Google Updates Linking Policy

Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.

However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying links in order to improve a site’s ranking is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the href tag

Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such link exchanges and purchased links. If you see a site that is buying or selling links, let us know by clicking Report spam in the index under the Tools menu in Webmaster Tools. We’ll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of paid links.

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...736&topic=8524

This could get interesting, as i see a lot of people asking to buy text links on adult sites.

Im wondering just how anyone at Google is actually going to know what link is paid and what isnt though?

Regards,

Lee

And how many will purposely report other sites to kill the competition - paid ads or not - very open to abuse

:crazy:

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Originally Posted by sockstars

And how many will purposely report other sites to kill the competition - paid ads or not - very open to abuse

:crazy:

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A very good point.

Also, what effect will this have on affiliate programs, webmasters links to their sponsors are, by their very nature 'paid' links, this opens up a whole can of worms in terms of Google.

Regards,

Lee

My sense is that Google isn't trying to screw anyone, and from the recent NYT article, it seems that they seriously consider the ramifications to any changes in their ranking algorithms.

My guess is that as they examine the adult web marketspace, they will find new and creative ways to determine the links that are legitimate affiliates linking to sites and differentiate those from ones that are junk.

As it is, I am disgusted how often I search for something, and the page that pops up with high relevance is nothing more than junk text with a bunch of links on a squatter's page. I think the current algorithm change is intended to get rid of crap like that.

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Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results

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...but paying for links so that you get better seo results IS done for advertising, duh!!!

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Originally Posted by Lee

"...Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the href tag..."

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I don't think that a paid advertisement link is any less valid a measure of popularity than a free reciprocal link or a link put up just because the site owner likes the link! After all, in the social realm, those who freely spread their wealth onto their friends do tend to be more popular than the stingy. (Of course, popularity with other websites vs. with the surfers are two different things!) And why should we webmasters have to modify our pages with a "no follow" tag just so the search engine can recognize a paid advertisement? It is the search engine's job to figure these things out.