Better ranking competitors have paid links from blog pages
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I have a trial of all the tools at the moment and it's a lot of fun.
I have been delving into site explorer and found that some competitors have links to them from obvious seo promoting paid blog sites.
One has no other links except a paid for blog from a site that openly admits it offers paid marketing and they shot up to 4th on page one for a main keyword phrase.
The info from moz and matt cuts video's say not to do this, but it's so tempting.
The blog is well written, while I sit here and do the right thing, my competitors have page one.
If the blog is well written and is meaningful is it OK and if google ever decide it's paid and don't like it, wouldn't it be better to be page one for 6 months and then recover?
I'd love to give the link to the seo, blogger thingy but don't want to come across as promoting it in any way. I am sure there are loads of them anyway.
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The most blunt answer humanly possible to this:
Here's the thing, ethics and Google rules aside (sorry Matt C.), if Google eventually catches this site selling links, they will likely penalize you for having bought one.
...so...
Google is very successful ($29 billion in 2010) and it is almost all based on the quality of their search results. If the penalties did not match the benefits, you are putting this revenue at risk (again, $29 billion). How do you think they will take that? How would you?
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Also, read the two responses this question http://moz.com/community/q/is-there-a-paid-link-hierarchy. I asked something really similar about my competition, and two people gave great responses.
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I can answer this part: "If the blog is well written and is meaningful is it OK and if google ever decide it's paid and don't like it, wouldn't it be better to be page one for 6 months and then recover?"
Unless you make enough to retire or only plan on being in the business short term, then no. If you get hit with any of Google's penalties it takes A LOT of work to get it removed.
However, I understand your frustration entirely! I bet most of us do. What I have learned the past 6 months doing this, is the sooner you can get over the whole "Google's a hypocrite and life's not fair" mentality, the sooner you will learn how to build links the right way. Once that starts to happen, and it will if you take full advantage of this community, you will be glad you did the "right" way.
Good luck,
Ruben
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