Go Back   SitePoint Forums > Forum Index > Manage Your Site > Search Engine Optimization > Google
Newsletter FAQ Members List Calendar Mark Forums Read

New to SitePoint Forums? Register here for free!

SitePoint Sponsor
 
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old Oct 9, 2007, 13:07   #1
Matt Mickiewicz
SitePoint Co-founder
 
Matt Mickiewicz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 2,841
Official: Link Selling Hurts PageRank & Ranking in Google

Danny Sullivan has confirmed with Google that they are now penalizing sites which sell links by decreasing their pagerank and/or rankings.
Quote:
Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached to prevent them from ranking well.
Previously, those caught selling links, simply had their site stop passing PageRank.
Matt Mickiewicz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 13:38   #2
hairybob
SitePoint Addict
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 204
Thanks for that confirmation Matt. It's about time in my opinion. Some of those link farm sites are nothing more than spam.

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=505614

There is a good article referenced in the above post that also goes into quite a bit of detail to help people understand the difference between link farms and quality directories (which they may also have to pay to be indexed in).
hairybob is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 14:04   #3
samanime
SitePoint Wizard
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 1,235
That's great news. It just makes it that much easier for us that play fair to get a better rank.
samanime is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 14:04   #4
usachrisk
SitePoint Guru
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 660
Isn't this a part of doing business? Not flooding a page with links, but accepting advertisers for like-content? If I'm running a website for cars, should I be allowed to sell advertising space to Autozone?

Or am I overthinking this?
usachrisk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 14:22   #5
dave owen
Necromancer
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 456
Although I'm very happy about this on the whole, I am also concerned about it.

- I once had a high-quality site that relied on legitimate sponsors. Effectively I was selling them links. To be penalised for what I was doing would be grossly unfair.
- There is no way to automatically detect paid links with any accuracy. I don't care what Google says, I believe I can prove my point. I certainly don't buy the argument that "irrelevant" links can be identified as paid. That's BS.
- Isn't Adsense all about selling links?

If Google plans to automate this type of penalty there will be a lot a collateral damage. Many innocent sites will suffer.
dave owen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 14:33   #6
subnet_rx
Always an apprentice
 
subnet_rx's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Hattiesburg, MS
Posts: 1,150
Quote:
Originally Posted by usachrisk View Post
Isn't this a part of doing business? Not flooding a page with links, but accepting advertisers for like-content? If I'm running a website for cars, should I be allowed to sell advertising space to Autozone?

Or am I overthinking this?
Actually, from what I read, it's about passing PR. If you add nofollow, you can sell all the links you want. I do worry about how they are detecting this. I was reading that they are trying to penalize for paid reviews without nofollow. My question is, is there objective to completely take backlinks out of the picture? Something they were built on?
subnet_rx is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 14:40   #7
john2k
SitePoint Wizard
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: NJ
Posts: 1,261
My bad, I forgot that it's only okay to sell advertising links online via Google Adsense.
john2k is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 14:49   #8
stymiee
He's No Good To Me Dead
 
stymiee's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Slave I
Posts: 24,090
Quote:
Originally Posted by john2k View Post
My bad, I forgot that it's only okay to sell advertising links online via Google Adsense.
You've missed the point. They're not against selling ads or links. They're against selling links to manipulate their rankings. Big difference.
stymiee is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 15:41   #9
Waraas
Non-Member
 
Waraas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho
Posts: 987
Quote:
Originally Posted by dave owen View Post
- There is no way to automatically detect paid links with any accuracy. I don't care what Google says, I believe I can prove my point. I certainly don't buy the argument that "irrelevant" links can be identified as paid. That's BS.
right now they are manually editing sites pageranks.
Waraas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 15:50   #10
rcj662
SitePoint Wizard
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 1,203
I wonder if they have looked at any of the sites selling links on all the forums yet. Someone should know by now if they are being penalized.

I think they look for sites advertising paid links to increase page rank.
rcj662 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 15:50   #11
dvduval
phpLD Fanatic
 
dvduval's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 3,259
Yes, we have been seeing this in the directory industry as well. From what I can see, directories that charge for the review process have not suffered, and Matt Cutts has confirmed that this practice is fine. The sites that have suffered are the ones that are going around buying high pagerank links for the purpose of boosting the pagerank of their site, and there have been some adjustments to pagerank a few days ago to reflect this.

In the end, people need to focus on making a site that people love, and the rest will surely follow, but it may take a little more time.
dvduval is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 17:09   #12
cranial-bore
SitePoint Wizard
 
cranial-bore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Australia
Posts: 2,092
Quote:
My bad, I forgot that it's only okay to sell advertising links online via Google Adsense.
Adsense links don't pass any PR, and don't affect the organic search results.
Sold text links without the nofollow attribute do affect these things. There's no hypocrisy from Google in that regard.

In fact given one of the ACCC's recent allegations against Google selling the top organic position Google may well need to ensure that the organic results are not affected by even third party commercial transactions.
cranial-bore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 18:48   #13
aspen
Serial Publisher
 
aspen's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 1999
Location: East Lansing, MI USA
Posts: 13,283
The bottom line is you cannot be lazy if you're going to buy links, and you cannot be lazy if you want to sell links.

Spend the time to personally search out and contact relevant sites you want to purchase from, and insist they integrate your links into their content and not just cram them into the footer in an obvious way.

If you do that, you'll never get penalized because there is no way to differentiate your bought links from normal links.

If, however, you use a link brokerage service that is going to get your site on a public list. If you buy links from sites that sells dozens of them to all unrelated pages and crams your link between one for car insurance and one for male enhancement. If you're lazy and don't put any effort into finding quality sources to buy links (or quality advertisers to buy from you) and don't work to integrate those links in a believable and useful way. Then expect problems.
aspen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 19:26   #14
jimbo_dk
SitePoint Wizard
 
jimbo_dk's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Singapore
Posts: 1,275
Does the site being linked to get penalized in all of this?
jimbo_dk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 20:44   #15
cpvr
SitePoint Wizard
 
cpvr's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Spring, Texas
Posts: 3,255
Quote:
Originally Posted by Waraas View Post
right now they are manually editing sites pageranks.
So all your sites that sell links will be edited?
cpvr is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 21:39   #16
SEO Canada
SitePoint Zealot
 
SEO Canada's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 113
I'm with Danny Sullivan: you're not going to be able to find all the text link ad sellers, so why do it?

Here's something that may be of interest: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/how-to-pro...ell-text-links

Last edited by SEO Canada; Oct 15, 2007 at 20:24. Reason: interesting link added.
SEO Canada is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 21:49   #17
dvduval
phpLD Fanatic
 
dvduval's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 3,259
Quote:
Originally Posted by aspen View Post
The bottom line is you cannot be lazy if you're going to buy links, and you cannot be lazy if you want to sell links.

Spend the time to personally search out and contact relevant sites you want to purchase from, and insist they integrate your links into their content and not just cram them into the footer in an obvious way.

If you do that, you'll never get penalized because there is no way to differentiate your bought links from normal links.

If, however, you use a link brokerage service that is going to get your site on a public list. If you buy links from sites that sells dozens of them to all unrelated pages and crams your link between one for car insurance and one for male enhancement. If you're lazy and don't put any effort into finding quality sources to buy links (or quality advertisers to buy from you) and don't work to integrate those links in a believable and useful way. Then expect problems.
Very well stated. I have bought links selectively myself, and it has always been on sites where I felt the link was appropriately places and was very reflective of the content on the site.

Also, knowing that google is being diligent about finding paid links, I have refrained from buying links through sites that sell many links on their pages, and make a business out of it.

I like to work with sites where the visitors will be good prospects anyway. So whether I am getting pagerank or not is not a big issue for me. What I need most is visitors. Rankings mean nothing if there are no visitors to go along with it.
dvduval is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 22:54   #18
redhex
SitePoint Enthusiast
 
redhex's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: South East
Posts: 41
Does it means that links directory, classifieds sites and general listings sites will be penalised?

It is getting really grey here. Some sites have to get payment for listing links to counter spam and lousy submission. Now things are getting screwed.
redhex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 9, 2007, 23:52   #19
cheesedude
SitePoint Wizard
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,114
Quote:
Originally Posted by SEO Canada View Post
I'm with Danny Sullivan: you're not going to be able to find all the text link ad sellers, so why do it?
Well, if they even do a little bit and publicize it enough so that it scares people into not selling or buying links, they can achieve much of their goal that way.

From all indications Google isn't clamping down on requests for links, only paid requests. So, I take it that it is still OK to request that people link to your site using certain anchor text words as long as it isn't paid.

Am I right or wrong?

Because I was going to put a "link to us" suggestion on some of my pages with my desired key phrases. I already rank #3 and #2 (dropped 1 slot today) for the most popular search phrases and I want to keep those high rankings however possible.
cheesedude is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 10, 2007, 00:50   #20
sirronstuff
SitePoint Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Fort Worth
Posts: 4
Quote:
Originally Posted by stymiee View Post
You've missed the point. They're not against selling ads or links. They're against selling links to manipulate their rankings. Big difference.
but isn't that what happens with google adsense? I see sites get credit for backlinks with adsense all the time unless I am mistaken. Are they going to no follow their own links?

BTW, I do see a need to prevent abuse, but I do find it somewhat amusing. Luckily, my industry does not seem to be abusing the system in this way.
sirronstuff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 10, 2007, 02:38   #21
Waraas
Non-Member
 
Waraas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho
Posts: 987
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpvr View Post
So all your sites that sell links will be edited?

working on that now. Just like aspen said, you cannot be lazy. I gotta make sure google dosent know im selling links. And i think text-link-ads out of the question now
Waraas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 10, 2007, 03:41   #22
hooperman
SitePoint Wizard
 
hooperman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Manchester, UK
Posts: 3,999
Quote:
Originally Posted by sirronstuff View Post
but isn't that what happens with google adsense? I see sites get credit for backlinks with adsense all the time unless I am mistaken. Are they going to no follow their own links?
Search engines can't follow adsense links because they're embedded in javascript. They give no link benefit.
hooperman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 10, 2007, 09:09   #23
gregjarvis
SitePoint Zealot
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Syracuse, NY
Posts: 118
Quote:
Originally Posted by samanime View Post
That's great news. It just makes it that much easier for us that play fair to get a better rank.
Definitely. Even out the playing field a little bit more.
gregjarvis is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 10, 2007, 09:18   #24
stymiee
He's No Good To Me Dead
 
stymiee's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Slave I
Posts: 24,090
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimbo_dk View Post
Does the site being linked to get penalized in all of this?
No. If this were the case it would be easy to hurt your competitors.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SEO Canada View Post
I'm with Danny Sullivan: you're not going to be able to find all the text link ad sellers, so why do it?
They don't have to get all of them. They just need to reduce the manipulation of the rankings as much as they can. The more they eliminate, the better their results will be.

Quote:
Originally Posted by redhex View Post
Does it means that links directory, classifieds sites and general listings sites will be penalised?

It is getting really grey here. Some sites have to get payment for listing links to counter spam and lousy submission. Now things are getting screwed.
The basic rule is why are the links being bought and sold. If the purpose is to get PR and manipulate the SERPs it's a bad thing. Sites that have an editorial review and block PR from being passed will be fine. Others that just accept payment and don't screen content run the risk of being considered selling links for the manipulation of the SERPs.
stymiee is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Oct 10, 2007, 10:59   #25
samanime
SitePoint Wizard
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 1,235
I think a lot of people are over-thinking this. Basically, if your site is in a relevant place, you don't have to worry too much about it, paid or not. If you do pay for it, you probably want them to add 'rel="nofollow"', but, if it's relevant and they aren't in the business of link selling, you don't have to worry much either.

Google is just trying to get rid of those pages that have 190567349875239857 links on them and that's all they do just to artificially give people a higher page rank, which screws with Google's results.
samanime is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

Thread Tools
Display Modes

 
Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Sponsored Links
 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 15:14.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.7.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright 1998-2009, SitePoint Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved