Internet Marketing

Paying for Links - SES - Matt Cutts Takes on The Rest of the Panel

Today at the SES the last session was definitely the most entertaining! The topic of discuss was “Paid Links” and what constitutes paid links?

Googles stance is they do not like paid links. Matt Cutts said “it is not good for the web”. Matt Cutts provided a list of link buying obstacles and ones you should avoid.

Link Buying Obstacles

1. Buy for a limited time?

2. Buy “run of site” links?

3. Buying links from “sloppy sellers”

4. Checking if a link seller is a clocker

Another main point that Matt Cutts from Google made was that they do not like paid links that pass page rank. If they are not passing page rank then it is not an issue.

Google Approach

1. Both algorithmic and human detection

2. Google is willing to take strong action against PPP links

3. This is an area Google is focusing on!

Michael Gray came up to the podium next. Wow…that is all I have to say. It was funny. He started off with the quote “Google is not the Government” and then drove the point home with Matt Cutts saying “don’t by links” is the same as Ronald McDonald saying don’t buy a whopper! This type of ripping by Michael Gray continued through out his whole talk. Google bashing.

Todd Mallcoat talked about why we need paid links….the reasons are below….

4 Reasons

1. Semantics – “Paid” links is ambiguous – Every link has a relative value and cost

Every link has some value!

2. Incentive – blame the algo

It helps the rankings

Off page relevance detection

3. Economics – Efficient Markets Hypothesis

4. Transparency and Relevance

Paid links help with traffic

My take on it on the web is we need to make the web easy to use and return the best results to the search engine. This all comes down to ethics. If we act ethical we will provide the best results to searchers….end of story!