Hi seo101, we just did a couple blog posts. There's a post on Google's
official webmaster blog here:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/information-about-... That post serves as a good resource that pulls together a lot of our
previous communication about this subject, and it also tries to answer
a few common questions.
> Hi seo101, we just did a couple blog posts. There's a post on Google's
> official webmaster blog here:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/information-about-...
> That post serves as a good resource that pulls together a lot of our
> previous communication about this subject, and it also tries to answer
> a few common questions.
I just feel bad because I was planning to stop by in November and chat
more in the group. So my November stats will be bad, but maybe
December will be better. :)
Matt
> Thank you Maile, Matt, and the entire Webmaster Central Team. I
> appreciate the open discourse.
> On Dec 1, 5:25 pm, Matt Cutts wrote:
> > Hi seo101, we just did a couple blog posts. There's a post on Google's
> > official webmaster blog here:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/information-about-...
> > That post serves as a good resource that pulls together a lot of our
> > previous communication about this subject, and it also tries to answer
> > a few common questions.
I think it's excellent that you are now doing your utmost to educate
webmasters about the paid links issue in more public arenas than
personal blogs and search marketing conferences. But I still have
concerns and have two questions for you:
1) Do you expect webmasters who use regular advertising banners such
as 125 x 125 ads on their sites (not text links) to add the
rel=nofollow tag? Or worded another way, will you be penalizing sites
who don't use nofollow on image ads? I've seen conflicting information
about this and your guideline additions still don't make it clear.
2) I think the medical condition argument was very flimsy. If you
start censoring sites using that argument, to me that signals that you
assume people aren't smart enough to make up their own minds.
Shouldn't buyer beware play a larger role here?
> 2) I think the medical condition argument was very flimsy. If you
> start censoring sites using that argument, to me that signals that you
> assume people aren't smart enough to make up their own minds.
> Shouldn't buyer beware play a larger role here?
I don't think it flimsy. Its a damn good eg.
It interesting to see the opposing views on this. Time will tell who
is right. If Google do what they are doing and the quality of the
search results are such that the searcher is happy, then Google will
increase market share....if not they will loose market share. It does
not matter how much webmasters may or not complain about this, the
searchers will vote with their feet based on how happy they are with
the quality of the search results .... Google's market share has been
increasing and that is only increasing because searchers are happy, so
whatever Google are doing must be right (and that has nothing to do
with your or my site ranking well or not!) .
Hi Kalena, we've spent most of our time talking about paying money for
text links or paid posts, because Google does a pretty good job of
detecting and handling things like affiliate links or banner ads. In
addition, many banner ads (whether they be the 468x80 kind or the
125x125 kind) end up doing at least one redirect through a 302. If
you're a site owner, one rule of thumb I'd recommend is that if you're
being directly paid to place a link, that link shouldn't affect search
engines, but we haven't talked much about those advertising banners
because Google detects and handles such banner ads quite well.
I thought the medical condition argument helped show that regular
people wouldn't want paid links affecting their searches. In another
case I saw, paid posts for the term [alzheimers] were promoting the
donation page for a particular Alzheimer's organization. My
grandfather died of Alzheimer's, so I could definitely see myself
doing that search to learn about risk factors and how to guard against
the disease. And if I did that search, I would want overview and
information pages for the query [alzheimers]. I wouldn't want a
"donate money to us!" page to be #1 just because someone paid to get
links.
> I think it's excellent that you are now doing your utmost to educate
> webmasters about the paid links issue in more public arenas than
> personal blogs and search marketing conferences. But I still have
> concerns and have two questions for you:
> 1) Do you expect webmasters who use regular advertising banners such
> as 125 x 125 ads on their sites (not text links) to add the
> rel=nofollow tag? Or worded another way, will you be penalizing sites
> who don't use nofollow on image ads? I've seen conflicting information
> about this and your guideline additions still don't make it clear.
> 2) I think the medical condition argument was very flimsy. If you
> start censoring sites using that argument, to me that signals that you
> assume people aren't smart enough to make up their own minds.
> Shouldn't buyer beware play a larger role here?
> thanks
> Kalena
> On Dec 2, 10:02 am, Maile Ohye wrote:
> > We wanted to start a thread for questions and comments regarding our
> > blog post on buying and selling links that pass PageRank.
> > As always, we appreciate the discussion.
> > Take care,
> > Maile, Matt, and the entire Webmaster Central Team- Hide quoted text -
Kalena, there's no difference between a link that uses an image an
anchor and one that uses text as anchor. What matters is that there is
an html link and if it's paid, it would have either been opened as a
javascript pop up window (so it would not be crawled by robots because
they don't pop windows) or use rel="nofollow" to at least indicate to
robots (Google especially) that that link is not to be crawled (not to
pass PR). For that matter it's not much different from links with no
anchors at all (but these are even worse since they are strictly for
robots, humans can't click them).
As for the example given I find it is extremely to the point. Not only
is it not flimsy, it is astoundingly on target. It's actually rather
despicable to find such paid posts. Those are false advertising and
false claims. Even worse than touting one's own horn actually. And
adding insult to injury the website thus promoted might even stand to
gain PR, unless those paid posts can be discarded. Which is exactly
what Google is trying to do. How else to drive the point home if not
with an example like that? An example where greedy commercialism gets
in the way of ethics?
> I think it's excellent that you are now doing your utmost to educate
> webmasters about the paid links issue in more public arenas than
> personal blogs and search marketing conferences. But I still have
> concerns and have two questions for you:
> 1) Do you expect webmasters who use regular advertising banners such
> as 125 x 125 ads on their sites (not text links) to add the
> rel=nofollow tag? Or worded another way, will you be penalizing sites
> who don't use nofollow on image ads? I've seen conflicting information
> about this and your guideline additions still don't make it clear.
> 2) I think the medical condition argument was very flimsy. If you
> start censoring sites using that argument, to me that signals that you
> assume people aren't smart enough to make up their own minds.
> Shouldn't buyer beware play a larger role here?
> thanks
> Kalena
> On Dec 2, 10:02 am, Maile Ohye wrote:
> > We wanted to start a thread for questions and comments regarding our
> > blog post on buying and selling links that pass PageRank.
> > As always, we appreciate the discussion.
> > Take care,
> > Maile, Matt, and the entire Webmaster Central Team- Hide quoted text -
webado, I agree with you, but if this is the same Kalena as on
searchenginecollege.com, she was one of the people that helped
document that "buying and selling links" has been in Google's
webmaster guidelines for months. I honestly think Kalena was just
seeking clarification on those non-text links.
> Kalena, there's no difference between a link that uses an image an
> anchor and one that uses text as anchor. What matters is that there is
> an html link and if it's paid, it would have either been opened as a
> javascript pop up window (so it would not be crawled by robots because
> they don't pop windows) or use rel="nofollow" to at least indicate to
> robots (Google especially) that that link is not to be crawled (not to
> pass PR). For that matter it's not much different from links with no
> anchors at all (but these are even worse since they are strictly for
> robots, humans can't click them).
> As for the example given I find it is extremely to the point. Not only
> is it not flimsy, it is astoundingly on target. It's actually rather
> despicable to find such paid posts. Those are false advertising and
> false claims. Even worse than touting one's own horn actually. And
> adding insult to injury the website thus promoted might even stand to
> gain PR, unless those paid posts can be discarded. Which is exactly
> what Google is trying to do. How else to drive the point home if not
> with an example like that? An example where greedy commercialism gets
> in the way of ethics?
> On Dec 2, 1:14 am, Kal67 wrote:
> > I think it's excellent that you are now doing your utmost to educate
> > webmasters about the paid links issue in more public arenas than
> > personal blogs and search marketing conferences. But I still have
> > concerns and have two questions for you:
> > 1) Do you expect webmasters who use regular advertising banners such
> > as 125 x 125 ads on their sites (not text links) to add the
> > rel=nofollow tag? Or worded another way, will you be penalizing sites
> > who don't use nofollow on image ads? I've seen conflicting information
> > about this and your guideline additions still don't make it clear.
> > 2) I think the medical condition argument was very flimsy. If you
> > start censoring sites using that argument, to me that signals that you
> > assume people aren't smart enough to make up their own minds.
> > Shouldn't buyer beware play a larger role here?
> > thanks
> > Kalena
> > On Dec 2, 10:02 am, Maile Ohye wrote:
> > > We wanted to start a thread for questions and comments regarding our
> > > blog post on buying and selling links that pass PageRank.
> > > As always, we appreciate the discussion.
> > > Take care,
> > > Maile, Matt, and the entire Webmaster Central Team- Hide quoted text -
> ... Google does a pretty good job of
> detecting and handling things like affiliate links or banner ads. In
> addition, many banner ads (whether they be the 468x80 kind or the
> 125x125 kind) end up doing at least one redirect through a 302. If
> you're a site owner, one rule of thumb I'd recommend is that if you're
> being directly paid to place a link, that link shouldn't affect search
> engines, but we haven't talked much about those advertising banners
> because Google detects and handles such banner ads quite well.
Thanks for clarifying this Matt, it is an area I have been puzzling
about - the whole thread is very welcome.
Can I ask a couple of specific question? Along with others, I link to
sites I've built because I want visitors to view them as examples, so
in that respect it's a perfectly honest link. Should I, ideally,
nofollow them?
Secondly I have a family of sites, all related to a broad central
theme but each covering a discrete area. Should all links between
this family group be nofollowed?
Yes, it's the same Kalena (there's not many of us!) and yes I was
seeking clarification on the image ads, so thank you for providing
such.
Webado, I appreciate your viewpoint and I understand Google's stance
on paid links and their right to address this, but I am still a bit
uncomfortable with the implications it will have on the way people
design their sites. It feels a little invasive and controlling to me
because instead of just concentrating on making my site the best for
users, now I have to worry that Google will misinterpret my do-follow
links as some kind of transaction-based scenario. This means I can't
just relax and design my sites the way my instincts tell me to. I can
no longer use the web's natural linking power to reward a site I think
is valuable or useful with my hard-earned link juice because Google
might misinterpret my intent. To me, that feels like Google is
dictating who I should link to and how. I've never felt this way about
Google before and I'm betting this will have a lot of people feeling
the same way.
I also thought Matt's example was weak because it assumes people are
stupid. As I said elsewhere, if a shonky car salesman wearing a
Simpsons tie and a bad toupe manages to sell me a rustbucket with no
brakes, it's hardly his fault if I have a serious accident driving it
away from the showroom. Buyer beware and all that. My point was that I
think it would be pretty obvious to most people that sites like the
ones in Matt's post are the online equivalent of used car salesmen and
so I don't think it was a strong argument for his case. I would hope
that such crappy sites are filtered out by the algorithm before they
gain any ground using paid reviews.
> webado, I agree with you, but if this is the same Kalena as on
> searchenginecollege.com, she was one of the people that helped
> document that "buying and selling links" has been in Google's
> webmaster guidelines for months. I honestly think Kalena was just
> seeking clarification on those non-text links.
> Matt
> On Dec 1, 11:46 pm, webado wrote:
> > Kalena, there's no difference between a link that uses an image an
> > anchor and one that uses text as anchor. What matters is that there is
> > an html link and if it's paid, it would have either been opened as a
> > javascript pop up window (so it would not be crawled by robots because
> > they don't pop windows) or use rel="nofollow" to at least indicate to
> > robots (Google especially) that that link is not to be crawled (not to
> > pass PR). For that matter it's not much different from links with no
> > anchors at all (but these are even worse since they are strictly for
> > robots, humans can't click them).
> > As for the example given I find it is extremely to the point. Not only
> > is it not flimsy, it is astoundingly on target. It's actually rather
> > despicable to find such paid posts. Those are false advertising and
> > false claims. Even worse than touting one's own horn actually. And
> > adding insult to injury the website thus promoted might even stand to
> > gain PR, unless those paid posts can be discarded. Which is exactly
> > what Google is trying to do. How else to drive the point home if not
> > with an example like that? An example where greedy commercialism gets
> > in the way of ethics?
> > On Dec 2, 1:14 am, Kal67 wrote:
> > > I think it's excellent that you are now doing your utmost to educate
> > > webmasters about the paid links issue in more public arenas than
> > > personal blogs and search marketing conferences. But I still have
> > > concerns and have two questions for you:
> > > 1) Do you expect webmasters who use regular advertising banners such
> > > as 125 x 125 ads on their sites (not text links) to add the
> > > rel=nofollow tag? Or worded another way, will you be penalizing sites
> > > who don't use nofollow on image ads? I've seen conflicting information
> > > about this and your guideline additions still don't make it clear.
> > > 2) I think the medical condition argument was very flimsy. If you
> > > start censoring sites using that argument, to me that signals that you
> > > assume people aren't smart enough to make up their own minds.
> > > Shouldn't buyer beware play a larger role here?
> > > thanks
> > > Kalena
> > > On Dec 2, 10:02 am, Maile Ohye wrote:
> > > > We wanted to start a thread for questions and comments regarding our
> > > > blog post on buying and selling links that pass PageRank.
> > > > As always, we appreciate the discussion.
> > > > Take care,
> > > > Maile, Matt, and the entire Webmaster Central Team- Hide quoted text -
Hmmm. I got back in late last night after an old friend's 60th
birthday party (I knew both him and his wife of 38 years before they
met), browsed the group under my long-standing principle of not
replying to _ANYTHING_ while totally blasted, and went to bed utterly
confused.
I woke up this morning a little more sober but even more confused.
Hamlet, Act III, Scene II. Methank a lot overnight.
I think that's the most link-rich self-justifying post I've ever seen
from a Googlebod. Great care and not a little time has gone into its
construction and the plethora of references - and it's been passed
through p/r and legal.
Yup, Matt, I'd have done that too if I'd been told to post it. CYA.
You'll keep the house, but the personal reputation?
And it deals exhaustively with a problem we haven't had this week.
Why? To distract attention from the one we _HAVE_ had this week, in
no-trumps? To turn the discussion for some reason from paid "links"
to paid "reviews". Anyone seen any lawyers recently?
Hmmm. All the bells are ringing. I smell a problem. A mark has been
overstepped somewhere and everyone's been given a shovel.
I might hypothesize that one or more letters have arrived at Borg
Central this week after last weekend's implementation.
First of all - the medical stuff is simply infantile. I'm reminded of
Colin Powell and his Iraqi WMD "deployable in 45 minutes". Oh, God,
I'm frightened! NOT! We had a guy here two weeks ago using a
mispelling of Weightwatchers - one item on his site promised a dietary
cure for diabetes. Just as bad as the tumour example (next time pick
one with equivalent US/UK spelling - and drop the [sic] when you can't
even spell it yourself) but absolutely nothing to do with paid links.
Indeed, the link between paid links - sorry - "reviews" and dubious
information in a self-publishing and unreviewed environment is about
as tenuous as you can get. No causality. Utterly irrelevant comes to
mind. Frightening small and very nervous children a close second.
Still, it's your reputation to do with as you will.
(I will spare you the expression we use in Yorkshire. It's somewhat
more dismissive.)
In fact, even the post itself doesn't document the paid "posts" aspect
of the pages it shows. It makes powerful implications and uses
innuendo to suggest that its examples are all of paid "posts" - not
one of them is so documented. But hell, Guantanamo is full of Afghan
taxi-drivers - what's one more?
Read this:
'The posts themselves don't mention it, but entries like these often
turn out to be what are known as "paid posts." That is, someone paid
money to receive a review, and the paid review includes a link with
the word "radiosurgery," for example. There's no disclosure inside
these entries whether these posts are paid, nor do the posts use the
nofollow or some other mechanism so that search engines aren't
affected.'
This is PRICELESS. Utterly PRICELESS.
a) Nothing is shown to even suggest that any of the cited examples was
"paid". ZERO proof. Absolutely freakin' NOTHING. HELLO?
b) They should use "nofollow"? Ahem - wasn't it Google that first
suggested ignoring search engines when building pages?
c) No disclosure? Blatant, rank and offensive hypocrisy - if there's
one single habitual non-discloser here, it's Google.
The last one just blows it away. Google, with a massively dominant 90%
+ share of the web access market, places itself as sole detective,
prosecutor, judge and gaoler without the basic premise of justice -
that the accused know the charge and face their accuser in open court.
I find these two posts vile. And sad, considering the reputations
involved.
I see Google's need to protect its search results. But I think
requiring webmasters to use rel=nofollow/redirect is impractical.
Matt's answer to banner ads also implies Google still has problems
detecting paid links.
Solution:
1. Detect paid links algorithmically.
2. Devalue them algorithmically.
That's it. No penalties (if you can detect 99% of all paid links, you
don't need a deterrent), no rel=nofollow, no building webpages for
search engines, or full disclosure requirement. If you're going to
protect your house from being burglarized, you cannot ask robbers to
ring your door bell. Make it impossible to break in (yeah I know its
easier said than done). Rel=nofollow and TBPR penalties IMO is really
bad PR.
Matt,
I followed what I considered to be one of Google's 'most important
user guidelines' (Is this a page that is useful to my visitors?) -- I
built my links and resources by combining 'originally written content'
and placing links that were 'relevant to the content' within the
article.
Here is a snap shot of a page that was an aged PR3, now completed
missing in the Google cache: visionefx.net/article.jpg
My entire +60 page article section was grossly penalized --
visionefx.net/articles
I am hopeful that my article sections' PageRank will return when
things settle down.
> webado, I agree with you, but if this is the same Kalena as on
> searchenginecollege.com, she was one of the people that helped
> document that "buying and selling links" has been in Google's
> webmaster guidelines for months. I honestly think Kalena was just
> seeking clarification on those non-text links.
> Matt
> On Dec 1, 11:46 pm, webado wrote:
> > Kalena, there's no difference between a link that uses an image an
> > anchor and one that uses text as anchor. What matters is that there is
> > an html link and if it's paid, it would have either been opened as a
> > javascript pop up window (so it would not be crawled by robots because
> > they don't pop windows) or use rel="nofollow" to at least indicate to
> > robots (Google especially) that that link is not to be crawled (not to
> > pass PR). For that matter it's not much different from links with no
> > anchors at all (but these are even worse since they are strictly for
> > robots, humans can't click them).
> > As for the example given I find it is extremely to the point. Not only
> > is it not flimsy, it is astoundingly on target. It's actually rather
> > despicable to find such paid posts. Those are false advertising and
> > false claims. Even worse than touting one's own horn actually. And
> > adding insult to injury the website thus promoted might even stand to
> > gain PR, unless those paid posts can be discarded. Which is exactly
> > what Google is trying to do. How else to drive the point home if not
> > with an example like that? An example where greedy commercialism gets
> > in the way of ethics?
> > On Dec 2, 1:14 am, Kal67 wrote:
> > > I think it's excellent that you are now doing your utmost to educate
> > > webmasters about the paid links issue in more public arenas than
> > > personal blogs and search marketing conferences. But I still have
> > > concerns and have two questions for you:
> > > 1) Do you expect webmasters who use regular advertising banners such
> > > as 125 x 125 ads on their sites (not text links) to add the
> > > rel=nofollow tag? Or worded another way, will you be penalizing sites
> > > who don't use nofollow on image ads? I've seen conflicting information
> > > about this and your guideline additions still don't make it clear.
> > > 2) I think the medical condition argument was very flimsy. If you
> > > start censoring sites using that argument, to me that signals that you
> > > assume people aren't smart enough to make up their own minds.
> > > Shouldn't buyer beware play a larger role here?
> > > thanks
> > > Kalena
> > > On Dec 2, 10:02 am, Maile Ohye wrote:
> > > > We wanted to start a thread for questions and comments regarding our
> > > > blog post on buying and selling links that pass PageRank.
> > > > As always, we appreciate the discussion.
> > > > Take care,
> > > > Maile, Matt, and the entire Webmaster Central Team- Hide quoted text -
Hi guys. I'm reposting a comment Donna Fontenot made on Sphinn here on
her behalf, since she is having trouble with Google Groups atm:
"Since I am never able to comment on those groups threads due to who
knows what error...here's my comment...
For every example of a bad paid post such as the example Matt gave, I
bet one of us could come up with an example of a good paid post that
gives a serious review of some product or service and that is
objective, informative, and relevant. Are there bad paid posts?
Sure. Are there bad posts period, paid or otherwise? Sure. Are
there good paid posts? Sure. Are there good posts period, paid or
otherwise? Sure.
If Google wants to mess with paid posts, fine, but please - don't
insult our intelligence. There are examples of bad content all over
the internet - paid and unpaid. One thing does not lead to another."
> Hi seo101, we just did a couple blog posts. There's a post on Google's
> official webmaster blog here:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/information-about-...
> That post serves as a good resource that pulls together a lot of our
> previous communication about this subject, and it also tries to answer
> a few common questions.
> Methinks a whole bunch of people are protesting too much.
Quite possibly.
But I have a page at http://www.isham-research.co.uk/press.html that
is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT unsolicited. Lots and lots of press references
- how am I to know if the Great Google in All its Majesty has
determined that one or more are "paid reviews" according to this blug
item?
Ever tried paying a journalist? Tip: DON'T. I had the great privilege
of working with the UK's computer trade press for over ten years.
Reed, VNU, Computergram, The Register. Oops - Great people, truly
great.
But sub-editors? There aren't enough buses to run them all over.
(It's 15MB and terminally boring, about a round of redundancies in
middle management at IBM in early 2003. Whatever. 680 million people
heard it, according to the BBC.)
It's a "lack of feedback" issue. I didn't in any way solicit the
links I have, and I've most certainly never paid for any. The only
financial transaction between the BBC and myself was for a photograph
in 1967, and I never cashed the cheque.
How do I know what Google thinks of my links? How can Google
arbitrarily classify inbound or outbound links without being prepared
to declare and defend its decisions? I'm told that Google is making
decisions according to its own criteria - but what decisions? About
my site? I'd like to know.
Not that I think its decisions have always been bad. You'll find "Go
Google" in several of my recent posts. And the Googlebods will know
I've 5-starred a number of Googlebod posts.
> How do I know what Google thinks of my links? How can Google
> arbitrarily classify inbound or outbound links without being prepared
> to declare and defend its decisions? I'm told that Google is making
> decisions according to its own criteria - but what decisions? About
> my site? I'd like to know.
The only issue I have with this is why do you think that Google should
be accountable to webmasters for their decisions about this?
>Where's the concommitant reporting mechanism in support of the action?
SEO101, I agree, Google owes nothing to any of us; but, as they have
opened up a discussion on a topic that there has been a lot of debate
about, surely the more points we get answered - wherever we're coming
from the better? I don't suppose this opportunity will come round
again soon.
We get weird spikes when another site points at us, we get totally non-
contextual links from well over a 1,000 blogs, fora and such - are we
suspected of planting or buying links? It has been said more than
once on this Group that incoming links can't harm you - now I wonder
if they can?
If a blog with a link is regarded as being paid for, then obviously
the target site has bought the link; if this is the case then
incoming links can damage a site. We're all going to have different
takes on this, but wouldn't it be useful to drill down as far as we
can whilst we can?
> > How do I know what Google thinks of my links? How can Google
> > arbitrarily classify inbound or outbound links without being prepared
> > to declare and defend its decisions? I'm told that Google is making
> > decisions according to its own criteria - but what decisions? About
> > my site? I'd like to know.
> The only issue I have with this is why do you think that Google should
> be accountable to webmasters for their decisions about this?
> >Where's the concommitant reporting mechanism in support of the action?
Phil, your page is indexed OK by the looks of it. Why fret?
Why would you think Google or anybody else might think it's got paid
links and in any way penalize you for that?
Not a chance.
I'm telling you those who engage in that KNOW it. They really do,
regardless of what they say and how they fake indignation or surprize.
Heck you've been calling their bluff so many times.
I think you're playing a bit od devil's advocate here. That's OK.
Keeps us awake ;)
Hi Kalena, :-)
Something caught my eye that I would like to comment on,,,
> I also thought Matt's example was weak because it assumes people are
> stupid. As I said elsewhere, if a shonky car salesman wearing a
> Simpsons tie and a bad toupe manages to sell me a rustbucket with no
> brakes, it's hardly his fault if I have a serious accident driving it
> away from the showroom.
True, but if someone had pointed you in the direction of that car
salesman as being highly ranked among the possible sea of car
salesmen, you'd likely not be too impressed with that someone's
opinion.
> Buyer beware and all that. My point was that I
> think it would be pretty obvious to most people that sites like the
> ones in Matt's post are the online equivalent of used car salesmen and
> so I don't think it was a strong argument for his case.
Right, but should Google highly rank a site like that? Of course not
but if that site abuses what Google uses, in part, to rank sites or
even to index them in the first place, where PageRank seems to be more
important, it would seem that something needs to be done to weed out
those kinds of sites.
The other problem is, Google can't read. What may be obvious to you
or I may not be so obvious to a bot.
> I would hope
> that such crappy sites are filtered out by the algorithm before they
> gain any ground using paid reviews.
That would be nice but I think bots would have to become a lot smarter
than they are currently because they would, in effect, have to
evaluate content on its own merits which means they would have to
understand what they are reading.
On the other hand, I'm with Halfdeck, and have been about as long as
this whole paid link thing has been around. If site wide links can be
detected and dealt with, excessive reciprocal linking detected and
dealt with, spam-dexing links seemingly ignored, why can't the same
apply to paid links? Why can't they just be ignored or otherwise
dealt with?
I can understand the concept of devaluing one's stripe of green bits
to make the selling of links less profitable to those who do that but
wouldn't a simpler answer just be getting rid of the green bits?
Personally, I don't really have a horse in this race. I don't buy or
sell links and in the areas that I use search, I'm mainly searching
among authority sites of which there are no equal so I don't see a lot
of link buying or selling influence so my point of view may be skewed.
Craig, good points. I think a lot of regular users like seeing the
green bits in the Google Toolbar, so getting rid of PageRank would be
a large undertaking.
You asked "Why can't they [paid links] just be ignored or otherwise
dealt with?"
I think the short answer is that some folks try very hard to make
their paid links hard to detect. For example, check out
http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/text-link-ads-publisher-update/ to see
an email from one text link broker to its publishers. Check out this
bullet point:
"- Our advertisers don't like ad blocks that are titled "Sponsored
Links" "Advertisements" "TLA" "Text Link Ads" etc. They prefer no
heading but if you do use a heading please consider using an image not
text and consider using something like "Recommended Sites"."
That email is asking link sellers to call things "Recommended" instead
of "Sponsored," or to use no header at all. And if you do use a
header, they ask to make it an image (maybe because an image is harder
to detect than text?). So some people appear to be actively working to
try to make paid links harder to detect.
Matt
> Hi Kalena, :-)
> Something caught my eye that I would like to comment on,,,
> > I also thought Matt's example was weak because it assumes people are
> > stupid. As I said elsewhere, if a shonky car salesman wearing a
> > Simpsons tie and a bad toupe manages to sell me a rustbucket with no
> > brakes, it's hardly his fault if I have a serious accident driving it
> > away from the showroom.
> True, but if someone had pointed you in the direction of that car
> salesman as being highly ranked among the possible sea of car
> salesmen, you'd likely not be too impressed with that someone's
> opinion.
> > Buyer beware and all that. My point was that I
> > think it would be pretty obvious to most people that sites like the
> > ones in Matt's post are the online equivalent of used car salesmen and
> > so I don't think it was a strong argument for his case.
> Right, but should Google highly rank a site like that? Of course not
> but if that site abuses what Google uses, in part, to rank sites or
> even to index them in the first place, where PageRank seems to be more
> important, it would seem that something needs to be done to weed out
> those kinds of sites.
> The other problem is, Google can't read. What may be obvious to you
> or I may not be so obvious to a bot.
> > I would hope
> > that such crappy sites are filtered out by the algorithm before they
> > gain any ground using paid reviews.
> That would be nice but I think bots would have to become a lot smarter
> than they are currently because they would, in effect, have to
> evaluate content on its own merits which means they would have to
> understand what they are reading.
> On the other hand, I'm with Halfdeck, and have been about as long as
> this whole paid link thing has been around. If site wide links can be
> detected and dealt with, excessive reciprocal linking detected and
> dealt with, spam-dexing links seemingly ignored, why can't the same
> apply to paid links? Why can't they just be ignored or otherwise
> dealt with?
> I can understand the concept of devaluing one's stripe of green bits
> to make the selling of links less profitable to those who do that but
> wouldn't a simpler answer just be getting rid of the green bits?
> Personally, I don't really have a horse in this race. I don't buy or
> sell links and in the areas that I use search, I'm mainly searching
> among authority sites of which there are no equal so I don't see a lot
> of link buying or selling influence so my point of view may be skewed.
