Why Paid Links Probably Aren’t Wrong at All

Jens Meiert, October 30, 2007 / April 27, 2008.

This entry is filed under Uncategorized.

The Web has just been shaken by a Google PageRank update that meant PageRank losses for hundreds of websites, raised concerns and questions, and that apparently just got confirmed as a measure against paid links by no less a figure than Matt Cutts.

However and without discussing the impact and consequences that update really has, I see one big problem here: Depending on the definition of “paid links”, some of them might not be wrong at all, or, put differently, certain paid links might be fine. Thus, measures against paid links, sponsored links, text link ads, or whatever, might hurt “innocent” people and just unnecessarily cause “fear”.

As noted in my site disclaimer: This is my personal website, and the views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not necessarily those of my employer or other companies and organizations.

Debatable Cases of Paid Links

From my point of view, paid links include

Links to donor sites. Some organizations, projects, and individuals ask for donations for their work and reward donations with a link to the donor site – even the W3C rewards donations with links. Basically, this means paid linking.
Links to “real” sponsors. Countless sports clubs link to their sponsors. German football clubs, for example, receive several million euros per year from their lead sponsors alone; my favorite club, Werder Bremen, even has a dedicated page for all their sponsors, and sure, all of them are linked. Basically, this means paid linking, almost in a much higher dimension.
Links to cooperation partners. I remember times in which eBay linked Sun as a technology partner, but I don’t need to start listing companies that acknowledge their partners with links, even site-wide – how many are there, millions? Since cooperations usually mean cash flow, this basically means paid linking, too.

There are certainly more examples, and despite the fact that I very much understand the point of Google – relevance must be earned, not bought –, I have a few doubts that other people who do a great job must be punished in one way or another when they also manage to get sponsored; where’s the exact border?

Also, many sites have been penalized that don’t sell links at all, but the W3C, for example, hasn’t been, albeit it links some rather “spammy” sites from their supporters page (PR 9). That is fine, I think it is legitimate that W3C donations and support are acknowledged, but is it fine to penalize John Doe who worked years towards a great site, earns a few bucks, and “gets shot in the SERPs”, maybe?

I’m not sure. I like “in dubio pro reo”.

By the way, the “partnership” links at the page bottom are no paid links. I know John Britsios, and I also know Michael Jendryschik who is linked from the German part of this site. I can declare that under oath, but I find it questionable that we seem to enter times in which such an affidavit almost becomes necessary. Also, I am in fact removing links to “bad neighborhood”, unless they fly under the radar, sure – my sites already became large. I don’t want to be penalized for that.

Update

Just to make sure: I do not vote for paid links as a measure to cheat search engines and buy online reputation – of course not, quite the contrary. I am just concerned by the apparently missing definition of a “paid link”, and my post aimed to outline cases in which links can be considered paid and at the same time being legitimate. Current confusion might be intended though, and Google will certainly do its best to avoid misses.

Enjoy the most popular posts, probably including:

Comments

On October 31, 2007, 3:59 CET, John S. Britsios (aka Webnauts) said:

W3C rewards donations with links, and that is very fine, as far their intention is to promote their donors, and not to share with them PR. To be more specific: W3C giving a vote to a site, which doesn’t even meet their minimum recommendations, and that for CASH? Gosh… I hope not!

Have W3C been penalized for doing that? Have any of the donors been penalized? I am very sure not! And that because W3C implements in those donors links the nofollow attribute.

Imagine how many spammy or low quality web sites already dominate the popularity of high quality sites like ours, simply investing some money to buy some links, just to manipulate the heart of Google - to achieve a higher popularity (PR). And you can be sure that our sites have been hurt for years from those PR thiefs.

Who said you cannot link to sponsors? It is the same issue as with W3C. Do you link to them because you want to promote them, or to share with them PR? If you are a web designer and you are linking to a foot ball club without adding the nofollow attribute, how can Google figure out that yours and their site are not relevant?

About cooperation partners. If you are linking to cooperation partners or authority sites, you do not get penalized, as it is obvious that they are partners or an authority.

How can I tell? I link to your site from several sites of mine and you link to my site seoworkers.com. Have we been penalized? We did not! You will say, sorry John, but one of my sites where I link to you went from PR6 to 5. Really? But why? If that was a reason, why haven’t my site seoworkers.com experience a drop, rather it went up from PR5 to 6. Also my web directory from PR grey to 4. I have there site wide links to your site too.

If you want we can do an experiment which will only last until the next PR tool bar export. Lets quit linking each other. But keep in mind that we will not only experience the loss of the IBLs value, but also of the OBLs value. But that is an issue that goes far off-topic…

What I suppose that happen to you is:
Or the PR of sites linking to your site dropped, or they have been penalized because they were selling and/or buying links, or they have removed the links to your site, or they have have been totally de-indexed by Google (banned), or you are probably linking to bad neighborhoods without knowing that.

About you placing site wide a link to my site could not have a negative effect. If you think so, why did my brand new web directory went from Grey up to 4? Because I have there site wide a link to your site? The same with my blogs Algojunkie and Webnauts Net. What do you think about that now?

About authority sites. I am linking to W3C and other authority sites without using the nofollow attribute. Why haven’t I been penalized yet? Or why have I been rewarded? Just thinking loud…

After all, I hope I made clear enough why buying and selling links is unethical and unprofessional, and make for Google more complicated to serve us high quality and relevant results.

Thanks Google that they are taking over to solve this everlasting abuse.

Maybe I am no fan of anybody, but I still feel like saying this:

Google Rules!

Just my two cents…
On October 31, 2007, 11:35 CET, Jens Meiert said:

Thank you, John, great remarks!

And that because W3C implements in those donors links the nofollow attribute.

No, it doesn’t – fortunately.

After all, I hope I made clear enough why buying and selling links is unethical and unprofessional

I still think that it’s a definition thing; as far as I understand you, you do not consider donor, sponsor, and partner links as “paid” (me neither anyway), while I think that it might be valid to do so.

However, you’re right that there are indeed really “unethical” measures that, well, shouldn’t be rewarded. I’m curious about the development, and hopefully, some sense of proportion is preserved.
On October 31, 2007, 13:44 CET, John S. Britios (aka Webnauts) said:

Jens I am very sorry, but did I understand you correct that W3C does not implement the “nofollow” attribute on their donors links?

If that is what you met, you are totally wrong. They sure do! Check their page code yourself.
On October 31, 2007, 14:08 CET, Jens Meiert said:

We’re talking about the same page, right? There is not a single rel="nofollow" on the page, I fear; see for example:
```
<a href="http://domainunion.de">DOMAIN UNION</a>
```
On October 31, 2007, 15:58 CET, John S. Britios (aka Webnauts) said:

Sorry Jens., butI was testing with my FF extension “Search Status”.

BUT: That page has this meta tag:

Does that make sense now?
On October 31, 2007, 16:04 CET, John S. Britios (aka Webnauts) said:

Sorry, but your spam filter is too strict and did not allow the code. So once again.

Here is what W3C have on that page:

<meta name=”ROBOTS” content=”INDEX, NOFOLLOW” />

Any further questions?
On October 31, 2007, 16:16 CET, Jens Meiert said:

John, then you mean a meta element with a content attribute value of “nofollow”, not a nofollow attribute, that – really strictly speaking – doesn’t exist anyway (but that I understood as a reference to rel="nofollow").

Anyway, we can keep or remove that discussion
On October 31, 2007, 16:26 CET, John S. Britios (aka Webnauts) said:

I hope we can keep the discussion going. I see no reason why should we remove it.

So, the topic was about Paid Links.

And to clarify: If you have the nofollow meta tag on a page or the nofollow attribute in the links, they have exactly the same effect.
On October 31, 2007, 16:46 CET, Jens Meiert said:

Great summary, now that we extensively discussed nofollow

Jens Meiert