Google does not like paid links, says the company engineer and spam-fighter Matt Cutts of Google has stirred the debate on the feasibility of paid links once again as he attacked hidden links, paid links and links that are a part of the various Wordpress themes. The intention of suck links is obviously to gain brownie points with the ranking algorithms.

Google has already stressed it does not like links that are either brought or hidden from the site visitors as well as from search bots. While it frowns on such practices, webmasters in general have embraced the concept of paid links to pad their serps.

Google's idea expounded by Matt Cutts is to somehow filter these paid links and make the Internet a more equal place for competing webmasters. Bloggers are understandably up in arms against what is seen as high-handed measures by Google.

The idea that someone might report a competitor's site as having hidden or paid links without any justification appears to have riled many webmasters. The new report paid link measure seems targeted at Google's own competitors in the textual advertising.

To be fair to Mr Cutts he might be targeting sites that sell irrelevant links. However the wording of his post leaves a lot to be desired.
Take a look at the following and decide for yourself
 

• 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.

The blogosphere reactions have been mixed. Several bloggers have already joked (or have they?) that they have already reported competitor's sites. It looks like the pot is calling the kettle black. This is certainly not one of Google's winning ideas. It definitely needs a rethink.