What is really meant by "Paid Link"

[HiSoC8Y]

It seems google punished with the latest PR update the people who have used "paid links".


well, what is a paid link? can someone explain

or is it just the concept of "buying a link space on a high PR site to link to your site". ?

thats all?


what about link exchanges, is that considered paid links?

if you have 2 sites and you link to each other, thats ok? considered a paid link?

how does google find its a paid link?

oh well, want to know. wondering

 

[Peter]

A paid link is simply someone paying another webmaster for a link on their site. A lot of the time people will buy the link for PR which of course Google does not want.

Link swapping is O.K. as long as they are genuine link exchanges of sites with similar or related content. However links that seem to have been exchanged hold less value than 1 way links.

 

[HiSoC8Y]

peter

thanks for the info, but how would google distinguish between paid links and link exchanges?

 

[Peter]

Take a look through Matt Cutts blog, a couple of months ago they set up a tool so that people could report paid links. also they can use forums such as this and look through and see which sites are selling links.

It is not believed that it is an automatic feature at the moment.

Also they can easily tell the difference between a sold link and a link that was exchanged. If you have a link pointing to them that you paid for the chances are they wouldn't also come to you asking to buy a link to them.

 

[MutoGen]

That's Matt Cutt's blog http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/ with the spam report form.

 

[slytherin]

It isn't too difficult to spot a paid link in a site. There are certain guys who openly give out their URL in forums, and state that they are selling links for PR- they are not the guys you would want to buy from when you need to ensure secrecy. Google can't go around checking every forum and site, but it will take action from time to time to remind everyone of who is the real boss.

Link Exchanges are fine, but they do not carry the same weight as a one way.

 

[Keral_Patel]

If there are some paid links on a site and in that bunch there are your exchanged links it is not counted as exchanged ones

 

[HiSoC8Y]

the penalty goes for the seller of links or the buyer?

 

[Mark]

Yahoo and several other large Directories have "Paid Inclusion" ...... Great Question IMO ....

 

[Peter]

the penalty goes for the seller of links or the buyer?

Well I believe it is both. The sites selling links seem to be getting penalized (although some still rank high with the penalty). But the links themselves will not count so the buyer will also be penalized in a sense.

This could also affect sites that do not buy links. If for example I was linked from a site that sold links but I did not pay for the link. How would Google differentiate between my unpaid link and your paid link. The answer is with great difficulty (unless the paid links were completely unrelated to the topic of the site) so all links would potentially be discounted.

 

[HiSoC8Y]

its a joke that google is doing this.

its called "www", world wide web, webs must have links

 

[Peter]

its a joke that google is doing this.

its called "www", world wide web, webs must have links

How they choose to rank sites is up to them. If they make some wrong decisions it will bite them in the ass financially.

I 100% agree with what they are doing, not necessarily how they are doing it though.

You say that the web must have links that is indeed correct but is it right for a site to pass on ranking to another site because they BOUGHT that link. The links that should be taken into consideration are links that would have been their regardless of financial incentives. If say you buy a link on a site I run if Google did not take this action it would mean in the eyes of their algorithm I have voted for you as a credible site. In reality however I have not, I have simply rented a spot on my site to you. I may actually think your site is completely worthless and would not have linked to it if you were not paying.

 

[HiSoC8Y]

im not with the paid link.

i wouldn't pay or get paid to host a link.