Paying for PR

paying to gain link popularity

[Trodda]

I have found a number of PR5 sites that appear to be willing to accept a link on their homepage for a monthly fee(ie. not PPC). As a result I am looking at setting up a network of these links and paying each affiliate on a monthly basis. Provided one stays within one's budget, is it feasible to set up something like this?

Obviously one of the stipulations would be a static link on the affiliate site and the ability to put in your own anchor text. Also, I would only be looking at recruiting PR5+ partners. Has anyone tried setting up such a scheme with their link partners?

Thanks
Trodda

[tigger]

Trodda

So far I've never paid for a link, but if you are looking at this I wouldn,t pay for a PR5 link, PR7 upwards maybe depends how much

[Shak]

I would NOT recommend paying anything unless you are going to benefit from the traffic.

Time and time again, it has been mentioned that Google are well aware of this practice taking place, and lately we are seeing a number of sites being penalized for participating in this sort of activity.

I would recommend buying links, on low/high PR sites, as long as the traffic is what you want, anything else is a bonus.

Shak

[Crush]

me too. 5 is easy. I would swap a link from my homepage for a 6

[Trodda]

Thanks for the advice Tigger. I have found a few PR7 sites but most of these are either well established directories where ads/links are pretty expensive, or they are sites that are grouped into some sort of hub/ring and don't really welcome outsiders. The policy at our company is not to reciprocate links which makes it fairly difficult to get them for free.

Do you know of any SEO professionals who do operate pay-for-PRlink partner scheme? If so, what sort of rate would you generally pay monthly for a PR7 link?

[Trodda]

Sorry Shak only saw your message after my other post. How exactly is it possible for Google to find you out for this? Bare in mind we sell a fairly generic product, and we would probably negotiate a rate with each webmaster individually. Surely paying to receive traffic from another site is not penalisable? For instance if you decide to run an affiliate program, and exclude sites which are not particularly popular, is this not your prerogative?

[George]

I think what Shak is referring to (correct me if I am wrong Shak!) is the purchase of links from some high profile sites.
It has been suggested that the prices for these are not set at a traffic only price, but for the gain in PR.

Google is aware of these sites, so just discounts the PR these sites can pass on. Like guestbook links. (So it is rumoured!)

Therefore when you buy a link, only buy the traffic from that site, not the PR. Otherwise the unwary will get their fingers burnt.

That about it?
George

[tigger]

>Do you know of any SEO professionals who do operate pay-for-PRlink partner scheme

No sorry it's a market I've never looked into

[Trodda]

OK, thanks for clearing that up George. I actually have been noticing a few guestbook sites that had their PR greyed out, so this explains it.

[George]

As ever, alot is hearsay... you have to proove these things to your own satisfaction.

Do you know of any SEO professionals who do operate pay-for-PRlink partner scheme

[meto]No sorry it's a market I've never looked into [/meto]

George

[jamieb]

NEWBIE Question....

When someone says I would swap from a PR6,

What does that mean...

For example - My site had a PR5 for the word "baseball bat"

it has nothing to do with a site that has a PR6 for the word "soup".

Does it matter - what am I missing here...

Thanks
JAMIE

[tigger]

>When someone says I would swap from a PR6,

I would presume someone else has a PR6 site and is looking for link exchanges between other PR6 sites or higher

Themed links are always attractive but a link is a link so grab it, most of my clients that I'm working with are in competitive industries and I don't think hardly any have links from other sites within there sectors

[Powdork]

Its not always just traffic either. Its total business. My main competitor sends less than half the referrals that my site does to their clients. They, however, send out more than twice the email referrals that mine do although mine are more targeted. Their site is more of a comapany name - link type thing whereas mine provides extended descriptions, images with links, custom anchor text subject to my approval and tracking. I don't mention PR in any way but I do say "Your listing will be optomized to maximize the benefit you receive in search engine rankings." And then I work very hard to do exactly that in a responsible manor. Name recognition is also important and I work hard to provide that for the clients as well.

[ecomagic]

An interesting thread about someone asking about paying $1000 for a PR7 link in the google area [webmasterworld.com...]

While paying for PR is evil as most people would agree a number of sites make their money selling legit text link flat rate advertising. I know of one site (one of mine) that sells text links for $80 per month for the whole site which has 3 PR7 pages 20+ PR6 pages and hunderds of PR5. Last month we had over 3 million page views. Advertiser can justify the price by traffic or potential PR.

After deailing with one advertiser who was trying to buy links "per google update" I had to put my foot down and spell out in our terms and conditions that we sell text links flat rate per month, NOT google update or any other measure.

[aravindgp]

It's discouraging and dispointing to note abt " the above mentioned site" for people like me who cannot afford to pay.
I hope it's seen by google guys.
Is it legitimate practice to sell PR.?
I hope google stops this practice or puts in some kind of format.

[George]

[rant]

errrr... sorry to sound hard but:

It's discouraging and dispointing to note abt " the above mentioned site" for people like me who cannot afford to pay.

That is business. The web has, whether you like it or not, been taken over by business.

Is it legitimate practice to sell PR.?

I do not know, but is it illegal? I think that would be a tough call.

I hope google stops this practice or puts in some kind of format.

how?

I think we have to accept that these practices take place, as do invisible text, etc etc. Not "allowed"... until the perps are caught.
Lets face it, speeding is a worse crime, as after all, you might kill someone.
What we can do, is make our sites perform better with what we as individuals consider to be legitimate.
[/rant]

Off my chest now thanks :)

George

[aravindgp]

>That is business. The web has, whether you like it or not, been taken over by business.

True I would welcome that,I am ok with I can't have it becoz I can't afford it attitude.But only if it is "legitimate."

>Is it illegal, tough call.

George I feel it's not legal, if it's so google needs to announce this.( someone reading this article do send me relevant links.)

>how?
I guess as you said doing wat we feel is legitimate,
the next step would be I would strongly feel is that, we all would be coming across lots of sites with cloaking, hidden text and other means ..we need to report them.

Do you know any website or forum where people collectively monitor these things.?

I feel it will go a long way in building a foundation for the future web industry.

[George]

aravindgp,
>>..we need to report them.

I think that most competitive business's do report each other, given half a chance! But not through any passionate feeling of doing what is right, but because if they can stuff the competition, they earn more.

I do not know of a "group" that does this, although I would not be surprised to find one. Some of the poorer forums that allow flaming and URL posting probably :) I think it is done fine by individuals.

It is after all Googles decision to act or not on the spam reports, and they are happy to hear from you.
Incase you missed them, here are the guidelines:

[google.com...]

and here is the place to report spam:

[google.com...]

I hope this helps!

George

[aravindgp]

>I think that most competitive business's do report each other, given half a chance! But not through any passionate feeling of doing what is right, but because if they can stuff the competition, they earn more.

Precisely this is the reason I felt group monitoring is required.If we only grow by stuffing competition then we wouldn't do well on the long run.I somehow feel,if we have a unofficial group, what it does is send a warning signal to fellow competitor to immediately stop ,if not would be reported.

Now y unofficial group, lot of people can simply type in and send to the unofficial forum for these malpractices even non competiting sites.I also feel it's easy to report to unofficial group then official group simply becoz it gives him warning.

I really don't want to make a mistake of killing somebodies bread n butter without warning.

I some how feel, to some extent spamming or other techniques are done by small business men.These people would stop immediately for unofficial warning, what happens is this would also stop people from putting another URL after one gets banned.It becomes much more sane place to do business.
I don't know it's all my view, george,somewhere if you think I got little carried away do overlook that.

Hoping for the web business standards to rise.

With Regards,
Aravind

[George]

Aravind,

>> I really don't want to make a mistake of killing somebodies bread n butter without warning.

Don't worry, it won't be your responsibility. It will be theirs and Googles, or other search providers!

From my window I see people making decisions to follow the s/e rules, or not. (The Dark side they call it :) ).
It is not related to the size of the business.

A good friend of mine was booted off Google and AV as he employed someone who was doorway stuffing. (lots of them, all for different engines). Took a year to get back on.
He felt it was his fault for employing the wrong people.

imho a group would have admirable aims, but would have no teeth, and would be burocratic and week. And who is to say what is acceptable, except the s/e? Two differnce s/e will have different ideas.

>> Hoping for the web business standards to rise.

They are doing, with time.
George

[aravindgp]

Hi Gorge,

True breaucracy plays spoil sport.

Perhaps the best solution would be to automate the process.

Like humans report to this automated system, it varifies all the known unethical methods and then sends a warning mail giving a time frame to make changes, then check again if they didn't budge then report to google.

Such a system might be in place already by google, perhaps it requires little upgradation.What we all can do is update the system with new unethical methods.

It functions purely on humans submitting URL's to it.

I hope this might be some solution, yeah true time will definetly cleanse the system ,we humans by our intervention might accelerate the process and help clean up the web in general.

Aravind

[George]

seems a reasonable solution!

As you say, I think G are working on it.

George