Fear and Paid Linking
Funny, I started this post in Seattle and with the blog move, never got back to it. Now Rand has gone and done so much better, but I still have somethings to say about all this.
I recently asked Matt Cutts about topics he thought I might research for my Master’s thesis. I thought paid linking and he said it was going to be sooo 2007. I disagreed because I had seen so many people still doing it. When we got to Seattle, what I said was backed up.
Now I am a seasoned veteran of sorts in this space. Not a leader by any means, but I’ve been around the block a time or two. Hearing black hat things at the show did not bother me, I enjoying hearing some of them. It was more something Jay Young said: “We are marketers not moralists.” Jay is a smart man, and a great guy from what I hear, but that kind of thinking is so irritating to me.
I almost left business a few years ago. I was tired of the BS, the backstabbing, and the greed. I wanted to be somewhere that I could use my talents for the betterment of other people, not myself. Does that make me pathetic or a bad marketer? I don’t think so. It makes me a good person. And I really don’t like being made fun of for it.
But the rest of his speech made some good points about fear. No one should fear Matt Cutts. No one should fear link brokers. They all have their jobs, and they are not out to mess with anyone else. Matt does what he does for society as a whole. Trying to give them the most unbiased answers to their questions. Putting the small company on the same playing field as the big ones. The internet is not about who has the bigger marketing budget and that is what I see as Google’s standpoint.
But the link brokers are just helping small companies play the games that the search engines set up themselves. Links are needed and they are helping people get them. Is paid linking going to die totally? No. But should the search engines stop trying to discount them? No. That is their job, they are going to do it. This industry is risky at times. It’s like gambling, if you want the short term fast results you have to put a lot on the line. And sometimes, and more recently a lot, you get burned, bad. That’s the game.
Fear shouldn’t have a place in our industry – good business sense, ethics, and all that should. Do your job the right way, and with some patience, the best results will win out.
7 responses to "Fear and Paid Linking"
If you really want to you can ignore the search engines altogether and use links as your primary source of traffic, but there’s so many people on Google now it’s almost crazy not to join in the feeding frenzy.
i don’t use links and i do just fine.
Right now as far as I know there’s no automated way of differentiating between paid and free links. But there will be, it is possible to do, although it’s hard.
I’m really biased because I’m still finishing my PhD in IR/NLP/AI related things and I know how badly the performance of your engine can be affected by what I like to call “bugs” – manipulation (like paid links).
Because of that I feel a kind of kinship with people who work in the IR field and I want to support their efforts – so in my SEO work, I try and work with the engines not against them, and ultimately against myself.
It’s not the linking really that’s the issue, it’s the fact that it affects authority score if you like. This is in fact the limitation of PageRank because it can only rely on links.
there’s no law that says that you can’t buy links, but if it was my search engine, I’d devalue them to the point that they’d be almost obliterated
I think there’s a lot more to say about paid links, and if you’re doing your masters soon and it’s a year long course, you could knock out something really interesting and valuable to the community. Don’t wait too long, Matt is right, news and technologies become obsolete very quickly. If a solution is found against these links, you’re essentially running the risk of writing a history report.
Thanks for a nice post.
Avoiding the fear is easy. Don’t do unethical SEO.
The question is, if you’re not linking for google to see but just to get a link. Is that unethical?
That really wouldn’t be seen as SEO. Hard to pinpoint. I don’t think so.
Honestly I don’t think there’s any link selling going on that’s not SEO.
It’s so interesting – how do people decide that a marketing tactic is unethical.
Reverse back to 1980. Say you have a restaurant. Do you hire a publicist to try and drum up PR for your biz? Is it unethical — someone might write a review based on your paid PR campaign.
hey julie!
That could be something that I pull back on someday, but I don’t consider the two comparisons the same right now.
The paid linking I am referring to brings nothing of value to the end user. Typical “paid links” the ones one en masse for the sole purpose of manipulating rankings in search engines are the unethical ones.
It’s paying your way to the top like bribing cops, city councilmen, and judges in a beauty contest. You may think your girl is the best, but others may disagree with you. It’s the judges decision who is best, not yours. You can only help your contestant be the best she can be in the competition. Help her with tips and tricks, optimize her responses to the tough questions, but in the end it’s up to the judges which girl is the most RELEVANT.
All “paid” links aren’t bad. But getting though the bad ones to get to the good is really difficult. Are they all going to be devalued someday? Nope, bc there will always be some that are undetectable. Business deals between friends and the like.
It all comes down to intention. What is your intention in what you do everyday? Is it to unfairly put you above your competitor? It’s up to you really.
I’m sorry I found this post so late, Kate. It’s a good one.
First off, I do find the idea that Matt Cutts does what he does for “society as a whole” a bit hard to swallow. Not that I have any disrespect for Matt – I think he’s very smart and great at what he does. But primarily I think he’s doing his job, and that is to represent Google’s position on web spam. He’s doing what’s best for Google.
My feeling on the whole “moral” issue of paid links is that it doesn’t really exist. I don’t think paid links has much to do with morality.
Personally, I choose not to promote any business or product that isn’t legitimate in my judgment. That’s my call and my freedom as a marketer. But if I’m really behind a company and see great value in their product or service, I see paid links as just another way to help get the word out.
I don’t like to talk about morality in a public forum unless we’re going to talk about the law. That’s the only basis for agreement we have – unless what you’re doing infringes enough upon the rights of another person or entity to land you in court, I think questioning the morality of any action is a lot of philosophical wax. I just don’t think arguments like that have an end in sight.