Paying For Reviews Options

[rtysmith]

Hi,

I've read about buying text links, but what about paying for blogs to review your site?

Tyler

This post has been edited by Randy: Dec 22 2006, 07:07 AM

[Jill]

What do you want to know about it?

[rtysmith]

from previous info, i remember you saying that buying text links was bad, as every update to google was to`prevent such artificial inbound links. do you think these pay for blog type services are the same?

[Martin C]

Pay per blog is more about viral advertising than linking and getting SE love. The idea in using them is to create a buzz by getting lots/influential people to review your product.

There is a move to try and make things more transparent and for the blogger to declare if they are being paid to review a product. It does not always follow that a blogger being paid to review a product will always write a good review. For many you pays your money and take your chances.

I personally see nothing wrong in any of it providing any interest is declared. It is nothing new printed magazines and other media have been doing it for years.

[Jill]

from previous info, i remember you saying that buying text links was bad

You never heard me say that.

[Scottie]

You have heard Matt Cutts say that, though. I don't know what percentage of SEO's believe him, though...

[magellan]

Paid reviews in blogs are a bit like advertisement features in magazines. Personally I don't really like them as I feel that there should be a separation between editorial and advertising. Blogs that are accepting paid reviews may find that their links are devalued in the future.

[torka]

Based on what I read in this thread, I'm thinking that if the bloggers don't disclose they've been compensated for the review, the FTC might have something to say about it, too.

--Torka (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[rtysmith]

Jill - sorry - I meant that they may not provide SEO benefit based on your article (which to us is bad).

My question was do you think that articles from blogs with links, that have been paid for, would provide positive SEO benefit.

[torka]

There's really no way of telling. If the page that the review is on passes link popularity, then a link on that page, whether it's paid for or not, should bring some benefit. If the page that the review is on isn't allowed by the SE to pass link pop, then no link on that page, even a free one, would help.

The problem is, nobody outside the SEs know which pages/sites they allow to pass link pop, which they discount and which they've blocked entirely. There's no way for us on the "outside" to tell for sure which is which. We can speculate, but we can't know.

And each SE, of course, would have their own list and their own criteria. So a link might bring benefit in MSN, but not in Google or Yahoo, for instance. And the SEs change their minds all the time, so a link that brings benefit today might not tomorrow. Or vice versa. The whole thing is really a crapshoot.

IMO, if you're going to pay for a link, do so for the traffic you believe it will bring, since that's the only thing you're going to be able to track and verify in any way to determine if you're getting your money's worth. Any SEO benefit it might also carry is icing on the cake.

--Torka (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[Jill]

My question was do you think that articles from blogs with links, that have been paid for, would provide positive SEO benefit.

Sure. Until or unless they figured out it was paid for, in which case it wouldn't. But so what? It's still going to be a good thing to have I would think.

[Connie]

I believe Matt Cutts makes a distinction between, "pay for review" for instance in a directory, and other paid links.

[projectphp]

Really? Where is that Connie? Please provide the source.

[qwerty]

I just made a quick search for that and didn't find it although I know a lot of people have been saying that paying to submit to a directory is not viewed by the search engines as the same thing as directly buying a link, the difference being editorial oversight.

However, I believe "paying for reviews" in the original post is a reference to paying someone to write a review of one's site or blog as a way of promoting it.

[projectphp]

I doubt any payment is what they are really after.