Could product sample giveaways be seen as 'paying for links'?
-
One of our main methods of advertising for my startup business is by sending samples to bloggers for review. I've read a lot of good things about this method and many of my competitors use it very well - I've even seen it suggested on the Moz blog several times in the past.
The one thing I do worry about is that Google may see this as a form of 'link purchasing', as I'm offering something in exchange for a link and some of the blog posts may reference that fact (or at least most likely use the word "Review" - Which could be some kind of footprint?).
We don't intend to ask for anchor texts, so at the very least that should look natural.What are your opinions? Could this be seen as paid linkbuilding or is it regarded as a natural marketing method?
[EDIT]:
One idea we had was to potentially offer bloggers the chance to earn a portion of their purchase back by writing a review on their blog. They'd buy from us and let us know they have a blog, then we'd reimburse them some credit towards their next order for every blog post they write about us. Does this sound like a good idea or is this potentially more dangerous than simply offering free samples? -
Hi Marie,
Can you please elaborate on what you think is a completely earned link as well as giving us some example?
I am in the same boat as azu25 - it is hard to earn links when you are starting off because no one knows you, so how do you go viral while avoiding link scheme penalties?
Other ideas I had:
1. Offering bloggers coupons that they can blog about. Their audience would be able to use the couple to buy form your store.
2. Offering free giveaways from your store. The blogger could blog about this. Could this be seeing as a "free" product form search engines??
What is your opinion on the two ideas above?
Like azu25 has stated, it seems that many domains with high authority do give away products to their bloggers, but are still ranking....it's hard to compete with 1000 monthly links.
Also, what is your opinion on building blogger relationship and asking for that blogger to blog about you once a month (recurrent blogs)?
Regards,
Carlos
-
Ok, What I'll have to try is our other marketing methods first and leave this to a kind of 'last resort' practise. If you think it's a bad idea, I'll steer clear as much as possible - It seems to be used by most of our competitors (especially our biggest one) so I suppose it's only a matter of time before they're penalised for this.
Thanks
-
I think what you are asking here is the same as saying, "How high above the speeding limit can I drive before I get charged with speeding?" If the limit is 50, then anything above 50 is breaking the law, but will you get stopped for speeding at 51? Not likely. 55? Maybe. 60? Some people can get away with it but you could get caught.
I think that if you are sending free product and hoping for a link you may get a few, but if you get enough links to start making a difference in rankings then you're probably crossing the line of unnatural linking. These days there are three ways to make links:
1. Completely self made links.
2. Completely earned links.
3. Links that are self made but you've tried your best to make them look naturally earned.
Google is very smart. If I were you I would not be risking a penalty but then I am biased because I work with sites who have been ruined by penalties.
I'm not sure that I have an opinion on the second part. It won't get you into linking trouble as no one is linking to you, so it sounds fine to me.
-
Thanks Marie for your feedback,
Obviously we want to be as squeaky clean as possible. Our biggest competitor is a very big and well-known company - they rank very well for some big keywords and one of their main sources of links at the moment is these product giveaways in exchange for a review and a link. I think any Googler could see that they are sending free products in exchange for links, as they're getting ALOT of links doing this.
I don't think I've seen that part of Google's guidelines about offering free products - I don't know how I've missed that!
It's a marketing method we can't ignore, so I'm trying to think of different ways we can do it so that it doesn't get too dangerous. Perhaps if we sent out maybe one free sample a week to a blogger who we know writes reviews, then rather than asking for a link, just ask for their opinions (as Chris suggested above) and hope for a review with a natural link, then that might be better, as there's no link being requested and it's not too aggressive on a large scale.
We'll try anything to make this method as natural looking as possible.Regarding the second note about reimbursing purchases - another idea we had for this was to do the same, but offer people the chance to write a review for us to post to our site. We could add a 'customer reviews' section to our blog and include those there, which of course would be more detailed and more engaging than the regular 'Write a review' section on the product pages. This doesn't involve links as the content would go on our site, so there's no risk of a penalty (that I know of, other than Panda, which we'd ensure it's good content first), so I was just wondering what your opinion of that would be?
Thanks very much !
-
Most of my work is on sites that have been dealt a manual unnatural links penalty. I have worked with a couple of sites who were penalized for exchanging free product for a review.
Here's one of the points in the quality guidelines under "link schemes"
- Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
Now, there are ways that you can do this where an algorithm (i.e. Penguin) is not likely to pick up on what you are doing. But, if you want to be squeaky clean you have to build links as if you were comfortable with someone from the webspam team taking a look. To me, it's all about scale. If you have a small handful of links because you sent someone a product, this is probably ok provided you didn't ask for a link back. But, if you do it on a larger scale then it can easily look like a linking scheme and could open you up to a manual penalty.
Is it wrong to send free product to someone? No. Is it wrong to ask for a link from someone? No, provided you haven't exchanged anything for it. Is it wrong to send free product AND ask for a link? According to Google, yes. So the obvious question is, "How would Google know that I asked for a link? Couldn't I just send free product and hope that they write about it?" I don't know the answer to that question. But if I was doing this I would be careful. If there is any sort of insinuation that the free product comes with the expectation of a link then you're treading on thin ice. Similarly, in my opinion, if you send free product and ask for a review, you are essentially asking for a link.
"One idea we had was to potentially offer bloggers the chance to earn a portion of their purchase back by writing a review on their blog. They'd buy from us and let us know they have a blog, then we'd reimburse them some credit towards their next order for every blog post they write about us. Does this sound like a good idea or is this potentially more dangerous than simply offering free samples?"
IMO this is a paid link.
-
I might do a sort of A/B test with this kind of thing and see what happens - Ask 20 people for a review and ask 20 people (who I know already do reviews) if they'd like some free samples, to see how it goes. Probably a bit pointless, but if there's any way I can try to get our links looking as natural as possible then I'll give it a go
-
Understood. And I'm just saying that if you ask for their evaluation--without asking for the review--you may get the review anyway--especially if you're targeting those who have already shown they review or mention products online.
-
Hi David,
We'll be making sure to mix in plenty of other marketing so will hopefully be able to gain some links to water the 'sample-links' down a bit.
Thanks
-
Hi Chris, thanks for the response.
I actually meant that we would be asking for reviews, but just not for specific anchor text. So the reviewer could link to us however they want, or not at all - As long as we get our name out there.
We also had one more idea which I'll make a note of in the OP.
Thanks
-
I think you're OK if you're sending out samples but not asking for the reviews. Something like "here [blogger], I see you have an interest and an opinion on a number of similar products and I'd love to know your thoughts on mine."--kind of thing. The number of online reviews you get without asking might not be that different than the number you get with asking, depending on your niche. Also, no need to stick with bloggers. Anyone anywhere in social media who's mentioned a competitor's product can get the same type of communication from you.
-
Its some what of a gray area - I would recommend using it in conjunction with many other tactics to make it look more normal and giving you enough link diversity that google wouldn't penalize you for it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
When products are discontinued- best way to handle pinned or googled images
What do you lose by deleting a product and it's images from an e-commerce site? We have many product images with pinterest pins and shares or that show up on google images searches. Our site is an active American craft gallery with jewelry, art and handmade gifts from about 300 different artists. Most products are made in small quantities others are 1 of a kind. So we often have products selling out. Most items are organized by artist. Are there good practices to follow that will best keep our social media presence and links? I'd also like to stop buying extra space for all those images on my server Thanks so much Stephen
Branding | | stephenfishman0 -
Links in clients footers
I have one quick question. Maybe you can just point me to the correct post... We have currently been adding our own website link in the wp copyright footer of clients websites that we build and design. We understand that this is not the best option for SEO since it might be punished by Google as spam. Can you please recommend a better solution for this? From an SEO standpoint is it best to just remove the links? Make them nonfollow? Add it to a "Website Credits" page or "About Us" page. I always discuss this link with all clients and offer a discount which 100% of them take in the end. I just need to work on our ranking a bit now and see that this could be hurting things more than good.
Branding | | SeattleWebGuy0 -
Google detects wrong information to compnay's knowledge graph on search index - Please help
This issue is about website properties' information showing on Google's search index with brand keywords. We have 8 different domains that operated separately in 8 countries. All are responsible for their individual domain. When I Google it with our brand name 'Flight Centre' in Google.ca, Google's search index shows company website link with flightcentre.com and detects all information, social profile etc.. from Flight centre Australia. Please see the screenshot. How to change this information that Google shows or detects website link and all other properties from flightcentre.ca? Anybody about with a quick answer would be awesome? IqWeymZ
Branding | | flightcentre200 -
Should a company's online tool be hosted on their own domain?
Our company is developing a web-based tool that will provide good value for its users and generate leads for us. The tool is large enough in scope and different enough than the main service that we provide that we're considering putting it on its own domain. I have two questions: 1. Does it behoove a company to put their online tool on a separate domain if the tool is large enough in scope and different enough from their website's core function / business's core service? (Examples of this would be Hubspot's Marketing Grader or Open Site Explorer before Moz rolled it back into its domain.) 2. If yes, should the domain name a) describe the function of the tool or b) build a brand for the tool itself? Thanks for your help!
Branding | | APM-SEO0 -
External 'Source' link in PPC Ad copy
Afternoon Mozzers, Noticed something today on Google.co.uk that we have never seen / noticed before on PPC adverts. This exampe is a Google UK search for Wonga payday. Within the Ad copy there is a link to a BBC news article about the company. Has anyone else seen these on any PPC Ads? I am assuming this is not an intentional feature from Wonga to link to an external site from within their own PPC advert? i assume they would not get charged for these clicks. If anyone has any further info or insights on this feature it would be appreciated. PqsOoUy.png
Branding | | Sarbs0 -
It's been 2 Months and Google STILL shows my Old URL, why? (help please)
First i just want to say the 301s, change of address and nearly all outer links are changed to the new url since early september. Let me give you an example... Query: Custom Sweatbands Ranking URL: www.stbands.com/custom-sweatbands/ **Correct URL that it is 301'd to for over 2 months now: **www.customonit.com/custom-sweatbands/ More... new sitemap has been submitted since the beginning. The old website www.stbands.com doesn't even exist anymore, in fact at the beginning of this month I got pretty angry and blocked search engines via the robots txt for the old domain. Any way I can get Google to catch on? Thanks in advance!
Branding | | Hyrule1 -
Ideas for formal (prom) suit & dress giveaway contest
Hi fellow Mozzers, I'm hoping to do a bit of brainstorming if you don't mind helping out. We've never done a contest for our clients before, so want some ideas on how to get the most out of it. In Australia it is coming up to formal (Prom) time, and our client sells boys suits and girls formal dresses, so I figured it was a great time for a contest. It's a brand new SEO client, so it's quite late notice...the competition can only go for about 3 weeks because most of the school formals are around late November, early December. (Not ideal I know) The client is willing to give away one free suit, and one free dress, and I want to brainstorm some ideas on the format of the contest, e.g. what should people have to do to enter the draw? Avenues we plan to promote are: Facebook (they have 600 likers), Twitter (currently not many followers), I'm thinking Australian mummy bloggers, free contest listing websites, email database. Any other ideas for promotion? The goal for the contest is to increase brand exposure, and to attract lots of links. Looking forward to hearing your suggestions. Thanks, Karl
Branding | | Static_Shift0 -
Guest Posts/Blogs/Articles Link Building
Is it me or are the usual places you used to go for to find quality blogs to guest post to seem to be full of low quality spammy blogs. And doing a search brings up loads of poor quality sites/blogs too. I was thinking of creating a high quality content site for link bait. Any suggestions on "refreshing" a tired link strategy. Where do you find your guest blog/posts?
Branding | | JohnW-UK0