Offical Word From Google About Paid Links Options

[kensplace]

Been discussing this after it came up on a thread over at ukbf, matt has a post on his blog (a official post for a change)

matts blog post

One thing I did notice, is the google official blog has a link to a forbes article that
1 - brings up a full page ad about hdtv before showing the ad, and
2 - appears to have advertising links on it to business.com (unless forbes owns business.com, anyone know? It does not appear to from business.coms about us page, where it says they partner with the likes of forbes etc)
3 - the links are not no-followed, nor redirected, nor javascripted etc - so are they paid links?


I posted a question to matt, but looks like he isnt going to post it (it was not about the above forbes thing, something else to do with the new statements) but will wait and see....

Looks like google has gone official on its stance now.

ps - as matt has not posted the comment, nor replied yet, Im still not sure what that stance is exactly, as if it was easy to say yes/no he could do so easily...

This post has been edited by kensplace: Dec 1 2007, 10:40 PM

[bwelford]

Good find, Ken. I was interested to see that he made a point of saying that he had passed the post by Google's PR department. It's obviously an important message. It is of course an extreme case of inappropriate paid links but I guess all's fair in love and war.

[EGOL]

You have heard about the "stone age" the "bronze age" and the "iron age"..... well, today we are living in the "age of bullcrap content".

[eKstreme]

I love this quote by Matt:

"graywolf, you’re welcome to view a Google Checkout blog post in a cynical way. I’m just telling you that I went and chatted with that team, and they didn’t see it that way themselves when they wrote that post."

See, webmasters that sell links view themselves just like the Google Checkout team sees themselves. Well done, Matt.

And while I'm aggravated and ranting:

This quote from the post:

There’s no disclosure inside these entries whether these posts are paid, nor do the posts use the nofollow attribute or some other mechanism so that search engines aren’t affected.

It's interesting they want a bot-specific disclosure but do not mandate a user-friendly disclosure like "this is a paid post". What kind of search engine is that? No, Google, take your guidelines and... well you know.

Man Google is so full of it. I don't know if there is space for the guidelines, but they should still try.

Pierre

This post has been edited by eKstreme: Dec 2 2007, 04:54 AM

[kensplace]

If they can detect 'paid' links, why dont they just no follow the link theirselves in the algo, and not penalise sites.

Google should not dictate content, what next - will they hire a panel of experts to manually review sites for content accuracy?

[eKstreme]

will they hire a panel of experts to manually review sites for content accuracy?

Wikipedia will stop being the number 1 result every time

[bobbb]

Two things I pick up from this thread (and others like it).

There is starting to be dissent about the might G.

Google should not dictate content

This is to be expected when you become the dominant player or a monopoly. You become more god-like and start to dicate because YOU are really the only one that knows what is best for the people. It happened to Microsoft and IBM.

Do I detect a bit of resentment about Wikipedia and the validity of their content? (I'm not saying I disagree)

Wikipedia will stop being the number 1 result every time

[kensplace]

Is google going to apply a penalty to itself?

They pay me for putting adsense adverts on my site..


Wait a minute I hear you say, those are not passing any page rank, its not the same as a paid link that passes page rank.

If that is really the case, then why is there a paid link to a ad for google one each ad?

<a class="abg" target="_blank" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg?url=whateveritis">Ads by Google</a>

Thats the bit of code (url altered)

They are paying people to put not only the ad in question on, but part of that is a forced paid link TO GOOGLE advertising its services, that is clearly not nofollowed...

It is in clear violation of their new terms as far as I can see, its a paid link, advertising google, and passing page rank, as far as I could see from that line.

Am I missing something here? Or is google?

This post has been edited by kensplace: Dec 2 2007, 01:15 PM

[kensplace]

ps - if it is the case that is a normal link (not checked to see if there is any clever stuff going on) google
may well say, well we know its not meant to get PR so we dont allocate any, but google is saying other search engines are against this sort of thing. So surely they should not do what they expect the users not to do?

[eKstreme]

kensplace: that link is generated by the AdSense JS so it doesn't need to be nofollowed. Although Gbot has been observed to download JS (and CSS) files, there is no evidence that I know of it that it's following links in JS files.

Should be easy and fun to test

Pierre

[Clark Financial]

I'm not an attorney, but it sure looks to me like Google is setting themselves up to be on the receiving end of a huge anti-trust lawsuit. I'm surprised the FTC hasn't gone after them yet.

[Mari C]

I am not qualified to enter this disucssion as a real newbie, but I have been reading up on basic stuff about getting ranked in Google & thought you may get a laugh out of my thoughts:

Paid links have only arisen as a problem as a result of Google rating sites by inbound links ....

However you need to have inbound links for your site to rank ....

please humour me & read on .....

To carry on Matt Cutts original example from the link - what if an experienced, renowned cancer expert/surgeon who specialised in reducing/eliminating cancerous tumours decided to start his own website in the interest of sharing his knowledge with the general public. Over time he spends a few hours of his valuable free time building a site that includes great content like info on survival rates, treatment procedures, what to expect re side effects, what insurance in the US would cover such treatment, where you could get treated if you didn't have insurance or globally etc etc .......... but this intelligent doctor doesn't realise has to add other stuff before anyone will see his genuine & useful content.

Does his site ever get ranked or does it languish because he hasn't added keywords, meta tags, or the Holy Grail of quality inbound PRECIOUS links ???

OK back to reality folks, I was joking, I doubt any Dr would build such a personal site as they would be way to concerned about potential legal liabilities & probably not have the time anyway. But I find the Google policy a bit at odds with itself - ie they want genuine & knowledgeable people/companies to create good content but seem to require such folks to have SEO abilities to get ranked. They then are all on the offensive when 'charlatans' start taking advantage of their rule.

Plenty of regular people build sites because they ARE actually interested in their chosen subject. Many do not actually want to earn money from their site, (gasp, shock, horror) all they really only want it to just want it to show up !!!!! Plenty of small businesses want the same.

It's not rocket science when you tell the genuine folk to get a few good links that the unscrupulous will start masquarading as genuine while still doing the bare minimum and coming up with numerous schemes to achieve the same result.

Are the Google people just ignorant of the ways of the world, have they never had a job in the 'real world' where you have to deal with these unscrupulous/stupid/greedy people or do they really think they can create Utopia online ???!!!

Or are they just like every other global corporate company, competing aggressively and in their case winning in the domination their chosen field ??? !!!

BTW I'm not even ranting, I'm too new to this whole thing - call it out of the mouths of babes or I'm just too new/green/stupid to understand the finer points of this game - at worst I hope I provide you with a good laugh at my stupidty/ignorance/accuracy/whatever !!

Mari

[Jem]

Plenty of regular people build sites because they ARE actually interested in their chosen subject. Many do not actually want to earn money from their site, (gasp, shock, horror) all they really only want it to just want it to show up !!!!! Plenty of small businesses want the same.

I find this idea ridiculous. If people were creating their sites for the love of their subject, they wouldn't give a monkeys where they ranked on Google, or who was clicking through. They would do it because of the passion.

However, what we see is millions of people plastering their blogs and websites in advertising and PPP because they want to make a quick buck, and people paying for their links to be plastered everywhere because in turn, they want to make a profit. And yes, of course small businesses "just want to show up" - why? So that it brings in business.

It's all about the $$$.

(edited to correct a typo)

This post has been edited by Jem: Dec 4 2007, 07:41 AM

[Adrian]

Mari, those are fair points to bring up

There are answers to some of them, and part of the problem is that Google's success has altered the nature of the beast they are trying to index.

Before Google, and PageRank, we had some pretty shoddy search engines to be honest. They seemed alright at the time, but when Google hit the scene, at a time when people weren't swapping/buying links in order to do better in search engines, PageRank offered an improvement in the quality of results.

They might have gotten a few other things right about ranking that other engines hadn't worked out at the time, but the main sales points of Google were PageRank, and the fast loading page, back in dial up days. Better search results, and a better, faster experience.

Of course, the legacy of that is what we have now. People obvisouly cottoned on to the fact that that links=rank, and so started doing what they could to get more of them. And Google's been fighting it ever since.

From their point of view, they want people to get links because they run a good site, and other people want to link to them. When their system thinks links=votes, links that aren't really votes messes the system up.

And then we end up in the mosh pit arguing whether it's for them to tell us how to link, or for us to link how we want, and so on.

My own thoughts, I think it's a bit of a 'shot across the bows'. In a lot of cases, Google has just ignored things that they frown upon, not counting them towards ranking.
Maybe they feel things are getting out of control, and they want to encourage a few more people to fall back in line with what they want. It's all very well threatening to penalise people, but if you don't do it, or don't make it visible enough, people might get more confident about chancing it....

And we're probably not talking about it being aimed at the hardcore SEO people, but the people nearer the line, the people who run little businesses with sites that are going to be made to think more about the risks of getting a penalty, and what that might do to their business. The people who, whether they agree with it or not, are not so interested in buying up links when they've seen/heard of large numbers of sites being penalised for it.

It does seem like Google are pushing their luck a bit with it all. But I can see where they are coming from. How do they deal with people constantly trying to game the system? While people(the same people in cases) are also moaning about SERP quality?

It's not an enviable position to be tasked with solving that problem, and I'm sure they were quite aware of the flak they'ed take for what they've done.

[bobbb]

If people were creating their sites for the love of their subject, they wouldn't give a monkeys where they ranked on Google, or who was clicking through.

I disagree. Why go to all that trouble if no one comes around to read what you wrote. Example: A site by Yannis. Not an ad in sight. http://latenightengineer.com/play/CSSMeasures

I have a support site for a small firewall app. Up for years. Only now did I put a few ads. Why? because everyone else is doing it. [no plug]

I also have another small site promoting a small town in Quebec, Canada. Six months ago I added a few ads but not to the core. [no plug]

Of course all this is in a minority I must agree.

what we see is millions of people plastering their blogs and websites in advertising and PPP because they want to make a quick buck, and people paying for their links to be plastered everywhere because in turn, they want to make a profit.

Correct of course. $$$.¢¢

[Jem]

I disagree. Why go to all that trouble if no one comes around to read what you wrote.

For this love for the subject that is being talked about, supposedly.

I blogged for years before anyone read my site. I am fortunate now that I have readers, but back when nobody gave a damn it didn't stop me updating my site because I was doing it for the passion of it. (And for the record, there are no paid links/adverts on my site and never will be. )