At the SES in San Jose Tuesday, a panel session on link purchasing that covered the pros and cons of it and Google’s policy on paid links was a hot topic. Google is clearly selfish with cracking down hard on paid links. Google’s Matt Cutts pointed out that paid links violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines yet after checking the guidelines there is nothing about buying and selling links mentioned. The closest thing in reference of link buying and selling was this near the bottom of the guidelines:

“Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”

What is mentioned here is outbound links and avoiding linking to sites that are offensive, but there is nothing mentioned about link sales.  If the first sentence is stretched out it could mean selling links could make you part of a “link scheme” but that would just increase the PR of the site you are linking to, not your site.
 
Cutts also mentioned that not disclosing paid advertisements offline is against the policies of the FCC.  Usually Americans don’t like it when the government approves our content and tests our freedoms.  So this is an obvious scare tactic, reveal your paid links or we will send the government on you.  Imagine The Department of Homeland Security going through your websites to discover the dangerous threats of your paid links?!
 
It kind of makes you wondered if Google is lobbying for legislation on this issue, they can definitely afford to.  The thing is most websites let users know about their disclosers or advertising policies anyway.
 
Google likes to see paid links labeled as “sponsored links” or “advertising links” with technology to block bots from following those links link using the robots.txt file, 302 redirects, JavaScript or the infamous “nofollow” attribute.
 
Implementing robots.txt, 302 redirects and JavaScript is great for Google. Their bots skip over that information so it won’t be indexed and no problem. The use of a nofollow is a little more devious and shows the pitfalls of Google’s algorithm: Google needs help to figure out the purposes of links.
 
Michael Gray pointed out, the use of nofollows was to control links on sites like forums or blogs. The whole site would be penalized if the search engine found a bad link. My impression was that the nofollow attribute was a temporary solution but not the permanent fix because the first Principle of Google’s Quality Guidelines is:
 
“Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
 
The nofollow attribute presents different information for users than it does for search engines. When search engines come across nofollowed links they move on effectively ignoring them and do not count them. Users can’t notice the difference between links that have nofollow or not (unless you get a plug-in for your browser). I see this as a mini-cloak just to manipulate search engines and not good for the user at all.

Cutts basically called paid links “littering or using the carpool lane with just one person” like things than have a negative impact on society. How about the impact of a bully threatening kids and taking their lunch money?  That’s a much better analogy of Google’s anti-link buying tactics. Scaring webmasters with smaller sites into thinking that selling links is evil and punishable by Google.
 
Cutts continued on saying things like link-sellers are “scumbags” and that Google was very good at detecting paid links. More fear tactics probably because if Google was so good at detecting paid links then why would they bother fighting with them so much? Why would they ask people to report paid links? Why create all of this drama leading up to this announcement?
 
Since this article has been written Google’s stock went to $512.75 per share. Google really makes its money by selling links. Let’s decipher the hypocrisy some more, shall we?
 
Adwords is Google’s big money-maker. Adwords works by bidding for key words and when site have those keywords and Adsense (the publisher side of Adwords) your ad appears. The viewer then clicks the ad which charges your account. The more you bid the more your ad appears and Google makes more money. The ads are links to your site and a cash magnet for Google.

One of the issues is defining what a “punishable paid link” is exactly. If someone offers you cash to put a link on your site then that link is “paid for” and presumably punishable. But what about paid directories like the Yahoo Directory? Google’s Webmaster Guidelines show that this is acceptable:

“Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.”

This time Google is encouraging paid links. They claim that since Yahoo’s directory is human-edited with quality guidelines, it is ok. It is assumed the rest of us are not able to create or enforce such guidelines for our own sites. I’m shocked Google has such a low opinion of us!
 
Google is missing the fact that every link, paid for or not, is edited to ensure quality and content. Even on automated sites there are people behind the systems that decide what will best for their viewers. Google is in effect saying that most webmasters are not able to decide what is best for their users.
Another question is whether or not a paid review is a paid link? Paid reviews are a standard advertising practice and oddly, Google is fine with paid reviews even though a link to the product being reviewed is also a given.
 
Maybe linkbait or SEO efforts are paid links? After all, the links wouldn’t exist if someone didn’t work at it and get paid for that work to get them. What about PR companies? Their work usually returns links from prestigious news sites.

What if you want to buy something with a link included? Google has been caught selling high-profile links several times. I guess their rules for link-selling only apply to the rest of us. Or Google's own rules are just too hard for them to understand. Or maybe, the money in link-sales is just too good to pass up.

What this confusion comes down is Google having an unstable product, and an insatiable apatite for profit and having the mentality of an overgrown 10-year-old trying to bully the rest of us. The “don’t sell links” policy is a bad call. Link selling has been around long before Google. Trying to close the door for this legitimate source of revenue for website owners builds dependence on Adwords and resentment from link sellers.

If you purchase a link you deserve the full value of that link including any benefits a third-party site (like a search engine) may throw your way like page rank.
 
A blogger from 14thc.com, called McCarley, has agreat opinion on that topic. He wrote something like this: If I ever paid for links they would be put on sites that have viewers that I want to attract for a better ROI. That should go great with Google’s “quality guidelines”. Or what if I want to just throw money out there for attention that would be creating a cultural phenomenon just like in the offline world.  There is nothing wrong with that!  It’s the American way.

If I put in the time, money and energy into building a site that other people want to purchase links from I should have the right to sell those links. I should not have to do extra work to appease a third-party site like Google that says I should build my site a certain way like I don’t exist. And I should be smart enough to know that any links on my site will have an effect on the quality of my site (read: editorial control). And that if I link to sites that are not good my site will suffer from it with low viewers, less people willing to link to my site and a natural drop in search engine rankings - all without the special controls from Google’s “we want your money task force”.

This policy is alienating Google from its market of suppliers (website owners). Google’s attempt to dictate policy to the rest of the internet is a bad move especially when they clearly have so much to gain if we all start using Google products. This policy is highlighting Google’s greed.
 
If another company made a policy like this they would be ignored. If Microsoft tried something similar the backlash would be huge. As it is, Google is playing off of what is left of their small start-up done good/do no evil image but there isn’t much left of that image left now that the company is 10 years old and worth billions.
 
If Google used their resources into removing the need for a nofollow tag when it was first released instead of finding new ways to use it the internet would be a better place.
 
If Google wants better products on their product they need to come up with better solutions on their end and continue to stick with telling webmasters to “Make pages for users, not for search engines.”  More focus on new product development and improving on their existing ones would make everyone happier including the users and shareholders.
 
The best way I can think of combating this bad policy is to do exactly what I would do: ignore it. After all, that is exactly what Google has been telling us to do all along and they certainly can’t punish a website for working within their own guidelines, right?
 
I stand 100% behind McCarley when it comes to buying and selling textlinks.