Purchasing Links for Pagerank

Purchasing Links for Pagerank
By Mark Daoust (c) 2005

It never ceases to amaze me how one company (Google) can
literally support hundreds, if not thousands, of other companies
and industries. What I am referring to here is the unbelievable
number of sub-industries that have developed around every nuance
of Google or the other search engines. Think about some of the
aspects of SEO, and undoubtedly you will find a niche industry
with several companies who focus on that specific aspect, and
make good money doing so.

One such sub-industry is the linking industry. As you all
(undoubtedly) know, Google bases part of its ranking algorithm
on the number, quality, and variety of inbound links to a
website. Lately Google has thrown in the wrinkle of looking more
heavily at authority links, but the concept is still the same,
and more importantly, the message is still the same to website
owners: linking is important.

Because getting quality links is important, entrepreneurs have
jumped into action developing every sort of flavor of a company
promising to get website owners hundreds (if not thousands) of
quality inbound links. Among these companies are link exchange
communities, software programs, article writing systems, blog
creation systems (or splog creation systems), and link
purchasing. Today we are going to just focus on purchasing links
as the subject has been in the news lately.

Link Buying � What Is It?

Link buying is a very simple idea. Website owners need high
quality (read high PR) inbound links. Websites that are of high
quality are looking to monetize their websites. The opportunity
is thus created � high quality websites open a section on their
website where a website owner can purchase a plain text link
with the hopes of improving their website ranking.

Now, admittedly, link buying has become a bit more complicated
than this. What started off simply as one website owner asking
another if they would link to them for a fee is now a
significant industry. We have link brokers, advanced link
management systems, etc. The idea is still the same, however �
buy a quality link with the hopes of increasing your ranking.

Is Link Buying OK With the Search Engines?

Well, Google does not like link buying. It is Google's view that
buying and selling text links lowers the overall value and
trustworthiness of links on the Internet. Matt Cutts posted back
in September (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/ )
how Google and many of the people at Google feel about buying
and selling links. In a word, they don't like it at all. Although
they recognize that some people would buy links just for the
traffic, it is their opinion that if someone wants to buy a
link, they should add the "nofollow" attribute to the link to
make sure that it does not get included in a search engine
ranking.

Yahoo has also come out against purchasing links. However,
blogger Jeremy Zawodny (http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/ ), who
also happens to be an employee of Yahoo's search department
started selling links on his blog. The link will be around for
1 month as he is testing various monetization methods on his
site. These links, for those of you paying attention, do not
contain the "no follow" attribute. Although this does not
constitute an official endorsement of buying and selling links,
it does mean that at least one influential person at Yahoo is
at least open to the idea of using link purchasing as a valid
monetization of a website.

As a sidenote, could this be a bit of a glimpse at how Google
and Yahoo! Rank websites? We all know that Google puts a lot of
emphasis on the meaning of links from one site to another, which
is why they are fighting so hard to reduce link trading and link
purchasing. Is this possibly a glimpse showing us that Yahoo
does not put as much weight on links as Google? Or could it be
that Yahoo is more confident in their ability to determine a
page's natural relevancy?

So Should I Buy Links?

It would be so easy to say that buying links is a decent
practice and that you will never get in trouble for doing so.
Heck, I would love to be able to buy a few links, including one
on Jeremy's blog. But the truth is, if you want to rank well in
either search engine for the long-term and not face a future
penalty, you should probably refrain from buying links. Google
has stated several times (many times through Matt Cutts) that
buying links is not an acceptable practice and that doing so can
get you in trouble. Matt shows an example of where this is the
case here (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/tell-me-about-your-backlinks/ ).
According to him, Google has gotten quite adept at identifying
purchased links.

I have no doubt that there are thousands of examples of sites
that have purchased links only to see their rankings improve
significantly. I seriously doubt that Google or any search
engine that places significant weight on linking can properly
determine whether every link is bought or natural. You may be
able to buy a link and have great success with it.

But when it all comes down to the choice you have to make, you
have to realize that link buying is a risk. If a search engine
catches you buying or selling a link, they will undoubtedly
consider your site to be more questionable. What we must also
realize is that they are no longer relying simply on scripts to
identify what they consider to be spam, they are also using
human eyes to confirm what their scripts find.

The Exception to This Rule

Every rule has its exception, and this rule is no exception.
There is a legitimate form of link buying. One of the really
good things that has come about from link trading, buying and
selling is that we have learned that plain text links have the
ability to bring in real traffic. If this is what you are after,
then buy links to your heart's content.

Of course, you might want to make sure that you don't get in
trouble for buying links, even if your intention is completely
innocent. Although Google has gotten better at determining what
links are purchased and what links are natural, they still can
not determine a person's intent. To keep yourself safe, always
request that the person you are buying the link from adds the
"nofollow" attribute. This will protect both you and them from
getting penalized.

Overall Linking Strategies

The conversation of linking schemes and methods is one that has
been played out in many different forms. Many people have had
success manipulating linking schemes, and there are some very
good organizations out there that can get you a quality inbound
link. Regardless of what new scheme you hear about or even
participate in, your biggest linking goal should always be to
find those high quality, one-way inbound links that occur
naturally. These would be the type where someone links over to
your website because you actually have some quality content to
offer rather than some money or deal to offer.

Linking strategies and schemes will no-doubt evolve. I have
heard of a few recently which I think can be very successful,
but nothing will ever beat a quality, natural link from a source
that links to you because you have something to offer.
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Mark Daoust is the owner of http://www.site-reference.com .
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