links to find sites and index them. They even state that you do not need to submit your site, they will find it by looking for links on other sites.
From the new webmasters point of view: You spend several months/years building a top quality site and want to let people know about it... what do you do?
Well logic tells you to have it listed in search engines, and the biggest one is google. So you now need to get sites to link to you in order to achive this. Next step is to look for sites which rank high on google (the reason is you suspect high ranking sites get crawled by google more often given your site a better chance to be found). But, in order to obtain a link on these sites, you need to pay. You need to buy Links.
You see what I'm gettig at? google are having a problem trying to value links and do not like people buying/selling links. But they run there model on finding sites via links! doesn't make a great deal of sense?
In my mind they need to accept people buy links for various reasons and not try and apply weighting on them. Afterall they are the ones who need these links to work!
They need to make up there minds here.... shall we all remove oubound links? if we did, google will no longer exists in its current form!
Personally I think it's just a way to promote Adwords for Advertisers, and Adsense to publishers (the reason being they are forcing people to stop buying avertising directly from publishers).
It won't take long before google is just another Altavista bought up by Yahoo.
Webmasters built google by promoting it and from the comments made in this forum in the last year they are trying to tear it down.
Google is a sinking ship if you ask me.
IMHO i would not give up on them so fast, because "searching and finding" information online is mutating and on the move.
this thread started on the discussion if "buying links" is good or bad and let me get back to that as well in a broader approach...
digging thru billions of web pages, sorting them and giving you back the right page JUST on a tiny chain of characters you type in is a maniac task if you look at it scientifically. i believe it is not possible and what we see on the search engines is just the result of a mass of people trying to use it and typing in "cheap cars". SEs give back the best they can and some are better than others in doing so.
But are we honestly finding, what we look for, if we type in "cheap cars"? I do not think so, we find a "compromise", a result set, that comes close based on an algo of very smart and resourceful people. They do a great job in finding pages and producing result sets based on that word someone enters, but it is still a compromise.
It is (today more than ever) influenced on how people SEO their pages, how much money they spent. It is in all commercial areas and in almost all languages (someone opt'ing for klingon?) artificially influenced by the work of webmasters in response to the traffic they get from the search engines.
Long story, short meaning: search as it is today will fade sooner or later, because it is producing compromises.
Google does know that and they for sure think about other ways to "organize this worlds information" - in fact the next generation of internet search will be either a company which will be bought by google or by google themselves.
The only force I do see right now, who could really change the worlds "search for compromise" behaviour is Microsoft, by hitting us in the back with Vista.
Picking a set of sites for a search term (which could have serveral meanings, btw) is a very ambiguous approach and the errors and obstacles which happen (like people buying links or others using H1 while some dont) are within the system.
The whole approach in organizing information this way is faulty. Google does know that and they try to minimize the effects of the errors that this concept carries.
They will continue to do so, as long as enough people are coming to try that and live with that compromise (could be another 10 years) to produce income (money money money), but some are already not happy with the compromise this stupid system offers - and I mean the whole stupid approach of delivering results based on one single word (apple and windows OR apple and oranges?).
Delivering search results MUST be based on more information than a word or two. Personalized search? Well...
So: Google is on the move and they focus on that topic, which is a great advantage! Microsoft has to produce an Operating System first and focus on that. Yahoo has for sure less engineers focussing on the next generation internet search and then... i do not see any other force in helping me to find information online faster...
my 2 pennies,
P!
Interesting post.
I agree that searching based on a single word, or handful of words, is not efficient -- particularly when users are not trained to use Boolean logic and/or other "advanced" methods of clarifying intent.
For the moment, however, none of the major search engines has an economic incentive to actually solve this problem. This is confirmed by their failure to make any effort to train their users, or to encourage users to use more advanced search techniques (e.g. by making this options more visible/easier to understand).
I suspect part of the problem is the inherent conflict of interest that exists with the PPC business model. If the SE gives users precisely what they are looking for within the "natural" portion of the SERPs, they don't make any money. There isn't any economic incentive for the SE's to improve the current search methods to the point where the "natural" results fit the user's goals perfectly.
However, there is a strong incentive for Google to channel the non-commercial/non-profit portion of the search results onto the "natural" part of the SERPs, and the ecommerce portion onto the PPC part of the SERPs. (Ad-supported sites are more ambiguous, but they could logically go on the left side of Google's results, since many of these sites run Adsense, thereby generating $$ for Google).
All of which has some interesting implications for Cutts' unhappiness with link buying.
Link buying makes it harder for Google to detect "quality" based on the assumption that links = votes, but it also makes it much harder from Google to channel all the commercial listings onto the paid portion of the SERPs, and channel the non-commercial/non-profit portion of the results onto the "natural" part of the SERPs.
It makes it harder for them do determine which link is a genuine vote and which is a bought one
Worked for George Bush, then again, look at the "quality" we've gotten from him
As soon as money gets involved, one should assume that a site is a quality site!
Depends on where the money is coming from. If you're like me, and you purchase links on a limited budget with the hope that your purchase will not only increase traffic but raise search engine rankings, then yes, I believe that this is a sign of quality, especially when the links you buy are from relevant sites where the people who see your links may actually need your services (or information, or whatever). However, if someone with a billion gazillion dollars really wanted to, they could build 50 sites around the same subject with similar yet not-same content and BUY BUY BUY their way to link domination, effectively cornering the SE market on particular terms. That this hasn't happened already is a testament to the complexity of the algo. Or maybe it has happened. Who knows?
it's trying to base the value on things like - is the link on a site with the same topic, is it in a block with unrelated links etc..
These type of factors should be the only metrics used to give weight, figures based on relevancy and site strength. At least if you buy a link on a site that makes sense they should realize you are making an effort to direct relevant traffic to your site, therefore NOT trying to game G (directly anyway)
This is confirmed by their failure to make any effort to train their users, or to encourage users to use more advanced search techniques (e.g. by making this options more visible/easier to understand).
Then they'd lose all the capital earned from the "Use Google to do Everything" books!
Basically it comes down to the fact that if your subject of choice has any tie to a commercial interest, then you are screwed unless you have the capital to throw into commercial SEO. Those with the $$$ will always come out on top. It isn't pretty, but it's true.
