31 replies to this topic

[Dave]

Apologies - I am usually calm and take this sort of thing in my stride... just one of those days and feel the urge for a bit of road rage. I will regret it later...

I'm sure many of you get the SearchDay newsletter and have therefore had a look at:
Are Google Guidelines harmfully confusing?
and then had a quick look at:
The Google Webmaster guildeline thingys and probably a quick skim of:
Some thread on Matt Cutts' blog.

Well these have wound me up.

OK. I sell stuff online. I think this is ok - people want to buy stuff online.
I pay some sites for links - because the people who read those sites often want to buy my stuff. In fact some hobby/ community sites fund theirselves by selling me traffic (which buys my stuff). Nothing to do with link pop or pagerank. Still with me?

Does this make me evil? Does this make them evil?

I don't think so. It's a friendly business relationship that helps people out.

However, some people (Jill, our fearless leader disagrees with them) think that Google doesn't like this and wants to hurt them.

Not true - as Jill says - Google just doesn't want people buying and selling links FOR PAGERANK - as it messes with their precious index.

But BECAUSE google assign link pop/ pagerank/ wiz points/ whatever to sites that have links, people buy links just to get link pop/ pagerank/ wiz points/ whatever.

I am not doing this - but there's no way for Google to know that. In his blog entry, I get the reason Matt Cutts thinks this is the only reason people buy and sell links. So his mighty G is going to end up punishing me (or the sites I pay) and think it's protecting itself (its index).

Seems to me that the more Google grows (and people have to rank well to sell their stuff), the less people will be able to use other (fair, ethical) business relationships to make a living - as Google will punish them for doing non-google related stuff. This is, in a way, Google squashing other methods of website promotion - even though I can see that it has to do it to protect it's index. Am I making sense?

Can anyone ever see a solution to this quandry?

Someone do me a favour and put me in my place. Or just delete my post. Thanks.

[qwerty]

Simple solution: Google should ignore the links. You have legitimate reasons for buying the ads, and it has nothing to do with Google. If they ignore them, you're still getting what you paid for. I don't think Google is telling people you're going to get in trouble for buying links; just that you shouldn't count on them helping your rankings.

The only problem with that, as I see it, is that G is expecting us to tell them what's an ad and what isn't. That's their problem, not mine.

[Scottie]

Deep breaths Dave!

Google isn't going to penalize paid links- in other words, they aren't going to punish your site for finding that you advertise.

However, if they choose not to count paid links, that is there perogative. It won't hurt you, it just won't help you anymore.

Since you have links that bring you real business, it shouldn't worry you too much! Right?

Basically, people who pay for links for PR may find they don't work anymore. That doesn't mean they are damaging your site.

It sounds like what Matt is saying is that you pay for links in order to turn around and sell links, you could get penalized. Maybe I'm reading it wrong...

[meta]

I don't think the situation is all that bad. Before Google, before the web, there was business. Businesses did well by using the same sort of cooperation that you describe - referrals, partnering with complementary businesses, advertising. Offline businesses continue to use these strategies. You are doing the online equivalent, and it is good for your business for the same reason - your partners are referring business to you. Goggle has no effect on any of this side of your business.

The only influence that Google has over any business is through its role as a key place where people go to start an information search when they are shopping and fairly clueless. So Google has replaced the yellow pages. Even if you could never get any traffic directly from Google, would that mean that you can't benefit from the promotion strategies that you are using? It would not.

What's the worst that Google can do to you - not count certain links that it thinks you bought? So what? Assuming that actually have the ability to identify purchased links (and this is a big assuming), you could still generate incoming links in other ways. Sure, you'd have less of them, but so would everyone else.

Even so, I don't believe that Google intends to completely discount all purchased links - think of the oodles of affiliate links to Amazon, they are paid for, yes, but also relevant. And if I'm wrong on that, then they still would have to be able to identify all paid links, and if there is nothing in the link that says "paid" that's no small trick.

Like Google, hate Google, its up to you. But they have less influence over the success and failure of businesses than we give them credit for.

[Dave]

Thanks guys. I am chilled now...
confusing though isn't it?

Fair enough I s'pose as long as they just ingore links and don't apply penalties. It was the penalties thing that got me see - coz it would have been like Goog saying - reach customers through us, or other people's sites... not both.

I like Google really - still use it to find things

[Dave]

Interesting what meta says about paid links being relevant.

These days if I find a site I want to link to (or vote for, in terms of Googs algo) I will see if there's an affiliate scheme I can join or other way I can get paid. Everyone likes money for nothing. I'm going to link to them anyway.

This is going to be a nightmare for Goog to sort out. It's like a logic puzzle that used to do my head in at school.

If all A are B, are all B A?

Answer is no - but don't ask me to explain why... although I think perhaps meta already has, by annalogy.

So should I cancel my affiliate scheme now to make sure that anyone who chooses to link to my site for relevance can't get paid?

Which is worth more to me now? Links I don't have to ask for (to my fabulous, unique content) or links I get because I pay for them?

One helps me in Google (let's assume they can tell the difference) and therefore probably brings me converting traffic indirectly. The other brings me converting traffic (and I can easily measure the ROI).

Maybe I shouldn't cancel my affiliate scheme - just hide it really well so no-one uses it if they were going to link anyway...

Have I completely killed the thread yet?

[don1]

Fair enough I s'pose as long as they just ingore links and don't apply penalties. It was the penalties thing that got me see - coz it would have been like Goog saying - reach customers through us, or other people's sites... not both.

It all reactive assumptions. Who really knows? Those servers at google are so busy I doubt even one of their own programers could predict rankings correctly all of the time. Is G changing the way people do business? Personally I fit into the group that says the more things change, the more they stay the same. Practice good business, communicate intelligently, and focus on your customers. Google will follow.

[meta]

If your affiliate scheme is helping your business now, keep it.

Don't change anything you do in anticipation of what Google seems to be threatening to do. Wait and see what actually happens, and if anything changes you can ponder approriate responses to whatever actually happens.

[Michael Martinez]

People who oppose Google's policy make two mistakes.

First, they assume that PageRank is important to rankings in the search results. It's not, but many SEOs still wrongly believe that it is (or maybe they do all their Google searching through the directory -- I don't know).

Secondly, they assume that anyone outside of Google is entitled to any sort of value that Google may at its own discretion assign to any portion of a Web site.

Google has already won at least one court case that clearly defines their internal valuation system as their own intellectual property and no one has a right to use it in any way other than as Google directs.

You cannot put it any more simply than that. The valuation system is Google's, they do whatever they do with it, and they do have a right to determine whether they will accept any attempts to manipulate that valuation.

From Google's perspective, anyone who builds a PageRank-based business is deriving income and value from their intellectual property without authorization. It's just not a defensible or morally justifiable position.


But where paid links are concerned, I think Matt has made it very clear that all that Google is going to do is ignore the paid links it discovers. That undermines the value-derived-from-PageRank models but it doesn't in any way affect the models that assign and negotiate value for other reasons.

It truly is a moderate and fair position. Google could have delisted all sites for selling links, but they chose not to. They are at least not reacting as sternly as they did when the issue first made headlines.

[Dave]

It truly is a moderate and fair position. Google could have delisted all sites for selling links, but they chose not to. They are at least not reacting as sternly as they did when the issue first made headlines.

Yeah I think I got the wrong end of the stick on that one. thanks to everyone for putting me straight

[Jill]

That thread at SEW makes me want to SCREAM!

Where is people's common sense?

Buy links if it brings you traffic and helps your brand. If you get link pop from it, cool. If not, cool too.

No big deal.

And yet we get people because the big evil Google won't pass link pop on their ads.

Get over it people. Find a new way to scam the engines.

[dave_g]

First, they assume that PageRank is important to rankings in the search results. It's not, but many SEOs still wrongly believe that it is (or maybe they do all their Google searching through the directory -- I don't know).

Michael,

I need some help understanding this. Search Google for "search engine optimization" and the #1 listing has a PR of 7. The #2 (kudos Jill) a PR of 6. Both sites use the keyword in the title. Down the page a bit "Add Me" uses the keyword in the copy but not the title. I have to believe that their PR of 8 gets them in the game against lower page rank pages that rank higher, presumably by virtue of using the key word in the title.

In addition, Google itself states that it is factor (last time I read their site).

I realize that PR is not the be-all-end-all but what's the context for it being unimportant?

[Jill]

I realize that PR is not the be-all-end-all but what's the context for it being unimportant?

Lots of other threads here on why PR isn't important DaveG. You might want to do a quick forum search.

[BathGems]

Yeah well, important or not, when mine goes up I will be happy.

Steven

[projectphp]

Why? Why will a green bar going up make you happy? That is like saying "I will be happy when my restaurant gets an increase in its bagooley rating". Who cares if no one comes in and buys anything?

The only people that PageRank matters to are people that make their money selling PageRank. If that isn't you, what you really want is something else, like more sales, more leads or better conversion rates. If PageRank helps that, you therefore want PageRank. But don't assume that PageRank increase is what you want, anymore than you want to drive down a highway that leads home from work.

Focus on stuff that really matters, and you will be a lot happier!