Clicking on the link brings up this page:
Every city has a link to a corresponding Yahoo! Real Estate landing page. What's the deal here? Is this a paid link? Either that or the website really, really likes Yahoo's Real Estate section, so much so that the site is willing to link to every city with super nice anchor text. If Yahoo is indeed guilty of dabbling in paid links, I doubt Orwellian Google will do anything about it. I mean, how the hell do you penalize Yahoo, especially when they pay you loads of money in ad revenue?
What are your thoughts?
UPDATE: Well geez, that was quick. A Product Manager for Yahoo! Real Estate contacted me and said that the links are not paid; rather, Great Schools is a long-standing partner of theirs. In his words, "They send us a data feed. We consume and display some data on our end, then link over to them for more detailed info." I'm assuming that Great Schools does the same for them.
Clearly, Google, being the upstanding and unbiased community citizen that they are, will have to penalize both the buyer and seller of the paid links in the same manner they would any other offender of their rules.
They certainly wouldn't fail to act, simply because doing so could have negative financial implications with a customer as big as Yahoo. Would they?
Yeah, would they? With our eyes on the recent development regarding the Google-Yahoo-Microsft triangle, I'd say they are better of having Yahoo on their side. However, not punishing Yahoo now would make them seem weak, and pave the way for lawsuits concerning other paid link conflicts.
I suppose they should choose the lesser of two evils and punish Yahoo (lightly) for their misbehaviour. This way they get to keep Yahoo on their side, and preserve their image as unbiased community citizen at the same time.
Google [shouting]: "I'm VERY disappointed in you, Yahoo!"
Google [whispering]: "...but not really, so disregard all this shouting."
Google [shouting]: "We do NOT condone paid links! You must be punished! We have to make an example of you!"
Google [whispering]: "Not really, we just have to make a big fuss to make it seem like you're not getting any special treatment...we still on for bowling this Friday?"
Yahoo [whispering]: "Only if they're serving mini-corndogs at the alley."
In all seriousness, Great Schools, even though they're a 501(c)3 deserves just as much shouting as Yahoo does. School search terms are very lucrative in the real estate industry for other companies who are out to make a profit...
David,
Although I'm not a big believer in cross-pollinating threads; between your comment about aardvark porn and now mini-corndogs at the alley - I just have to say - welcome to the dark side. Too funny. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!
why oh why did you thumb down this absolutely funny comment?
Most likely Yahoo is offering something in return rather than payment. I forwarded a case to Barry Schwartz last year (or was it the year before) where Yahoo had approached us.
* Yahoo manager for a vertical (in our case obviously travel) contacts you about a *partnership*
* You go; cool, a partnership with Yahoo. I knew we were good.
* Manager comes back saying we'll add your link to a list of (say) reviews about propertyx. Not only that, these links will increase your ranking (yes, that's said!). In return, they ask for a link back from the exact same number of pages they link to you for.
* You scour the page to see the other examples and find them hidden away in some deep dark spot. All your competitors are there. You then see that the link is something REALLY long and going through a redirect. You ask Yahoo about both these things.
* Yahoo assures you the link passes search engine juice and they are crawled. Yahoo highlights traffic to pages and that you don't have to have same traffic to link back.
* You say "you know what, you guys are Yahoo. You have looked at my site through the eyes of a search engine and figured out I'm going to be giving you back more than what you are giving me in terms of ranking benefits. Furthermore with the placement of those links I'm not going to get any real traffic anyway. I find it dubious that you guys as a search engine engage in this kind of thing considering the power you have."
* Yahoo manager gets very very deffensive.
* You continue to see all kinds of competitors linking to Yahoo's cheap flights page for a very long time. The big competitors eventually figure it out and drop the deal, the small guys keep at it as it's probably their biggest traffic referrer. You just keep your fingers very very crossed that Google is not buying Expedia, another known link buyer.
Of course Yahoo could also have actually outright bought the links, but I think the scenario above is their more likely way move.
And so, the small guys get more and more buried over time and the big guys get away with everything. Aaron Wall just did a great post on this over at https://www.seobook.com/to-google-you-are-a-spammer actually.
Fantastic insight Sam! It's looking more and more like Yahoo isn't the Golden Child everyone (read: Google) wants it to be.
A friend forwarded me a link to this article. I won’t pretend that I understand all of the issues being raised here, but I wanted to make sure that the GreatSchools perspective was included in the conversation since we were not approached by anyone at SEOmoz before they published the article. GreatSchools is a non-profit dedicated to guiding and inspiring parents to be involved in their children’s education. A segment of our users are ‘movers’ – parents who are moving into a new area and need information about the school district to help them choose a community. Many real estate agents link to our local school report within their listings and others subscribe to our content to publish on their sites. We are partners with Yahoo Real Estate and they link to our school rankings from within the site. In turn, they provide a list of URL’s for us to link to from within the school report. Our supposition was that people who are relocating may also be looking to buy a house, so including a link to Yahoo Real Estate should be helpful to our users. Thanks for pointing out the broader issue of exchanging links and the possibility that these links could somehow be an issue with Google. I’m new to GreatSchools, but in my preliminary investigation, It definitely wasn’t our intention to run afoul of Google. We are discussing our options internally to quickly figure out the best way to address this problem. In the meantime, we hope that if someone from Google feels we are violating their policies that they will reach out and tell us. Search engine traffic is very important to us and we do not want to be involved in anything that inadvertently puts that traffic in jeopardy. Paula Rivers, COO
Thanks for coming on and weighing in with your input, Paula.
Hi Paula, welcome to the SEOmoz community!
In all honesty, this may be a bunch of hoopla about nothing. I've heard it time and time again that search engines (Google especially) are really interested in what the intent of a link may be. By clarifying the intent, perhaps by adding supporting language around the link ("Moving to this area? We suggest Yahoo! Real Estate" etc) it will help any search engine engineers who may look at the site in the future.
re: this may be a bunch of hoopla about nothing
I'd like to copy that, but change "may" to "is".
I'm sorry Laura, I don't agree. The amount of revenue "schemes" like this in real estate generate is beyond what either of us can imagine.
Hey Paula, good to see you on here & thanks for your insight.
I am a web designer for a lot of realtors & most of them do indeed link to your site. It's really a great resource, especially for realtors who tend not to want to put the time into investigating and writing that kind of content themselves.
You have so much link juice pointing at you already from all of these realtors that there is no need to manipulate rankings by stuffing a whole bunch of hidden links (with juicy anchor text) in the footer--see my earlier comment above. I believe that even Boulevards.com has come under a little bit of scrutiny for listing all of their links to websites in their network in the footer, and they're all visible...
Personally, I don't have a problem with your Yahoo link exchange--it makes total sense to cross-promote traffic--my only desire is that Google and the other search engines are fair about how they treat those kinds of relationships for sites of all sizes.
The links at the bottom of the page are a bit excessive, however I think it is a mistake to call them spam. In fact, if you look at the Google Webmaster Central official blog, they recently posted about crawling through web forms.
Greatschools features a drop box with a search on the homepage, so the text links to the individual state pages are certainly not on defensible, they are RECOMMENDED to enable the site to be crawled properly. The list of cities and the 100 largest school districts may also seem excessive, but they are certainly not unreasonable.
The only thing that one can really say clearly is that using the "Click To Expand" is a questionable way to "hide" these text links and results in ugly formatting. It is certainly NOT the same as calling them "hidden links".
Ugly? yes. Less than artful? sure. Unnecessary? Certainly.Spam? No.
I think there can be some merit to the way that 'click to expand' box is setup. It would be a long list of links that could take up otherwise valuable page real estate; but (in my opinion) the implementation is a little 'gray-hat'.
Agreed!
Very brave of you to come up and put your case forward. As you have clearly stated - Yahoo hasnt bought these links and they are of genuine use to your site visitors by the way of your reasoning.
Personally I dont think you should or can be penalised, but if you are concerned, get your web teamto investigate the possibility of adding rel nofollow to the links - that way, you are still offering your site visitors the link, while not linking to Yahoo for search engine benefits.
However, if you feel that the resource is exceptionally good to your site visitors, I would leave them the way they are simply because its your way of saying "these are important links to us and we would like to vote for them over any other" .
Hey Paula!
It's great of you to post this! I hope you read this as it has been months since you've posted, but I just came across your reply.... And I hope you're ready for a ride, because this is gonna go all over the place.
First, I'd like to say I wasn't necessarily pointing fingers at your site because I wouldn't blame anyone for doing it. That's a very strong temptation to resist. I was shaking my finger at Yahoo (more on that later).
Second, as I understand it, just because you are a non-profit it does not mean you don't make money. You obviously generate revenue, your salaries are paid, hosting fees and other business expenses. Anything in excess of "operating costs" is donated to a fund/charity/organization (and that is very noble of you).
Third, I don't think seomoz needed to clear this with you since they were not talking about you directly, but of Yahoo's "wrong-doing". In her original post Rebecca did not mention the domain and she kept it out of the screenshots.
This partnership might have been sold to you as being useful for parents looking to relocate, but that was done under false pretenses either by Yahoo, or your SEO (looking for that bonus, or boost in rankings). This is further reinforced by the placement of the link.
This illustrates a few things:
It has been covered, but this is something I have been saying for a while, therefore I must add my two cents (really just a penny)...
Bartering, trading, begging, paying for links -- it all seems so darn similar doesn't it?
So, if a site gets busted for buying or being a part of paid links, just throw up the defense of "I send them a data feed and they create the links, honest (holding up right hand)" and you should be fine.
I'll remember that one...
:) We need to make our own list of Bull Durham type baseball cliches.
It's really good of Yahoo to give their side of the story on this. I'm impressed they approached you to clear this up.
Yeah, they did it uber-quickly, too. I stepped away from my desk for about 20 minutes and came back to find a ton of IMs from a Yahoo employee. :D
Rebecca, I am disappointed that you censored the above comment. There is also some HIDEOUS hidden linking going on in the footer of every page here:
https://www.greatschools.net/#bottom
If you want to censor me, so be it.
I just had Rand's post hanging in the back of my mind, so I wanted to be cautious. Oh well though, you guys seem all over it, so I'm content to let it be.
Hey David :)
I'll sheepishly admit I was the one who brought these potential paid links to Rebecca's attention - though in all fairness it could very well not be paid links and just greatschools.net trying to fit themselves into real estate related sites by linking to an authority.
fwiw, I brought up the links you speak of in the footer once in a private q&a and this is the answer I got from Fluxx
edited cause I can't spell sometimes :D
Raffi beat me to it, but that was the point I was trying to make below. Yahoo may have been an easy target here, when it was just an attempt by a webmaster to ride the coattails of an already trusted site in their vertical.
Hey Raffi, you going SMX Seattle again this year? I hear the bum fights in Pioneer square are going to be a hot ticket.
I hope so - bum fights and hot dogs with cream cheese - can't friggin' wait!
LOL - we may have started a SMX tradition. That hot-dog vendor is going to make a lot of money in one night!
Hey Raffi, Great to hear from you again!!
I might buy your argument if those hidden links said just "Arizona" "Arkansas" "California" etc. But they're clearly using them for anchor text when they say "school information by state" "by city" and "by district" right before the click to expand link. There's simply no reason to say "Rhode Island school districts" otherwise.
Clearly a manipulative technique, IMHO.
And coupled with the amazing anchor text pointing to Yahoo (rather than just "Yahoo Real Estate", I think it's clear that Great Schools' SEO knows exactly what he/she is doing.
(edited for a mis-quotation)
Well, I think the point Fluxx was trying to make is that the technique can be valid - but the implementation at greatschools is borderline (read: probably) spammy.
And for the real estate links in the footer - it would take some effort to get it to work that way, so I'm leaning towards paid links too...
I think Dave N or maybe Gray Wolf made this statement before (or something similar):
Just because money doesn't change hands - doesn't mean it ain't a paid link.
If you're getting something in return for it - its a paid link.
I think "long-standing" partnerships should fall into this category also.
Paid link definition is too loose. The only thing I get out of it is that don't do link exchange if you are not adding any value and is only to game the PR system.
As long as you are building partnerships to grow your traffic/revenue/selection, you are ok. Do what you will do whether there is Google or not. I am not saying that we should ignore 800 pound guerilla in the room but if you are building a stable long term business, then search engines have to come around and show content that is more relevant - which will be your company as you are the only one with the money to pay for it and grow it in a long term.
I have a feeling this is again a difference in scale & Yahoo won't get penalized...as Stuntdubl aptly said last August @ SES San Jose, this looks to me to be along the lines of a "strategic media partnership."
There is a double standard for sites of this size, IMHO.
I want to play devil's advocate for a second here. Who is to say that Yahoo doesn't deserve to rank for the term targeted here? Is an individual real estate broker or company more valuable than this result for that type of term? You can bet that if you dug into the attics of most of the top pages competing for that term as well as other RE terms, you'll find some shadyness going on. It is a required minimum to compete in this space.
I applaud Yahoo's internal marketing team of coming up with a relevant way to leverage a partnership and provide additional information to the users of this site. If the theory that only one link from a domain counts is true, this is a moot point anyway, no? ;)
The location of the link screams "paid" (traffic/money/whatever) placement. It's there for the anchor text and for spiders, not for users.
And regardless of whether or not Yahoo thinks they "deserve" to rank for those keywords, they can still violate google's guidelines.
So calling it a partnership implies no money is changing hands? LOL
And you'd bet those links coming to the site from yahoo help them rank for other terms (I haven't looked through yahoo yet to see how they might be linking back).
I'd give yahoo a taste of my content to get a link back - who wouldn't?
Is it possible that this isn't a paid links issue, but rather an uneducated SEO attempt to be associated with "good neighborhoods"? I know in my past, 2-3 years ago, I've attempted to increase my trust rank and assist the bots by voluntarily giving free links to already well-trusted domains.
Perhaps its not Yahoo to blame here, but a misguided webmaster?
EDIT: changed "paid links" to "a paid links issue" before the grammar poleece caught me.
Hey buddy! Long time no see! We gotta change that and get a beer sometime :)
I agree with you that they could be trying to link to a good neighborhood, perhaps in an effort to rank for similar keywords. But since yahoo has been guilty of this in the past (think used cars and cloaking) I'd bet this isn't entierly on the up-and-up.
Hell yeah! 'Cept I'm not in Vegas anymore. I'm in the process of moving to Boca Raton, FL.
BUT - I'll be at a lot more shows this year, starting with SMX Advanced. SES, Aff Summit, PubCon, and a few others are on my list too. So I'll be around.
If it is intended for the user why is it hidden at the bottom of the page and not underlined like a normal link? And why doesn't Yahoo Real Estate provide a link back to greatschools.net?
Scoundrels!
I suppose it would be nice to have an authoritative site where you can do anything and get away with it!
But really, rules are rules. I mean, the police always obey traffic laws, right?!
Actually, not sure what state/country you are in but I don't think emergency vehicles need to abide by regular traffic laws.
I believe with police cruisers, if their lights are off, and they are at a red light they can just go anytime it's clear.
Wow. Please look up "sarcasm" in a dictionary. If they have those in the country you're from...
I tried to post a comment on the Great Schools website about my child's school. No matter how nicely I criticized the school, the comment was rejected. All I said was that there were 18 kids in my child's class, the class was not held in the same room everyday, and neither teacher had a degree in education. I've commented in the past about other schools and included some negative comments. Never had a problem. Now, I guess it is bad for the real estate business to be honest about the schools. I don't trust the reviews on Great Schools anymore.
Thanks for the update Rebecca. My assumptions were incorrect about the neighborhoods, but I'm not surprised by the "partnership". In Google's Guidelines to the Gray, don't they still frown on non-no-follow'd links even if they are "partner" links?
agreed - if they are a "partner" the links should be labeled as so, and perhaps even carry a nofollow.
They're doing text links from their homepage to the yahoo travel site, too...
this certainly seems like a case of "do as I say, not as I do"
https://justshutupandbuythehouse.com
I'm SOO sure that Greatschools is bogus. I've tried to post some comments (negative, factual, and written in a professional manner) about my children's former school, and they emailed me back saying they would not post the comments because they were negative. They also sent me an example of how to re-write my review, which was NOTHING like my original post about how wonderful my community, school, and teachers are, all of which would be untrue. And funny, the blurb they sent me as an example, I had seen as a comment on another school---word for word. Spread the word---this GREATSCHOOLS.NET site is useless in getting a true picture of a potential school. This site should be shut down. I used to read the reviews, and even, stupidly beleiving real parents wrote these reviews. When choosing something a s important as your children's school, doesn't everyone want true accounts?
lol- caught here too?
https://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/opinion
Along with Monster, Disney, IKEA, Wikipedia, EBay, ESPN, US New and World Report... it's either somebody with a paid link scheme trying to mask it with some legit sites, or legits sites buying up some links on college newspapers. Seeing that Yahoo was caught in this "business partnership" it sure seems fishy...
I thought there was going to be a collaboration between Goggle and Yahoo! anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if Yahoo! Estates bought a few links, they are not just competitors but ***partners***. :)
This doesn't surprise me. I remember a couple of years ago Yahoo kicked out most of the dominate real estate and travel sites out of their SERPs with no reason given. All the tinfoil-hat types were crying foul saying that those sites were taking away business from Yahoo Real Estate and Yahoo Travel. I think there was some truth in that.
I think the big G needs to throw a penalty at Yahoo for these "partnerships." Those links are solely for the purpose of SEO and increasing their rankings.
Isn't this really a case of link exchange and not link buying? ;-)
I can definitively point out where Yahoo is buying links. Also, Wikipedia. But, I'm not going to call out those websites because Google is evil. Rest assured, Yahoo IS buying text links.
Very interesting, and Yahoo ranks #1 in Google's SERPs for 'Glendale real estate'. Why would Google want this? This can increase branding for Yahoo. If they don't penalize Yahoo now, I'm sure they will be all over it if Microsoft succeeds with the aggressive buyout.
It's time for Matt Cutts to make another famed appearance on SEOmoz. What say you Matt?
Excellent find! I would hope that google would treat both sites (Great Schools and Yahoo Real Estate) the same way they treat other sites selling and buying links. Unfortunately, my guess is they won't because it may hurt the quality of their results.
*edited again by Rebecca to restore original comment*
If all of these assertions are true, I'm even more terrified of a Yahoo Microsoft merger. It sounds like a recipe for a cut throat battle between Google and MS. All is fair in love and ware I guess.
On the contrary - I would love to see a cut throat fight between MS and Google.
That really does sound fun! Lets get the popcorn, the fighting should start any time now!
This is a fairly new marketplace and it wont go very far if we start getting "selective" rules. Just sad to see smaller company efforts being punished :-(
You can see it here
https://www.greatschools.net/city/Aliso_Viejo/CA
Definitely a paid link…isn’t the first time they’ve been caught.
You people..... do you not have anything better to do than to debate whether or not Yahoo purchased links or not? If it's so bothersome, just call and ask.
Maybe Rand does, but I sure as hell don't have Yahoo on speed dial...
They actually reached out to Rebecca prior to your comment, as added in "Update" above... don't you have anything better to do than to find out what people have better to do? :p J/k