SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

June 11, 2009

$14 Million For CircuitCity Domain, Brand = Good Link Buy?

Aaron Wall does a great analysis of the smart play by the company that bought the CircuitCity domain and brand out of bankruptcy as the new high end link buying procedure.

The site is well ranked for many many keywords and with the recent boost of brands in the Google algorithm it could be that $14 million was a bargain that could be recouped very quickly.

Aaron does a great job dissecting the purchase and gives one ideas for gaining lift from less expensive domains that have gone into bankruptcy. I wonder if people will now start looking at bankruptcy reports instead of the expired domain lists.

Posted by Frank Watson at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 6, 2009

SEW Experts: There's No Shortcut to Good SEO...Or Is There?

If search engines want all SEOs to operate in an ethical manner, they should show us that they're penalizing the Web sites that abuse their guidelines, and reward those who follow their guidelines. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "There's No Shortcut to Good SEO...Or Is There?," Mark Jackson explains that anything less makes it hard to justify following the rules.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 11, 2008

Paid Links: A Black Hat/White Hat Discussion

Those expecting a knock-down, drag-out brawl at the "Black Hat/White Hat" session at SES Chicago may have left a bit disappointed. It looked like the sparks could fly, with Dave Naylor, director of search marketing at Bronco, and Todd Friesen, VP of search at Position Technologies there representing the black hat side, and Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting and Doug Heil, owner of ihelpyou there defending the white hat side.

But, as Friesen so eloquently said, "As it turns out, Doug's actually a nice guy."

So despite the lack of violence, the session turned out to be an hour-long discussion of techniques that will or will not get you banned by Google, the ethical considerations of search marketing, and a few black-hat tips thrown in for good measure.

Much of the discussion centered on buying links for SEO purposes, which is frowned upon by Google. Naylor and Friesen both said buying links should be allowed, noting that paid links are still relevant, since they bring a user to the page they promise.

"If a user clicks on a link that says 'Buy Viagra', they're going to land on a page that's selling Viagra," Naylor said.

The difference is that Google sees a bought link as an "unnatural" link, since payment has entered the picture. But that argument gets muddied when it comes to bartered links, or other kinds of non-monetary rewards given in exchange for links.

To be safe, Enge says, "Google makes the rules. If we want to have a stable business for the long term, we have to follow them."

The paid links debate is muddied further by the issue of links from trade organizations, which usually charge a membership fee. Enge pointed out that the reason those are OK in Google's eyes is that there is some kind of review process involved, as there is with a quality directory listing like Yahoo or Best of the Web.

In Heil's view, it's a matter of authority. Sites that have earned the authority to vouch for a business, or sponsor an event, for example, should be allowed to do so with a link. The caveat, of course, is that they don't abuse that authority and start linking out without any kind of quality oversight.

Naylor outlined one of his favorite white hat methods of getting links: press releases. When you issue a press release with links in the copy, you will often get people that reprint the release on their site with the links intact. He also recommends getting your site's content into Google News.

Everyone on the panel agreed that dropping the PageRank meter from the Google Toolbar would be a good idea to help curb buying and selling of links for SEO value, and it appears that Google is headed in that direction. "It's a beast they never should have unleashed," Naylor said. It would also help if Google's algorithm stopped relying so heavily on links as a measure of a site's quality, they said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

July 30, 2008

SEW Experts: Google vs. Yahoo on Paid Links

Google created a firestorm in the industry with its Paid Links directive. So where does Yahoo stand in the Paid Links debate? In today's Web analytics and ROI column, "Google vs. Yahoo on Paid Links," Eric Enge looks at Yahoo's stance on buying links for SEO value.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 8, 2008

SEW Experts: What are Good Links, Anymore?

Furthering your brand through social media, press release optimization, paid search, and directory placement will "naturally" get you more recognition from the search engines. But these methods aren't paid links...or are they? In today's organic search engine optimization column, "What are Good Links, Anymore?," Mark Jackson tries to make sense of the paid links debate, and determine what is and isn't a paid link.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 27, 2008

Google Continues Paid Links Crusade

According to Dave Naylor, the punishments Google is handing down for paid links appear to be retroactive. On his blog, Naylor outlines the case of a site that was recently penalized for selling paid links more than six months ago. According to Indigo Clothing's founder Alex Walker, the site had sold links in the past, but had removed them from its site about six months ago. The site was recently penalized by Google, and Matt Cutts indicated to Naylor that the cause was likely past sales of paid links.

While sites have been penalized for actively selling links, this case appears to be different. If Walker is indeed being truthful when he says they stopped selling links six months ago, that would mean that Google is punishing sites that have already stopped selling links. It will be interesting to see if this is indeed the case, and what the statute of limitations will be.

UPDATE: According to Matt Cutts, Google is NOT applying these penalties retroactively. "We first took action on this site months and months ago, back in 2007," Matt told me.

So it seems that webmasters that have stopped buying or selling links should not fear retribution by Google for their past actions, as long as they have removed the links from their sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 7:57 AM | Permalink

March 13, 2008

SEW Experts: First SEO Link Building Rule: Never Buy Paid Links...Until Now

Google commands SEOs: "Don't buy paid links." But there are times when paid links work. In today's Link Building column, "First SEO Link Building Rule: Never Buy Paid Links...Until Now," Sage Lewis notes that buying links for the sake of traffic and a network of viral roots to keep an interesting promotion alive and standing tall may be the exception to the rule.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 15, 2008

SEW Experts: The Great Nofollow Link Debate of '08

What started as a way to stop comment spam three years ago has turned into one of the most controversial topics in search. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "The Great Nofollow Link Debate of '08," Chris Boggs discusses the evolution of the "nofollow" attribute and its impact on SEO and link building.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 1, 2008

SEW Experts: Why All Links Are Paid Links in the Travel Trade

Google, Yahoo, and MSN aren't going to quickly discount some long-standing links, reciprocal or not. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Why All Links Are Paid Links in the Travel Trade," travel search expert Elisabeth Osmeloski explains that the paid links debate isn't so black and white. The question of what truly constitutes a paid link, and what qualifies as advertising, will continue to be a huge point of contention.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 16, 2008

SEW Experts: What's Your Link Building Marketing Mix? - Part 2

If you've been following the search industry at all for the past year, you probably heard about Google's war on paid links. In a nutshell, Google banned paid links; and SEOs split in two camps over the move. What's a CMO to do? In today's By the Numbers column, "What's Your Link Building Marketing Mix? - Part 2," Eric Enge explains why you should never buy links, and why you should almost never swap links.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 21, 2007

SEW Experts: Online Travel SEM Addictions: Web 2.0, Paid Links, Social Media

In today's rapidly changing search marketplace, ideas and technology move faster than the speed of light. Search marketers need to catch up, if they can. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Online Travel SEM Addictions: Web 2.0, Paid Links, Social Media," travel search expert Elisabeth Osmeloski helps you decide how your company should address this year's hottest topics: Web 2.0, paid links and social media.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 3, 2007

Google Makes Paid Link Guidelines Crystal Clear

Google's policy on paid links has long been the same: it does not approve of buying or selling links for the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings. Links that use the "nofollow" attribute or some sort of redirect to prevent the passing of PageRank are fine with them.

Today in both the Webmaster Central blog and on Matt Cutts' personal blog, the topic of paid links is discussed in detail. "Our goal is to provide users the best search experience by presenting equitable and accurate results. We enjoy working with webmasters, and an added benefit of our working together is that when you make better and more accessible content, the internet, as well as our index, improves. This in turn allows us to deliver more relevant search results to users."

"If, however, a webmaster chooses to buy or sell links for the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings, we reserve the right to protect the quality of our index. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank violates our webmaster guidelines."

Cutts goes through the history of Google's stance, and the reasons behind it. Where some webmasters questioned Google's clarity on the issue, here Cutts makes it abundantly clear that Google is indeed cracking down on buyers and sellers of links that violate its policies.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:31 AM | Permalink

October 25, 2007

SEW Experts: Solving the Link Building Puzzle: Do or Die, Part 2

When link building is a life-or-death choice, don't take unnecessary risks. In today's Link Love column, "Solving the Link Building Puzzle: Do or Die, Part 2," Sage Lewis helps you analyze four different options for paid links.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 13, 2007

SEW Experts: I, Google: No Halo for Aggressive Linkers

In today's Link Love column, "I, Google: No Halo for Aggressive Linkers ," Sage Lewis asks, "If you were Google, would paid links be tagged as resident evil?"

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 6, 2007

Understanding the Paid Links Debate

The debate over paid links is complicated. The arguments for and against the practice are often heated, with webmasters defending the practice, and search engines condemning it, in certain cases. The argument often turns to why Google, and other search engines, should care at all, and whether they have a right or ability to police the buying of links between webmasters.

Stone Temple Consulting's John Biundo tries to put some of the argument in perspective in today's SearchDay, "The Paid Links Debate: Shades of Gray."

And yes, we do appreciate the irony.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:36 PM | Permalink

August 30, 2007

SEW Experts: The Great Link Buying Debate

In today's Link Love column, "The Great Link Buying Debate," Sage Lewis reviews the arguments for and against buying links, which was a hot topic at SES San Jose last week. Like all topics, buying credibility or exposure in any realm is never as black and white as we would all like to believe.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2007

Paid Links Discussions at San Jose

SES San Jose has come to a close. It was another memorable event. One of the more interesting impressions I have of the whole event are the various flavors of the paid links debate.

For example, Michael Gray, aka Graywolf, assured his fame by starting his presentation in one of the link related panels with a slide that said "Google is not the government". At this point, Michael was just warming up.

In another links session, one person got the microphone, and kept control of it for 20 minutes. They just would not let go of one aspect of the paid links issue. Specifically, there were insistent that one problem with Google's stance on paid links is that Mom and Pop sites might buy links without knowing that this was not something that the search engines want them to do. The person then persited in stating that they might get banned and that this might not be fair.

Let's get real folks. The person with the mic did not care about Mom and Pop sites. That person was angry. People (generally) do not get angry about what happens to other people's web sites that they never heard of.

Danny Sullivan was moderating this session, and offered up a more reasonable concern, which was that Google should find a better algorithm so that whether or not someone bought links was not at issue. It's a fine idea, and I am sure that Google will implement it as soon as they can think of a way to do so. Let me assure you, there is no one at Google who is in love with the problems related to paid links.

Fundamentally, the problem is that using uncompensated links to a given site as votes for that site represents one of the best ways to evaluate which site is the best site. No simple alternative exists for this basic algorithm. Don't get me wrong - there is tons of money being spent by all the engines to investigate alternative algorithms. The big push on personalization is a just one example of this.

At the end of the day, my crude outsider's understanding of the Google policy on paid links is this:

  1. Buying links is NOT evil.
  2. It is against their Webmaster Guidelines to buy links for purposes of influencing Page Rank and your search engine placements.
  3. As a result, buy links for traffic and branding, not for search engine ranking purposes.
  4. They reserve the right to assign no Page Rank value to any paid links they uncover.
  5. If you engage in egregious or deceptive practices, they may ban you.

Note that Yahoo! and Ask echoed similar sentiments in the session.

Posted by at 10:45 PM | Permalink

August 17, 2007

The site you are buying links from is not Yahoo!

I read with particular interest Rand's post about The Art of Buying Links Under the Radar.

One of the key points Rand makes is that when you are (really) smart about buying links, that it's just like buying a directory listing from Yahoo!. Let's look at this further by looking at what the best link buyers do:

  1. They buy only from highly relevant sites
  2. They make sure that the ad is not no-followed
  3. They make sure that there are no obvious clues that it's an ad (such as the word "Sponsors" nearby)
  4. They control the anchor text for maximum impact

So far, so good. You have gotten a really great link, and you can argue, perhaps in completely good conscience, that you have purchased the link for branding and traffic.

Here is where I feel the logic starts to fall apart though.

You are not dealing with Yahoo!. In fact, by definition, you are dealing with a business somewhat smaller than Yahoo!. There are several issues that result:

  1. Links might run something like $100 per month. Short money really. This makes it attractive for the buyer, but the downside is that the buyer has little hold over the seller.
  2. The person who sold you the link sold it to make money. They are probably interested in making more money. Their editorial judgment may rule the day today, but their thirst for cash may rule the day tomorrow. Suddenly, your perfect ad may be surrounded by less than perfect ads, and it becomes much, much easier, to detect.
  3. It's a volume game. It does not help much to buy a single ad. What really helps you is buying quite a number of ads. This increases your exposure to the prior point. For example, if a search engine discovers that you have been purchasing one really well disguised ad, they will begin looking at your other links. Have a lot of links that are divorced from the integral content (right rail, bottom of page, etc.)? Might not be easy for a crawler to detect, but a human may easily spot it. This is where you get into real trouble - once a human at the search engine believes that your intent was to deceive. The issue here is not what your intent actually was - but what the human reviewer believes your intent was. Keep in mind, nothing good ever comes out of a human review that you didn't request.
  4. The site may adopt a policy that causes them to label the ads as sponsored at a later date. Note that the closer the company is to truly acting on editorial judgement as a first priority, the more likely this is.

The point is that you don't know what the site you are purchasing links from today will decide to do tomorrow.

Posted by at 10:30 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2007

SEW Experts: Can You Purchase Text Links for Big Business Sites?

In today's Big Biz column, "Can You Purchase Text Links for Big Business Sites?," Aaron Shear offers some insights on purchasing text links for a big business site, and the subsequent effects.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

June 13, 2007

Google Webmaster Tools Adds Paid Links Reporting

As expected, Google has added a paid links reporting form to its Webmaster Tools. Google has been warring against paid links that pass PageRank, such as those that don't use the nofollow attribute or some form of redirect.

Last month, Google engineer Matt Cutts offered some guidelines for evaluating paid links to see if they fit with Google's guidelines.

Google has not said exactly what it will do with the reports, other than saying, "We'll review each report we get and use this feedback to improve our algorithms and improve our search results. in some cases we may also take individual action on sites."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:04 PM | Permalink

May 8, 2007

More Search Marketers Weigh in on Paid Links

The debate over whether paid links should count in Google's ranking algorithm has been going strong, sparked most recently by Google's spam-buster Matt Cutts. It's been picked up in most search marketing forums, including SEW's.

Last night, Li Evans posted the collected opinions of 10 search marketers: Andy Beal, Christine Churchill, Anne Kennedy, Debra Mastaler, Greg Meyers, Lee Odden, Chris Sherman, Bill Slawski, Shari Thurow, and Frank Watson. Li asked for opinions on buying links for clients, and on sites that sell links but don't indicate they're paid links. It's an interesting look at the issue from varying perspectives.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:16 AM | Permalink

April 16, 2007

Google Goes to War on Paid Text Links

Google engineer Matt Cutts posted a series of blog posts on Saturday, attacking hidden links, links in Wordpress themes, and paid links. I'm sure his intention is noble: to remove irrelevant links from the serps. But has he gone too far? Judging by the firestorm of protest in the blogosphere, that may be the case.

There are certainly paid links that affect search result quality, and Google has every right to deal with those. But to say that human-reviewed, relevant paid links will be punished is another situation entirely. That makes it look like Google is flexing its muscles as the dominant search engine to take out competitors of its own text ad program.

The call for submissions of paid links is also fraught with problems, most obviously that of competitors sabotaging each other by buying ads for them and reporting them to Google, and secondly of just how Google expects to be able to detect paid links without access to a webmaster's bank account.

Many are irked by Cutts' framing of the paid links argument within the context of hidden, deceptive links to porn sites. His post segueways immediately from a description of such deceptive behavior, and then discusses the practice of paid links, a legitimate advertising model.

As long as we're talking about links, this seems like a pretty good opportunity to talk about a simple litmus test for paid links and how to tell if a paid link violates search engines' quality guidelines. If you want to sell a link, you should at least provide machine-readable disclosure for paid links by making your link in a way that doesn't affect search engines. There's a ton of ways to do that. For example, you could make a paid link go through a redirect where the redirect url is robot'ed out using robots.txt. You could also use the rel=nofollow attribute. I've said as much many times before, but I wanted to give a heads-up because Google is going to be looking at paid links more closely in the future.

The other best practice I'd advise is to provide human readable disclosure that a link/review/article is paid. You could put a badge on your site to disclose that some links, posts, or reviews are paid, but including the disclosure on a per-post level would better. Even something as simple as “This is a paid review” fulfills the human-readable aspect of disclosing a paid article...To make sure that you're in good shape, go with both human-readable disclosure and machine-readable disclosure, using any of the methods I mentioned above.

One of the major concerns with this is the basic idea of whether it's really Google's problem, for having an algorithm that relies on links for ranking. Should webmasters be forced to change the way they do business to adjust for a shortcoming in Google's relevance algorithm? Outside of Google's algo, there's nothing inherently evil about selling links as ads. Even within the algo, many people argue that people that go the the trouble to buy links are likely selling a relevant product related to that link, so it should count just as much to Google as an unpaid link would.

There are, of course, plenty of sites that sell irrelevant links, that perhaps are the ones Cutts is really targeting. But he is not saying that relevant paid links are OK either, and that is where Google is crossing a line, dictating that certain kinds of advertising (outside of its own paid text links) will lead to punishment of the publisher's site. Is it really fair for Google to say that an advertising program that reviews links for quality is bad?

Another issue entirely is Cutts solicitation of reports of sites using paid links. Google may provide a special form for paid link reports at some point, but in the mean time, here's a couple of ways that anyone can use to report paid links: - Sign in to Google's webmaster console and use the authenticated spam report form, then include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report. If you use the authenticated form, you'll need to sign in with a Google Account, but your report will carry more weight. - Use the unauthenticated spam report form and make sure to include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report.

As far as the details, it can be pretty short. Something like “Example.com is selling links; here's a page on example.com that demonstrates that” or “www.shadyseo.com is buying links. You can see the paid links on www.example.com/path/page.html” is all you need to mention. That will be enough for Google to start testing out some new techniques we've got — thanks!

That seems like an accident waiting to happen. Already, several bloggers have joked that they've followed his advice, and to be helpful, have reported everyone above them in the serps. Others say they'll plan to buy ads for their competitors and report those. I doubt it's a joke, in many cases. And how is Google going to determine which links are paid or not? Will Google become judge, jury, and executioner, deciding that a link is paid without really knowing for sure, and punishing a site accordingly?

I'm hoping that Matt will clarify his position after reviewing some of the feedback, and reach a position that makes more sense and accomplishes the goal of improving search result quality, without making the reporting process easy to game, or making it look like Google is trying to crush its advertising competitors by punishing their customers in its search engine.

Here's a partial list of responses to Matt Cutts' posts:

I've also started a thread on the SEW Forums, Matt Cutts Goes After Paid Links. Please share your thoughts on this topic there.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:07 AM | Permalink

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