Are All Paid Links and Submissions Bad?
-
My company was recently approached by a website dedicated to delivering information and insights about our industry. They asked us if we wanted to pay for a "company profile" where they would summarize our company, add a followed link to our site, and promote a giveaway for us. This website is very authoritative and definitely provides helpful use to its audience.
How can this website get away with paid submissions like this? Doesn't that go against everything Google preaches? If I were to pay for a profile with them, would I request for a "nofollow" link back to my site?
-
That is the predicament I find myself in. One of my competitors who are outranking me on short-tail terms have a bunch of paid advertisements (and followed links) on authoritative sites that I am currently not on. I have a sneaking suspicion these links are a major reason for their success.
Curious, did you pay up to join your competition?
-
Great. Thanks for the feedback, Erica!
-
You are correct that our tools will report the link and the link equity from it. We don't discard or discount paid links. Google has taken major effort to do this -- much of it very manual, human reviewed -- and we don't have that kind of bandwidth.
That said, we do have something exciting in the works, hopefully, releasing no later than early Q1 to more comprehensively look at the quality of that link. Stay tuned.
-
Exactly right.
Wonder why your small business can't compete with the big name brands? That's why. If you're not buying links to some degree, you're probably not ranking very well.
-
There's really no way for them to enforce that policy unless a lot of people squeal about it.
I know here at Moz, it's really something like a Taboo, but it's really not. Big companies do this daily and they do it in bunches.
I would suggest though (since you mentioned that it's just a bitly link) that you just go for it IF the price is right and if it's targeted enough.
Look at it at the standpoint of getting traffic. You mentioned that it's a good site then it probably has a good spot for your link so it can bring in leads. If you can optimize to capture these leads or just get them to your sales funnel, then it'll be worth it. You'll get more links down the line.
It's pretty much like guest posting or paying for a best of the web spot.
-
Yes, google is saying that all paid links should be no-follow, They are saying paid links are a plague. And I believe they mean it. But I am not sure they are able to enforce that policy.
By my experience paid links are so widespread google is going to find that battle hard to fight. They code their algo, and they are google, but the rest of the world is selling do-follow links.
In all backlink profiles I analyzed, all of them, paid links are probably 80/90% of the total. And I am not talking about spammy blog networks. I can give you a list of hundreds of sites with DA50-60 and PR5/6, including major worldwide news agency and leading national newspaper in all G7 countries... who sell sponsored content with do-follow links.
You may be big, strong, motivated and just, but when everyone else is doing the opposite of what you want I think it's tough to impose your will. And to date seems google is very far from reaching his objective of exterminating that plague.
Am I suggesting to buy a do-follow link from a website with (let's say) DA20 and PR2? No, stay away.
Am I suggesting you should go on a buying spree? No.
Am I telling if you buy links you take no risk? No, rap genius or bmw are good example of big names being it by google axe (but not for paid links). But I don't see google starting tomorrow to penalize 90% of the web. As for all things maybe in few years paid links will be a thing of the past, but today they are not.
I am saying everybody is doing it, and as far as you buy the links from reputable websites, so far, seems you are going to get juice without running much risk.
And yes everybody will tell you should not do it.
-
It's a grey area to be sure. Lots of the things that Google states can contradict one another, such as in your case: They want you to have authoritative backlinks from reliable sources, but they dont want you to pay for it. (Might get in their way of getting your Adwords dollars, lol)
In this case, look closely at what you are getting. Sites like YP, Chamber of Commerce all offer paid profile creations, with the paid profile links being of a higher visibility within their website. If you are getting a full profile page, with lots of ways for you to support your business or company then it could be beneficial. If you are getting a small, otherwise unfindable profile page with a anchor text optimized link directly to your site, I would stay away.
Think of the benefits of having the link. Is your link going to be placed somewhere it can be found, and when found, does the page that will be linking offer the user anything. How does the profile page help build upon your brand?
"If I were to pay for a profile with them, would I request for a "nofollow" link back to my site? "
Again, it depends on how they set up the profile, and how they set up their profiles for all the other businesses on that site. If Google sees the site as just a way to milk money out of people for paid backlinks, they will get hit and eventually so will you. I would do some investigating into the other businesses that have profiles on there, and see how they do in search results. Either way, one link will most likely not do a ton of damage to your reputation, but is that a risk you would be willing to take? Just boils down to what you feel comfortable with. -
Google should still be able to see the webpage the links originated from.
Like Anthony said, it's a grey area. To the best of my knowledge Google has been consistent in saying all paid links should be no followed, but in the real world this isn't what happens. I know of many sites in my niche paying a lot of money to advertise on a site that grants them followed links. The question becomes do you join them, or do you do what Google tells you to do?
That's up to you, just know there are risks, and you never know what Google is going to decide to do next.
-
I just realized that the links are actually bitly shortlinks. That wouldn't matter would it?
-
Any paid link though? The site in question is a very legitimate, authoritative site. Google must know that all these "company profiles" they list must be paid. Why wouldn't Google penalize the site by now?
I have a feeling that when Moz crawls this site, it finds the followed links, and reports them to have link equity. But perhaps when Google crawls the same site it will simply take away the link equity (but not penalize the website or company who has the backlink). At that point, no link juice would be passed, and it would just serve as a referral source. Is that feasible?
-
As Mick said, Google's policy is that ALL paid for links need to be no followed.
Here is a Matt Cutts video where he explains their philosophy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zupIbMyMfBI
-
Paid links are always a gray area. Yahoo Directory and other authoritative directories have always been out there over the years as a recommended spot to get a link, despite costing money.
My recommendation: Go for the link if you think it's a good site and may send some traffic your way.
One or two obviously paid links that all your competitors also have, isn't likely to cause an issue for you. If this is a tactic you are intentionally abusing and have a lot of paid links-- then you are going to be at high risk.
I'm sure others might disagree with my response...
-
If you play with fire you'll get your fingers burnt. Any paid for link must be no-followed and the guys who don't do that are playing a waiting game for Google to catch on.
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
-
Regular links may still
Good day: I understand guest articles are a good way to pass linkjuice and some authors have a link to their website on the "Author Bio" section of the article. These links are usually regular links. However, I noticed that some of these sites (using wordpress) have several SEO plugins with the following settings: Nofollow: Tell search engines not to spider links on this webpage. My question is: If the setting above was activated, I would assume the author's website link would look like a regular link but some other code could still be present in the page (ex, header) that would prevent this regular link from being followed. Therefore, the guest writer would not experience any linkjuice. Any idea if there's a way of being able to see if this scenario is happening? What code would we look for?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Audreythenurse0 -
[linkbuilding] link partner page on webshop, is it working?
Hello Mozzers, I am wondering about the effect of link building by swapping links between websites and adding a link partner page to the web shop containing hundreds of links. I have this new competitor coming in to the SERP of Google competing on the keywords I am targeting. The competitor has way more links than our web shop. The competitor has a page with hundreds of links to other web shops witch on there turn has a link to there web shop. (not all off them link back btw) I always thought it is no use sharing links with other websites this way in creating a huge page with hundreds of links. it is of no benefit for neighter website to do this. Still it does seems to work (?) and tis strategy is used by a lot of web shops in the Netherlands. How are you guys looking at this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | auke1810
Witch of you guy's are using strategy like this?
Should I pick up this strategy myself?0 -
Removing/ Redirecting bad URL's from main domain
Our users create content for which we host on a seperate URL for a web version. Originally this was hosted on our main domain. This was causing problems because Google was seeing all these different types of content on our main domain. The page content was all over the place and (we think) may have harmed our main domain reputation. About a month ago, we added a robots.txt to block those URL's in that particular folder, so that Google doesn't crawl those pages and ignores it in the SERP. We now went a step further and are now redirecting (301 redirect) all those user created URL's to a totally brand new domain (not affiliated with our brand or main domain). This should have been done from the beginning, but it wasn't. Any suggestions on how can we remove all those original URL's and make Google see them as not affiliated with main domain?? or should we just give it the good ol' time recipe for it to fix itself??
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | redcappi0 -
It's not link buying, but...
Which of these strategies, if any, cross the line from relationship building to link buying? Assume all links are do-follow. You're a local business. You give the local Boys & Girls club a few hundreds buck a year. In return, you get a very nice link on their Sponsorship page for 12 months. You send a sample of your product to influential bloggers, for the purpose of a review and hopefully a link back to your website. One of your clients is a college bar. You invite 50 college kids over for a slow evening and stuff them full of chicken wings. Then, you ask them to please review and link to the bar on their college wiki. You give a client a free service, in exchange for that client linking to your business on its blog roll. You take a blogger out to lunch, and pick up the tab. Later that day, the blogger writes up an amusing little story for the blog, and links back to your desired website. In your email newsletter, you put out a request to your customer base, "Please link to my website, and I'll provide you a special 20% off coupon."
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ExploreConsulting1 -
Lot of new suspicious external links
I am running a small-language site and suddenly saw a lot of incoming English links in Moz Reports and Opensiteexplorer from various domains (the sites are in English, but anchor words are not). When I check the page sources of there is no link to the site (as there shouldn't). Any idea what is happening and what to do about it? Thanks for help in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | tjr0 -
Is it still considered reciprocal linking if one of the links has a nofollow tag?
I have a popular website in which I include nofollow links to many local businesses, like restaurants and retailers. Many of the businesses are local startups that are more focused on word of mouth and often have no idea what SEO is. Seeing as I am already mentioning them on my website and my readers are finding them via the links, I want to reach out to these businesses to see me if they might give me a link since I have been linking to them for years. My question is: If these business owners decide to link to my wesbite and they give me a 'followed' link, will this look like reciprocal linking in the eyes of search engines? In other words, does the nofollow tag I put on my links to other businesses negate the reciprocal link penalty since both parties are not benefiting from a link juice exchange?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AndrewHill0 -
Best way to build links?
i want to build high piority links and some high pr one's. what tool should i use? i was thinking of using scrapbox. any insights? i already have 2 high ones from youtube and google +1
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Radomski0 -
Links to partner sites
I have some partnerships in some portals, usually I put the banner of my company with a link to my site on a space partners. How should I proceed? To place the banner no link? To put the link nofollow? Can’t I do it? Don’t I need to worry about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | soulmktpro0