• Does Google Really Care if You Buy Links?

  Filed under SEO_SEM
  Mar 16

  On 2 March 2009, Matt Cutts reported a new feature to allow site owners report which of their competitors were buying links. In this blog post, he gives some examples of what google looks for that are considered “no-no’s”

  This tattletale feature is nothing new. Site owners could tattle on their competitors since 2007, but now, they are able to tattle regarding paid links in particular simply by adding the word ‘paidlink’ into the report form.

  So this morning, exactly 2 weeks after Mr. Cutts announced this added feature, I received this email in my inbox, and laughed so hard, I knew it had to be a blog post. It also reminded me of a previous client I had whose linking methods would make most SEO’s cringe, and yet, was re-included in the index.

  Here is the email I received:

  Subject: Paid Links on [PreviousCompanySite]

  Hello,

  I am from www.PaidLinkPolice.com, the reason I’m contacting you is because you have been targeted by one of our customers and we found that you were buying links for SEO purposes.

  Here at www.PaidLinkPolice.com, our job is to identify sites buying links that are competitors of our customers. Our customers usually request those reports because they are having a hard time ranking because of sites buying links, so they request this report and they can then use it to complain to Google to get all the paid links penalized.

  Please note: We’ll not file a complain on Google ourselves about your paid links, but our customer will probably use our report to do it.

  Why we are sending you this email?

  1. Because you may be interested in our services and want to penalize your competitors buying links so you can rank higher
  2. Because we partnered with an ethical SEO agency that can offer you cheaper and more effective alternatives to buying links.

  Just reply to this email if you are interested

  We also recommend you have a quick look at our site www.PaidLinkPolice.com, so that you can better understand what are the risk your site may incur by buying links.

  Thanks
  Mr. SalesPerson

  This is my reply back to Mr. Salesperson:

  Mr Salesperson,

  I must say, this email gave me one of the best belly laughs I’ve had in a while. Thank you for that!

  Please understand, [PreviousCompany] is no longer a client of mine. You may wish to contact them directly. There are many contact numbers/ email addresses on their site.

  It is no secret that sites pay for links: in fact, any site that does not pay for links is probably not serious about their SEO. When Google based their algorithm on the number of links a site has, they made a market for links. It is the way it is.

  It actually amuses me that Google/ Matt Cutts publicly whines that people buy links and then do little to change the fact; until they change their algo to something other than the number of links a site has, the trend will continue.

  I think the thing that made me laugh about this email is that it reminded me of kindergarten. It tickles me that companies such as www.PaidLinkPolice.com are based upon being tattletales, and then will send out blackmailing emails such as this one. “I won’t tell teacher if you _____.”

  I wish you well. And thanks again for the laugh.
  -Heather

  (Interesting sidenote: the domain name for www.PaidLinkPolice.com was registered in November of 2008.)

  What I did not tell Mr. Salesperson is that in fact, PreviousCompany did, in fact, get completely knocked out of Google’s index in January. (Well after this company and I parted ways, I might add.)

  Let me give you some background.

  PreviousCompany’s link purchases were any sort of link they could get from any one, no matter if it made sense for such a site to link to them. They had been doing this for years, and their site included an on-site directory for reciprocal links. Any site that wanted to be in their directory could be, and it didn’t matter what the topic of the other site was so long as they got a reciprocal link from that company.

  And it worked for them. Very very well, in fact.

  PreviousCompany ranked on page one for nearly 200 competitive terms in their industry, many of those terms in the top 5 listings.

  When I got there, I told PreviousCompany that they really needed to tone their methods down, that it was only a matter of time before Google saw their link buying habits. “If you’re going to buy links, that’s ok, but buy from sites that make sense and have similiar but non-competing products,” I told them. At the time, I honestly believed this was a better way to go. We parted ways some months later after they insisted on keeping their purchasing habits the same.

  So, when I heard about 7 months after I left that PreviousCompany was knocked completely out of Google’s index, I was sure it was due to their “buy a link from any and everyone” procedures.

  But that wasn’t the case.

  When PreviousCompany’s Webmaster contacted Google and asked them what they needed to do to be re-included in the index, he was told to fix a template issue — there was absolutely no issue at all with the number of links this site had purchased or their linking program in general. The template was fixed and PreviousCompany is back to ranking well on their competitive terms. Their linking program, to my knowledge is the same as it was before.

  It seems to me this is another case of Google’s PR representative Matt Cutts saying one thing, while the engineers are doing another: until I see some actual changes to google’s SERP’s, the tattletale feature is just a way to placate people who are pissed off that their competitors are ranked higher in the SERPs than they are.

  Sometimes, I have to wonder if Mr. Cutt works in the same complex as the google engineers at all.

  I look back at my email and realize that I should have told Mr. Salesperson that if he really wanted to report PreviousCompany’s site, it was fine by me.

  After all, it won’t make a bit of difference!

  1 Comment

One Response to “Does Google Really Care if You Buy Links?”

1. 

   Rupert Bowling said on March 17th, 2009 at 11:16 am

   Ha, what a dreadful website too, it looks like it was thrown together in 4 minutes.

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