Better ranking competitors have paid links from blog pages
-
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
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
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
-
Paid Link/Doorway Disavow - disavowing the links between 2 sites in the same company.
Hello, Three of our client's sites are having difficulty because of past doorway/paid link activity, which we're doing the final cleanup on with a disavow. There are links between the sites. Should we disavow all the links between the sites? Thank you.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Why should I reach out to webmasters before disavowing links?
Almost all the blogs, and Google themselves, tell us to reach out to webmasters and request the offending links be removed before using Google's Disavow tool. None of the blogs, nor Google, suggest why you "must" do this, it's time consuming and many webmasters don't care and don't act. Why is this a "required" thing to do?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RealSelf0 -
How do you change the 6 links under your website in Google?
Hello everyone, I have no idea how to ask this question, so I'm going to give it a shot and hopefully someone can help me!! My company is called Eteach, so when you type in Eteach into Google, we come in the top position (phew!) but there are 6 links that appear underneath it (I've added a picture to show what I mean). How do you change these links?? I don't even know what to call them, so if there is a particular name for these then please let me know! They seem to be an organic rank rather than PPC...but if I'm wrong then do correct me! Thanks! zorIsxH.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eteach_Marketing0 -
Hiding content or links in responsive design
Hi, I found a lot of information about responsive design and SEO, mostly theories no real experiment and I'd like to find a clear answer if someone tested that. Google says:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NurunMTL
Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details For usability reasons sometimes you need to hide content or links completely (not accessible at all by the visitor) on your page for small resolutions (mobile) using CSS ("visibility:hidden" or "display:none") Is this counted as hidden content and could penalize your site or not? What do you guys do when you create responsive design websites? Thanks! GaB0 -
Link-Building - Directories
Hello, The SEO world is a bit confuse in the last months with the Google Antartic updates. Its normal since Google is trying to kill SEO to have more Adwords publicity results. My most recent doubt is about directories. I heard Matt Cutts from Google in a recent Google Hangout saying that registering a website in directorys was ok, but not the ideal method to become relevant in the internet world. However it seems that this procedure is not against the Google policies. Now, here in the forums, I already saw someone writing about adding your site to directories and how dangerous that situacion is. So, whats your opinion about adding your site to free and pay directories as first link-building strategy? If directories are out of the question, why SEOmoz as a huge list of paid directorys? Is SEOmoz outdate?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PedroM1 -
How Do You Determine If A Link Is Quality?
What tools and signals do you use to determine if a link is quality or not? How can you tell if a link is going to hurt your ranking?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | anchorwave0 -
Post Panda Link Building Methods
Google Panda update has brought about so much changes in Google search engine algorithms. I like to know what sort of link building is considered good for SEO in the present scenario? Is article marketing, directory submission, blog posting, web property creation, video submission, press release submission etc still relevant? I like to know your valuable opinions.. I am hearing conflicting responses to this question. So I thought, I will ask here and know what really works. Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SunuPhilip0
