In our continuing series of coverage, I'm pleased to present one of the most talked-about, anticipated and dramatic sessions of the SES San Jose conference so far (though I heard that the session on click fraud was also extremely contentious).
For the past 2-3 years, Google (along with Yahoo! and MSN/Live) have hounded the micro-economy of paid link advertising and paid link networks at conferences, on blogs and, when possible, in the search results themselves. The basic argument that search engineers in general, and Matt Cutts in particular, has presented is that paid links represent manipulation and pollution in the index. The links are not "editorially vouching" for the quality and relevancy of the pages they point to, but due to the ulterior motive of financial compensation, adversely affect the quality of search results.
The panel for this session included:
- Moderator - Jeffrey K. Rohrs of ExactTarget
- Matt Cutts - Google search quality engineer and blogger at MattCutts.com
- Michael Gray - self proclaimed "troublemaker" and blogger at Wolf-Howl.com
- Todd Malicoat - "paid link defender" and blogger at Stuntdubl.com
- Todd Friesen - "former troublemaker" and director of online media at Range (also known as Oilman)
- Greg Boser - "link buyer" and CEO of WebGuerrilla
- Andy Baio - Founder of Upcoming.org and current Yahoo!er
Todd Malicoat & Michael Gray prepare for the Fight
Prior to the panel's start, moderator Jeffrey Rohrs played a video from David Dugdale of Rentvine that later become part of the panel's debate. I've embedded it below:
The video was a lighthearted introduction to a panel that was shockingly negative at times.
Matt Cutts began with a presentation called, simply, "Paid Links." He started by telling the audience that the title of the panel, "Are Paid Links Evil?" was the wrong question to ask. Rather, in his opinion, a more proper question would be "Do paid links that pass PageRank violate search engines' quality guidelines?" And the answer, according to Matt, is that since 2005, Google has been explicitly clear that the answer is "Yes."
Matt notes that in the offline world, the FTC demands disclosure of all paid marketing activities (example from Matt - warning: PDF). In his opinion, when that disclosure carries over to the web, it must include disclosure for both humans and machines, meaning that a mention of "sponsored links" or "advertising links" in the body copy or as an image that's visible to humans is not enough - those who link to sources from which they have received compensation should be labeled in one of the following ways:
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Use a redirect through URL blocked by robots.txt
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Redirect through a URL using a 302
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Use Javascript to direct the link
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Apply the rel=”nofollow” attribute to the link
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Add the Meta Robots = "nofollow" to the page header
Matt goes on to say that Google certainly does not recommend you buy links - in fact, they're happy with link buyers who use sources like:
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AdBrite
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Quigo
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IndustryBrains
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Microsoft AdCenter
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Yahoo! Publisher Network
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Any site that doesn't pass PageRank
He says that using non-no-follow links is akin to littering or driving in the carpool lane with only one person - it has an overall negative impact on society (in this case, the web). Matt also says that it's very difficult to buy paid links effectively as a business or as a search marketer because Google does such a good job detecting and eliminating the value of those links. He notes the following pitfalls:
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Links that are bought for a limited time (may not provide long term value)
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Links that are "run of site" which Google is very good at finding and eliminating
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Links that are purchased from "sloppy sellers" who link to bad sites and bad neighborhoods
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Links that are bought from sellers that cloak the links only to you, so Google never sees them
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Buying links that can be found and reported by a competitor
Matt mentions that David's (very) recent viral video is an excellent example of how you can be creative and interesting to entice links to come to your site and notes that despite what some SEOs might say, it's much harder to fly under the radar than you/we think.
Matt wraps up by mentioning a post of mine from several months back; Paid Links - Can't be a White Hat With 'em, Can't Rank without 'em. He notes that for all of the queries but one, Google had already algorithmically detected and removed the value of those links. Matt had some further reading from sources like the Washington Post, the FCC and his own blog that he promised to write about in the near future.
Michael Gray was next to the stage. His presentation titled, "A Tale of Propaganda and Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt," was confrontational, political and emotional to a degree that I have not previously seen at an SES conference. Michael is certainly an exceptionally effective speaker - he pulled the audience with him throughout the course of his arguments and was frequently interrupted by applause as he played to the emotions of the crowd and launched a rhetorically powerful indictment of Google's motivations.
Sadly, due to Michael's exceptional speed with his presentation, I was not able to effectively take notes. However, I will do my best to summarize his arguments and hope that he posts the presentation online in the near future.
At the core of Michael's anti-Google sermon was the following series of arguments:
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Both commercial and non-commercial queries exist on the web
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Commercial websites are NOT generally linked-to naturally
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Non-commercial websites are much more likely to entice natural links
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By eliminating paid links, Google will fill the top results for commercial queries with primarily non-commercial results
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Thus, when a searcher wishes to take a commercial action, the only relevant results will be the paid listings
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And, thus, searchers will be more likely to click on AdWords links, which earn Google money
Michael noted that Google is not the government, should not be attempting to influence how webmasters build sites and is engaged in precisely the activity they claim to abhor - paid link sales, albeit in a different format, and one that makes themselves the primary earner.
Michael also claimed that Google was deceptive in its launch and use of nofollow in 2005. According to him, nofollow was initially launched to protect blogs and content publishers from linking to bad neighborhoods and allow them to control and reduce the comment spam problem. It was only after widespread adoption - 3-6 months after nofollow was announced, that Google began publicly claiming that it should also be placed on paid links. Michael claims that this effort was part of a conspiracy by Google to deflect criticism about nofollow and their policies on paid links by subverting the issue until after the rollout.
Personally, I had a tough time with these claims, though certainly the reaction of the audience would seem to indicate that they very much agreed or, at least, enjoyed the roasting of the popular search giant. However, I have a tough time arguing that none of Michael's points had validity - I'm hoping to catch him on video tomorrow, possibly with Mike McDonald & WebProNews - and discuss his conjecturing in more detail.
Todd Malicoat spoke next, with a presentation entitled - "7 Reasons Why I am a Link Libertarian." His seven reasons included:
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The semantic issue – paid linking is ambiguous – every link has a relative value and cost, and very few links are given truly editorially.
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Google is the founder of the link economy with their visible PageRank in the toolbar.
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The economic argument; according to Adam Smith - “if left to its own means, the efficient market will sort itself out”
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Paid links help clients and revealing them hurts relevancy
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Google's policy of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) is deplorable
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Competition is good for the market, and paid links create a competitive market
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According to the philosophy of "design websites as though the search engines did not exist," the practice of paid links is perfectly legitimate and reasonable
Todd also indicted the following AdWords ads as an example of hypocrisy from Google:
He wrapped up his presentation noting that when buying links, SEOs and businesses must stay alert and aware - keeping links relevant, hidden and believable as natural. He also said that as SEOs, we need to stop publicly talking about the practice of buying links, both in panels (such as this) and in the online environment. To that, I say, good luck :)
Todd Friesen from Range spoke next. He had not prepared a Powerpoint, but made several exceptionally intelligent points (in my opinion):
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If link purchases have a positive ROI for a company, they'll continue to make them. If they have a positive ROI, chances are good that they must also be serving the searcher effectively and thus, be good results for the engines.
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In a worst-case scenario, you flush your money down the drain - this isn't so bad, as those links can still send traffic, branding and may work at multiple engines (not just Google)
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Outside of the link buyer and seller, no one (especially not the search engines) know who is involved in a link purchase. Thus, if SEOs ever find that Google will actually ban sites (or directly penalize them) for link purchases, those purchases will be made by competitors to attempt to fool the engines into believing that they are violating the guidelines and should be penalized.
Greg Boser from Webguerrilla also did not prepare a presentation, but made noteworthy points in a short speech:
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In a response to Matt Cutts' carpool analogy, Greg noted that he sometimes drives in the carpool lane when he's late and knows that the potential $300 fine is worthwhile.
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In Greg's opinion, the example that Matt gave of David Dugdale's Rentvine viral video is as egregious if not worse for relevancy than paid links - viral content of such an off-topic nature (to Rentvine's primary topic of finding homes for rent) should not help Rentvine's rankings and is more "polluting" than relevant paid links.
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Google often uses the example of the Yahoo! Directory as a place where paid links are acceptable since the editorial review quality is high, but this is, in Greg's opinion, a fallacy as Yahoo!'s directory is filled with spammy sites
Andy Baio from Upcoming/Yahoo! is last up (note: he's also the blogger behind Waxy.org, though updates on that site are infrequent). He mentions that he's on the panel to "represent users of the web and of search engines" as he is not in the search marketing field and had to do "a lot" of research before coming to the panel, though he has not prepared a formal presentation.
Andy first agrees with many of the things that Greg & Todd mentioned, saying that if the link has relevance and a true editorial review, it probably should not be discounted by the engines. He continues on to say that he's “not” representing Upcoming.org or Yahoo!, but he did consult with the Yahoo! Search team and they generally agree with Google on the topic of paid links. The only reason that he's on the panel is that he feels strongly that this is spam and that this practice makes the web worse. Andy says that If you (or your business) wouldn't resort to email spam or comment spam, why are paid links acceptable?
According to Andy, paid links shouldn't be used because they ruin a public resource, are deceptive and hurt ordinary users. If your focus is traffic, that's terrific. But that's not the focus and Andy believes that the industry (of paid links) is “shady.” However, he strongly agrees with Todd (Malicoat) that allowing link brokers to run ads on Google is hypocritical.
Andy wraps up by noting that If the websites who wanted to rank were “good enough,” they wouldn't need to buy links. He feels that “it's clear that eventually the technique will backfire. It's going to hurt your reputation and your pocketbook.”
Q+A produces almost as many questions as answers, but I'll do my best to recount them:
I (Rand) posed two questions to the panel:
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To Greg Boser - why shouldn't the Rentvine viral video be interpreted by Google as a signal that the Rentvine domain is valuable/unique/interesting?
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Greg responds that while it should be making that viral video rank for its own keywords/topics, the current algorithm from Google rewards "trust" and linkbait/viral content helps to build that trust. Off-topic viral content, according to Greg, is a terrible signal that the content on a site that's commercially targeted will actually have value to the searcher. He says that "just because you (Rand) and Neil (referring to Neil Patel who's in the front row) can spam Digg," doesn't mean your clients' sites are relevant. And, besides that, those links are equally paid, as linkbait development services from companies like Neil's and Rand's are very expensive.
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To Matt Cutts - from an engineering perspective, would it not be preferable to algorithmically detect paid links, rather than request that webmasters use them voluntarily? After all, what percentage of web developers/marketers have ever (or will ever) hear of "nofollow?"
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Matt agrees that yes, indeed the first line of defense is always algorithmic. He seems to change positions a bit on the topic and says that "nofollow" is really for publishers who want to protect themselves from losing their ability to pass PageRank/linkjuice. I'd love to get some clarification from Matt about why, in that case, do they seem so intent on webmasters using "nofollow" when they buy links?
Other questions posed to the panel:
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To Matt Cutts - can Google remove the ability of individual pages to pass linkjuice
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Matt says that not only can they remove single page's ability to pass PR, they can also remove the ability of only certain links on a page from passing PR, and do.
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To Matt Cutts - would Google ever ban a large brand for an extended period of time for engaging in manipulative link practices?
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Matt says that Google had removed a very big site (WhenU) in the past for 43 days in total from the index, and this was noticed by Ben Edelman.
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Jonah Stein (from Alchemist Media) asks Matt Cutts to answer the question posed to Greg Boser about the relevancy of Rentvine's linkbait video
Matt says that viral content is a great way to show Google you can be creative and interest people across the web. One exact quote that I found valuable was "Starting a blog can have a tremendous effect on the amount and quality of links you earn."
The session wrapped up with dozens of questions pending, and the panel did get somewhat swarmed afterwards:
While I was fascinated by this panel, I'm not sure that it solved any issues or brought webmasters closer to any solutions or solid answers in the paid links debate. I believe there's plenty more that needs addressing around this topic, and hope that all of the panelists (even Andy Baio) will have more to contribute in their blogs or online in the next few days.
BTW - Tomorrow I'll be speaking on the SEO Pricing panel at 3:15pm on how much SEOs should charge, how much clients of SEO should expect to pay and how we at SEOmoz have gone through radical shifts in our own business model to create a more scalable model. Rebecca, meanwhile, will be speaking on Linkbaiting and Viral Search Success, where I expect she will rock :)
I have a suggestion. Google can predict fairly well the difference between a commercial search and an information based one, yes? I know I can do a pretty good job of it by choosing certain keyword phrases for my Adwords campaigns ("buy", "purchase", etc), for example.
If you identify a link that is primarily commercial (or paid) then that link should count for commercial searches. For informational searches, you could either discount it, ignore it, or whatever.
Why? Well, for a start, this doesn't break the system, and may even encourage people to identify commercial links, since they would want to show up well for commercial searches but are unlikely to care as much for non-commercial ones. If they want to non-commercial traffic, they get organic links just like now.
Result? If you are non-commercial, then you can focus on making funny videos or taking outrageous stands or whatever to attract attention, just like in the real world. I really don't see how a viral video is relevant to selling houses. I want a real estate agent that knows real estate, not videography. This is like voting for someone for office just because they an actor and are famous. It's not quality, it's popularity, and it's bad relevance.
Also just like the real world, if you are commercial then you can pay to get the word out, and it should count. If you are the little guy, then you have to get the word out (links) through creativity, and that's fine too - you still can.
Something to think about, anyway. What really get's me annoyed is that the flip side of assuming that paid links are not editorial in nature is the assumption that non-paid links are. Just how exactly does a link to a video count as a vote of confidence regarding a real estate agent?
Ian
Had to give you thumbs up - totally agree especially last paragraph.
If it were possible (or ethical) to give you more than one thumb up for this, I certainly would. :)
I think this is one of the points on which Google loses a bit of credibility -- in a lot of ways, viral content can damage both the SERPs in particular and the web in general. It's basicaly FOX-News-izing the internet by rewarding the most outrageous at the expense of the thoughtful or the genuinely useful. Granted, not all viral content is damaging -- but neither are all paid links. I don't think that Google is necessarily bad-intentioned; there just seems to be a little strain of fanboy-ism running through it's culture.
Hi
I have been reading the SEOMOZ blog for a while but this is my first post!
Just wanted to say thanks for this great coverage of the SES Conference, very interesting and informative.
On topic: I personally think that pretty much all links are paid for in some way or another, like mentioned above, great linkbait will get you tons of links, but constructing the linkbait costs in both time and money.
Also having some amazing viral content doesn't show that the webmasters site is creative, rather it demonstrates the talents of the person developing the content, usually not the same people.
Any hoo my first post is officially over.
Darren
This is so true Darren. Welcome! :)
Maybe didn't resolve any issues, but sure must have been entertaining! Sounds like this was close to a real-live Rock'em Sock'em robots battle!
Rand, this is a great recap with everything going on and I'm sure was quickly tossed together... may want to massage your paraphrasing of Matt's statement
since I think what you are trying to say that Google certainly does not recommend you not buy links... in other words, they don't have anything against buying links, just using bought links to manipulate results. Either way, it's a hard one to word ;)
You have to love any panel that can work in a reference to Adam Smith... way to go Todd!!
This is certainly one of the most challenging of topics with the viewpoint primarily tied to which side of the fence you are on.
Sounds like Michael really fired up the crowd, though extreme... but sometimes you have to move 10 feet to the left to get everyone else to move 5, but if you only went 5, the everyone else would have only moved 1. It isn't too hard though to find yourself just wondering a little, about this link buying monster that Google played a huge role in building... is this now reaction to control it or was this all part of the greater plan? I don't think so, but it is an interesting ponder.
I think Friesen hit on the key point about filtering/dampening versus penalizing, and that would really fan the flames. Penalties for link buying would be wrong on so many levels.
As long as links play so a huge role in ranking, this won't be going away any time soon. I still can't help but feel that actual content doesn't seem to play as big a role as it should... but then again, it seems like the title tag carries far more weight over content than it should too.
Sums it up nicely for me.
"I think Friesen hit on the key point about filtering/dampening versus penalizing, and that would really fan the flames. Penalties for link buying would be wrong on so many levels."
Amen to that...
The solution to this is an algo that is blind to links. Imagine how much development money and effort could be funneled into the important stuff. Imagine how much less time we would spend pruning automated linkdrops out of our forums and blogs.
The web would be a brighter place.
If I was the boss at Google I would be shoveling PhDs at this project. Heck, I know a lot of webmasters who would pay google a few hundred bucks a month if they could stop fighting linkdrops.
I don't see a strong argument for paid links being unnatural.
That is the same as saying that people holding signs are unnatural. Some people carry signs to advertise their beliefs, some carry signs to advertise the person who is paying them. Long before the Internet, long before TV or radio there have been people who trade visibility for money.
Resource exchange is the underpinning of most things in life. A site like BoingBoing has invested time and resources to make valuable content and has built wide viewership and thousands of links. They did the work and they should be able to monetize their efforts.
It is not our responsibility to build the world that Google wants. Google threatening to devalue pages and sites is a silly and hostile tactic. Imagine if AT&T were to refuse to service you because you own an SUV. If Google really wants to get rid of the value of a specific type of link they should, as Egol says, "shovel Ph.D at the problem" -- not threaten their user base.
I agree completely, EGOL. Google simply needs to improve its algorithm, not prevent people from buying links. This was actually the main point I took from Michael's argument yesterday, that Google has created this monster, and it's simply not the responsibility of John Doe SEO to fix it.
Then again, MSN's engine seems to be much less based on links than Google's & it does not seem to be as popular. How much of that is branding and how much of that is the quality of results is debatable.
Great, we agree from two contrasting points of view. That has to make us *right*.
I'd say it's down to the classic no-frills interface and the branding, but I'm not a marketing expert so this is just a guess.
They did create such an algo, EGOL: it's at MSN. :) Oh man, I'm dogging their algorithm!
Seriously, though, a far more simplistic algorithm, ignoring links, has its benefits. It rewards those taking time to research and write their titles and content with the most keywords in the least awkward way.
lol... I like MSN too! And they could use user behavior to rank the sites.
<blockquote>Matt notes that in the offline world, the FCC demands disclosure of all paid marketing activities. In his opinion, when that disclosure carries over to the web, it must include disclosure for both humans and machines.</blockquote>
In Matt's opinion. But alas he isn't the FCC and this isn't the offline world. The online world is far removed and completely different from traditional advertising. Highly competitive commercial industries will never be successful without buying links, and quite a few of them.
<blockquote>Google does such a good job detecting and eliminating the value of those links. </blockquote>
Yea sure...that's why they intently and constantly push webmasters to add nofollow to all paid links. Matt claims all paid marketing activities must be disclosed. What about product placement in movies, games, television shows, even certain print ads? I certainly don't remember seeing in big flashing letters "Sponsored by BMW" in several James Bond movies.
And just because Google can't properly detect them they want the webmaster community to do their work for them. This topic really irks me.
Excellent point on product placement. Something I never really thought about but paid links are definitely very similar to paid product placement in movies and tv shows.
It is very similar.
To continue the analogy, too much product placement in a movie can damage its integrity to the point that no one wants to watch it...
Thanks again Rand.
If I had to pick a camp to position myself in, it would be with Matt and Andy. I do tend to think that paid links negatively skew results, however, I also think (perhaps controversially) that all links in which money changes hands, should have their ability to pass pagerank removed; this includes Yahoo and other authority directories.
*awaits the barrage of downward turned thumbs*
In my opinion, quality should win out, and I worry that the guy with the quality site and excellent linkbait, may still lose out to the competitor with a shoddily put together effort but lots of money to invest in hundreds of quality links.
The overall quality of content then drops as there's little point in investing in development, when the big boys can trample over it due to the amount of paper in their wallets.
A simplistic view maybe, but one I strongly believe in.
*again awaits the barrage of downward turned thumbs*
I tend to agree with you. My problem is more about how Google is going about discovering and filtering paid links. There has to be a better way than to ask webmasters to snitch on each other or redesign their site for the benefit of the engines. Since I am not an engineer I don't know how they would do it but relying on someone's competition to tell on a site does not seem like a very good way to go about it. While the link spam issue is a huge problem I think that creating a system that asks webmasters to tell on their competition can create an even bigger problem in the long run.
Yes, I'd agree there too.
Hopefully something more efficient can be acheived with the algo - although, I do think that we're someway off the psychic algo that will be eventually needed!
I'd just prefer the industry to be less about shortcuts to better rankings, and be more quality > cash rather than the inverse state it currently finds itself in to a certain extent.
The snitching aspect is probably one of the biggest elements to this whole thing that rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
Because their focus is on algo and scalability, my guess though is that this is primarily for sampling... identify examples, then use those examples to identify patterns or other footprints that can be filtered out mechanically. That's about the only way to make it truly scalable.
Doesn't make this any more right or wrong or change the underlying premise.
I'm not recommending an approach, but it would seem that one way to break the system... overload the system... spam it... just have everyone start reporting sites, any sites, all sites, whether they are selling links or not.
Great point. If every site is being reported as buying links it would be impossible to build reliable detection into the algorithm.
report a spam result is for just that.. reporting spam.. thank GOD they added the Red Flag on Blogger, splogs were everywhere...
Here's the problem.. company hires nephew of marketing director over the summer to do SEO... nephew doesn't know dick..
so dick trades links with him..
dick is a spammer..
companies site gets flagged for doorway pages, deceptive redirects, hidden text the same color of the background because nephew takes SEO advice from dick.
just let them run free? nope report them... the company should have hired someone who was ethical instead of the clueless nephew who didn't know dick.
It should def. be all about quality!
I think the problem with the "it's all about quality" argument is that Google can't directly measure quality (in fact, who really can?). They have to measure proxies of quality. And not only that, they have to measure proxies of quality relative to certain sectors -- my site may have great quality relative to birds with human noses (linkbait), but not necessarily have great quality relative to real estate in Hermosa Beach.
While one proxy of quality may be the number of sites linking to your picture of birds with human noses, this proxy needs to be dampened when Google is evaluating your site's quality relative to real estate. Likewise, I may buy a bunch of links that point to my real estate site, and these links are a real proxy of quality -- they at least show that I have real resources backing up my real estate business. But again, these links' value should probably be dampened, as they don't guarantee quality in themselves. That's why there are so many factors in the Google algo -- to hedge against the manipulation of a finite number of proxies of quality.
I don't think it's rational for Google to dislike all paid links -- obviously, a lot of paid links to come with editorial decisionmaking. However I can see why they'd be interested in dampening the effect that these links have on your rankings. What I can't understand is either an absolute position that "all paid links are bad" or an absolute position that "all paid links are good".
"Commercial websites are NOT generally linked-to naturally"
Okay, I totally disagree with this! If you are using the proper SEO link building tactics then of course your commercial site CAN be generally linked-to naturally.
Thanks for the updates Rand!
I think it depends on the industry. If the site is in a highly technical industry or one with a customer base that is web savvy there is great potential for good links. If you are in an industry with a customer base that does not fully understand the web and the power of links it can be much more difficult to gain links. Of course it also means that your competition will gain fewer links too so it may not be as difficult to rank well, unless your competition is out there buying links and you are not.
I have to disagree. While it is true that commercially angled sites CAN attract natural links, it is generally true that they are less likely to attract natural links than sites without a commercial component.
I think that this would tend to fill the SERPs results for commercial queries with informational sites (Wikipaedia for example). The problem is that the searcher is probably interested in a commercial site because they want to buy something.
This does yield far more clicks on paid ads. Whether that is intentional or not is debatable.
The Matt Cullen argument is shockingly uniformed. It is the FTC, not the FFC, which regulates advertising. There is nothing in the current FTC rules on disclosure which would support his argument. In fact there could be nothing until there was a concensus on whether the consumer expected an adsense ad to pass link pr. That would depend upon whether the webmaster exercised no, little or a great deal of control over what ads were placed on their properties -which is the real debate. What policies should google and others put in place so that if pr is passed, then it is done in a responsible manner.
once again, thanks for the extensive coverage, rand. but you've left me just as confused about paid links as before. ;)
as for comparing paid links to product placement, i wrote something similar in regards to paid links via blogging (pay per post):
When we see the contestants on Survivor winning rewards such as a cold Mountain Dew or a Pontiac Aztec, do we assume it’s because Mark Burnett actually prefers Mountain Dew over Coca-Cola and Pontiacs over Fords?
however, i am on the 'paid links sucks' side of the fence, simply because it is not in our budget to buy links. and like Chris - O-Dev above points out above that a quality site with excellent content and a small budget can be outranked by a lower quality site simply because they have more money to buy links.
but i'm not going to go around reporting competitors paid links to Google because that's really "a dick thing to do."
Like you, part of my allergy to paid links is simply that we as an agency don't have the money to invest in paid links for our website (the Yahoo directory fee was a real eye opener) and also, it's difficult to persuade clients that it's useful to buy big listings such as those, but they still cannot be guaranteed a top 1-3 ranking.
Greg Boser's comment that "Just because you can spam digg, doesn't mean your client's sites are relevant" was extremely interesting to me. A designer I know had just completed an awesome photshop tutorial and wanted me to digg it for him. I'd warned him that I'd just joined and not many other people would likely digg it since I wouldn't be able to notify any "digg" friends. The amount of wonderful, useful blogs and tutorials falling through the cracks on digg is appalling when one considers that a picture "without flash" and then "with flash"-featuring the comic book character, was the number one top result yesterday. What category does that fall under?? How is that a news story of any kind? You have to pander to that mentality to become popular on digg? Either have tons of friends to push good material onto or create the most mundane, idiotic but funny content you can? I'm sure the viral content created by firms such as SeoMoz is wonderful and pertinent, but I completely understand what Boser was trying to say.
We also have to keep in mind that paid can be defined in so many different ways.
Here's one to wrap your head around...
Say a site wants to develop a passionate and informed community. To help drive that, maybe they award members by giving a link back to their site from the member's profile page.
Maybe they even decide to remove the nofollow on the links for members who reach a certain threshold, like say 100 points. Maybe that site even introduces some check and balances along the way to insure that the contributions meet a level of quality and useful to the community.
Is removing the nofollow on those links a reward, or incentive? In either instance, does that make those paid links?
Suddenly I feel like we are entering into the territory of lawyers and politicians more so than marketers...
Great discussion. I understand both sides and certainly don't think that Google is out with some devious plan to rule the world... really, it's just aimed at the world's information and advertising ;) just kidding Matt.
But... it's also a little hard to see the position as purely good and holy. After all, I'd love to know what percentage of AdWords revenue to Google and advertisers comes from:
Is there a turning of a blindeye? At least a little bit?
And MG brings up a great point that I think we always have to fight to keep in mind... rarely doesn anyone commenting here, or certainly at any of these conferences, really represent the typical web user.
If you polled 100 truly typical web users about AdWords or other publisher ad programs, those that clearly feature a built in "ad" declaration, how many of those people do you suppose realize that the publisher of the website takes a part of that ad revenue? Do the think that those ads were just placed there as a benefit of site visitors?
...I bet "we" would find the answer amazing to say the least.
Excellent wrap up. I tend to agree with some of the points that the players on both side of the debate made. My biggest issues with the Google side is that they elevated the link buying market with the toolbar PR and they are asking webmasters to change their sites for the engines in direct violation of their guidelines. I just don't like the idea that a website could be punished because they provide a useful link that earned them a bit of money. Many webmasters I have worked with were not aware of no-follow because they don't follow the SEO world. These webmaster sell links that are relevant but they could be punished because they don't read SEOmoz or Matt Cutts blog and they simply design their sites for the best user experience.
I also understand that the engines have a difficult task in determining what is link spam and what is a natural link that should pass value. Their robots are not smart enough to figure that out themselves and until they do they almost have to try and discount all paid links even those that are relevant and add to the user experience. It's a Catch-22 for everyone involved.
The whole paid link issue with google and how they want to police it is understandable (since their algo relies so heavily on it), but it seems to open up a new tactic:
Do you think buying a couple of links for a competitor's site and then "snitching" on them could negatively effect their rankings?
Is that considered "Black Hat" or "Just a Dick Thing to Do"
Sorry couldn't resist adding that last line...
I was thinking the same thing. Excellent point.
of course that would really be "a dick thing to do"!
I think it is the dick thing to do. BUT, if they actually turn to banning link buyers, it will happen. It will happen to the point of being ridiculous if for no other reason that to prove the idiocy of a policy banning link buyers.
I can see reducing the value of bought incoming links algorithmically if possible (doubtful), but at the point where you ban a site for external factors you open a big can of worms that will be exploited -- for ranking reasons, for Digg reasons (wouldn't it be cool to get a post Dugg about buying links to ban a big company from search results), for the hell of it, or strictly to embarass Google.
Google wouldn't be making such a fuss about them if they didn't work so well. Paid link advertising is here to stay.
Bugger, Matt Cutts already posted that the site in question was WhenU. Details found here: https://www.benedelman.org/spyware/whenu-spam/
Now the silly thing about using this as an example is that said site was banned for 42 days, for having CLOAKED. Uhm, okay, so the discussion is on paid links and the example given of Google ever banning a large brand for an extended period is a site that has engaged in cloaking??? I don't think it's strange for Ben to be surprised that the ban was only for 42 days either. They got away with it for 22 months!
So I guess we are still waiting for an example that is actually relevant to this question? If there is no example you should just own up to it and say "yeah, it's true, big sites get away with this stuff all the time and we don't care. Just have a look at wunderground.com. They still rank beautifully and we've never banned them even though they actively go out selling off topic links to pharmacy and dating sites (among many others)."
Be honest, that would have been a more truthful answer right?
Many many examples of big sites getting preferential treatment. The fact is if you are a huge site with a lot of clout you can get away with anything. You may be knocked out for a short time but a few emails or phone calls the good old googlebot will forget about your past trangressions (or even conveniently ignore current spam) and put right back at the top. Money talks.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but I think the example given was just plain dumb since it was totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand (and assuming Rand correctly quoted the question, not an answer to that either).
You are right and I am being a bit over the top but there have been a few examples of large sites (BMW) violating guidelines and being let back in the index rather quickly.
I don't know if it's the website that was referred to in the Panel but Google dropped BMW from the search listings for a while because of "underhanded" techniques.
I think you are thinking of the Germany BWM site. They were hit hard and outed, but not for manipulative linking as far as I know, but for bad cloaking/redirect practices.
Yes I remember that Katy. We all thought at the time that it was a bit 'high handed' of Google.
As someone working outside the USA find it quite unnerving to hear Matt Cutts talk about American laws and how Google uses them to back up their business practices abroad.I know its probably done with the best intentions but sometimes i wonder if there is not a hint of arrogance at Google.
collieman, I think Mystery Guest said it better than I did:
"The first thing I thought when reading Rand's post (but before looking at comments) was, "Of course webmasters need to disclose paid links! It would be like having testimonials for a product and not saying that they were paid for!". Anywho, that's just how an outsider sees it - and we do, in fact, make up a majority. :) (outside of this forum, anyway)."
Whether folks agreed with Andy Baio or not, I think he did a fairly good job of giving that viewpoint by speaking as a regular user. Lots of the paid links that people are trying to do are people trying to hide paid links from both humans and machines, and I would consider that bad even if I didn't work at a search engine.
You work at a search engine? Ooops.... forget all about that stuff I said at the Google Dance I was drunk.... and it was really someone else
Matt most websites do disclose paid link policies on their disclosure or advertising pages. The ones that don't are usually scared Google will bite them if they do. It's a bad system.
Any quality site that could get money from selling links already marks them as paid for their users because these are site owners that are concerned with their users experience on their site. rel=nofollow and javascript redirects are not intended for users, they are intended for search engines.
The only sites that really don't care about the user experience are spammers and those MFA sites that Google pays for. You know this just like the rest of us do and it's unflattering to see you attempting to claim otherwise.
Another issue with the link aspect of the engines' algorithms that leads to link buying is the lazy nature of some webmasters. Many webmasters take the time to find quality resources to support content on their site thus giving links to deserving sites. Some of which may not currently rank well. The problem arises when you have lazy webmasters who just add a link from a top ranking site that somewhat supports their content. It may not be the most comprehensive resource but it was easy to find and is somewhat relevant (I'm looking at you Wikipedia and About.xcom). That means that those sites with tons of link juice already get even more while a more deserving site that is not as well linked gets no love. This helps sites like Wikipedia and About.com retain their top positions while content rich sites that offer better user experiences and supporting content remain lower in the SERP. Many of these sites feel they have no choice but to buy links to try and move up.
While search engines need to be better at detecting paid links webmasters need to be more discerning when linking to sites to support their own content.
I agree. In my field, how about local newspapers coming up #1 for "city real estate", etc., They sell news, not homes, yet they come up #1.
1 thumb down??? is my local newspaper reading this??
All offline advertising is not disclosed. Many advertisers buy advertisements in magazines and newspapers with "corresponding ad copy." The magazine puts the ad in and then writes a nice little article to go with it so when readers see the advertisement it has more effect. Many paid links are no different from this, they just happen in reverse...the copy is already there and people buy the ad. And this type of advertising is actually more helpful to the end user because it immediately takes them to a page that solves their problem/fills their need.
Looks like we were having the same thought at the same time :)
Which personally I'd have no problem with... and I think Matt Cutts is suggesting the same thing.
Paid links are perfect for direct traffic and this is where human review intrinsic. The spammy paid for listings websites that are ten a penny, don't care about the quality of the content on the other side of the $50. They just care about the $50.
In terms of the disclosure of all advertising and product placement, I've not got a particularly strong viewpoint.
The funny thing is that while I'm supporting Google's suggestion that quality content is king, and that paid links can damage this important philosophy, I'd also criticise them for not working hard enough and taking a short cut to the elimination of the issue.
The only person I agree with completely is Gray Wolf.
It seems to me that the "link" wasn't originally intended to be used as any kind of endorsement. That was more or less a Google invention as some measure of popularity.
The link as it was originally intended was meant to point to further information elsewhere on the web (internal or external from the site).
I might point to IMDB when I am talking about a specific movie. But I'm not sure that means I am endorsing IMDB by giving them a link.
Awesome coverage Rand!
I wish that I could have made it out to see this particular panel but won't be able to hit a conference until PubCon.
Though paid links may pollute websites and serps, I don't think that they will be going away anytime soon. I know that paid linking has been around for ages, well before TLA - so I'm not quite sure how Google, Yahoo, MSN, or any others will be able to effectively combat the "problem".
I've been on both sides of the coin. I've sold links, and I've purchased them for ecommerce ventures. I just don't see the problem in it. Monetization is all good, and I'd much rather put money into the pockets of fellow bloggers or industry professionals than the big 3.
I am the guy that created the SES video linkbait that Greg Boser said is "polluting" the web right now.
I am a small guy in my industry - I only work part time on my site. My main competitor is a publicly traded company with 100's of people and they can afford paying bloggers $11 to $14 per post as they did a few weeks ago (I have a post on that).
I have to say I like Google (Matt Cutts) take on this because it evens the playing field for us small guys that can't afford to buy links or can't afford SEO services. I have to do it all myself.
I know the feeling of doing it on your own
But if your site is not relevant to the viral campaign that gets the links, is that really a good situation for the searcher?
I've not seen your site, and I am surely not commenting on the quality of it... but if I use an off-topic viral campaign of some type to get back links, am I really enhancing the quality of the search results (a question more for Matt whose goal truly is returning relevant results)? Or am I just polluting the results in much the same manner as link buyers.
As for taking this approach because your budget won't allow you to buy links... you can be sure that your deep pocket competitors will try to replicate your viral efforts as soon as link buying does not work for them. At that point, your "evens the playing field" snippet becomes irrelevant.
Good Luck with your site.
That might be the case for you, but I can point to at least a few cases where the small guys are purposely being dropped by Google whereas the big guys who are out there buying links are ranking tops. The small guys have been in the business 5+ years, have tons of great products, extra content and unique extras, but Google doesn't care about any of that. Not just ranking worse either; kicked to the very back of the index for some totally unknown reason!?!
This is a definite thumbs up post for me. It's quickly becoming a very long read, but great work at capturing the discussion at SES and facilitating it here.
Pretty strong thead here. I agree with Michael Martinez of course. I would wish we could get some of the other panel memebers from the paid link session to comment here.
I have a question:
Is buying a website and doing a 301 redirect towards one of your bigger sites considered as buying links? Is it evil for Google?
Looks like Matt is losing some weight! He looks 40# less.
And, that is not 'stress' weight he has lost, it's healthy weight. I bet ya he does cardio 4-6x week for the last 6 months or more.
All SEO aside, nice job on that.
(sorry for errant category)
Rand thanks for the awesome article. Also some great comments from other contributors on this post.
Michael Gray hit the nail on the head when he said"
Also Google has always advised to submit to the Yahoo Directory. Business sites have to pay $299 a year and those links pass PR. Which seems to go against what Matt said at SES. From the powerpoint file at https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ses-san-jose-2007-write-up/
"You can buy links within search engine guidelines: AdBrite, Quigo Industry, BrainsadCenter, YPNany site that doesn’t pass PageRank in linksBuying paid links that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelinesPaid PageRank-Passing (PPP) links"
From the Google Webmaster Guidelines here: https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769
"Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites."
So many contradictions.
Wow. I bet that was a great debate. It's good to see that their is some resistance to the big giant...
I'm discussing some of this over at Cre8.
Hey Dave - I know where you are coming from and apologize, was just trying to poke a little fun.
I really did get a kick out of the video, it was creatively brilliant IMO, keep up the good work!
Please feel free to toss some tomatoes when you see me at the next conference; I will duck or wipe off some yuck, either way will still buy you a beer.
We all need a good chuckle in this biz too often than none; sometimes at our own expense.
-Ryan
Ryan,
I laughed when I read your comment. No need to apologize.
But hey I am always up for a beer! I am going to PubCon. :)
Dave
WOW, way TMI.
Sounds like this panel needs it's own conference next time (SMX anyone?) and that Mr. Boser needs to get with the SMO program (no offense Greg).
I am going to stick with watching Dave's puppet show (I thought I was too old to play with dolls :).
-The MADD Man
PS: Garry - I have also been on the 'stress yourself thin diet'...it really works, 30 lbs and counting...
Ryan,
Yes I am probably too old to be playing with dolls, but my two girls got a kick out of them. They did their own puppet show - perhaps I should have tapped that too!
Dave
I wrote up my comments on this mess. Google is way out of line.
Google plexed over link buying
Matt if you are keeping track of this post still can you tell us if trade association and charity links are counted as paid links. I asked you this at SES London and you seemed to say that they were ok.
The reason I question it again now is that my site went up to PR5 about 2 months after SES London and my traffic and sales went up so my wife and I were very happy. Then a month later my back links changed and I dropped to a PR4 and sales and traffic dropped.
Now I have never gone out and actively got links and I have NEVER paid for links, in the sense of going to companies and saying ‘if I pay will you link to me’. But I have joined the following UK trade associations:
Which I have had to pay to join and they link back to you to say they have vetted the site and the site passed. I also agree - support the following child friendly association and they link back. Safe Surf (free to join) Fosi (Old ICRA is paid for) I have been made an Associate Member as I recommend them so much Site security we also have paid for the following site every year I think hacker safe may link back.
We also support our local Airambulace and church which we donate a % of our profits to and they also link back to us I think.
My wife and I run this site. It’s a family site, and by joining and working with the above companies we hope this shows buyers that we are a friendly and safe site.
So back to the main point how come in the last backlinks update did we lose some of our back links and I am guessing dopped in the listings as sales and traffic went down. Yes we did pay to join but if you want to be a member you have to pay and I feel to give consumer confidence you need to join the above.
I do not see anything wrong in what I did but I guess Google must have done? I welcome anyone’s opinions on this but I would be great if Matt could give some response.
Thanks in advance
I for one will continue to use paid links for my clients until it no longer proves effective. Purchasing links directly from sites that I deem worthy and relevant not only brings traffic but also brings the link juice.
If they use the algo to pinpoint paid links then they have to target links from services like pay-per-post and review me as well.
Sounds like a great session, thanks for the great summary Rand!
So that's why they don't let video cameras in at SES. Now I HAVE to get tickets to the next conference.
Good coverage, Rand. While I appreciate that you probably have all hands full at the moment, I think a lot of people would find a SEOmoz response to the following comment extremely interesting:
Man, it's like being there. Thanks for the timely posts!
Thanks for the coverage guys. And I have a slight feeling Michael would win if there was ever a real fight ;)
What a complex issue. I can't help but thinking that there is a simple business reason behind the Google effort to uncover secretive selling of link juice.
It pulls money that could be used for what Google has determined to be acceptable ways to obtain better rankings and into areas where google has determined on its own....that these methods aren't acceptable.
Google has consistently worked algorythemically to fight what it considers spamming. In many cases this has resulted in far better rankings and logic to its serps. It should be dedicating more resources to continuing this process.
Imagine if Google, while maintaining the logic behind link juice, establishes "thresholds" for link juice. Then it starts reevaluating rankings based on criteria as EGOL suggested. Imagine the confusion in the ranks from SEO aware webmasters who can't figure out why their sites with 1 million links rank well below sites with 1,000 links.
Wouldn't that have the effect of diminishing "secretive" sales of link juice.
I'm not sure.....but it sure as heck would make for interesting debates.
BTW....great coverage...and great commentary.
Dave
Within the SEO community I know that myweddingfavors.com, Brad Fallon of StomperNet/Stomping the Search Engines fame' s site, took a hit for over a month on 'wedding favors' searches. Not much name recognition in terms of brand but the site was written up in the NY Times as an internet success story and fairly recognizeable within SEM.
"Matt Cullen argument is shockingly uniformed."
It's Matt Cutts, not Matt Cullen. :) In my presentation, I noted that it was the FTC; Rand wrote that down as FCC (Rand, would you be willing to adjust the post to note that it was the FTC?). An example reference is www.ftc.gov/speeches/majoras/070117adresnewyear.pdf
Example quote:
"One area of marketing that is becoming increasingly popular is word-of-mouth marketing, sometimes called “buzz” marketing. The Commission received a complaint from a consumer advocacy group called Commercial Alert asking that the Commission issue guidelines requiring disclosure when consumers are paid to talk about a product. Last month, the FTC staff issued a response letter agreeing that when marketers pay consumers to advocate for products by word of mouth, such payment generally must be disclosed. Rather than setting out new guidelines, however, the letter pointed out that word-of-mouth marketing is covered by the Commission’s existing Endorsements and Testimonials Guides. The Guides require disclosure of material connections between a marketer and an endorser, that is, connections that might affect the weight or credibility of what the endorser says. This stems from the common sense principle that when advertisements feature the opinions of consumer endorsers, consumers expect the endorsers to be independent from the advertiser, unless they’re told otherwise."
So I was talking about the FTC, not the FCC. But the FCC has also taken related action on related ideas earlier this year. See for example https://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-272304A1.pdf in which the FCC fined several large companies over $10 million for payola (pay-for-play on the radio without disclosure). From the first paragraph of that url:
"Under the Consent Decrees, the broadcasters agree to pay a combined $12.5 million to close investigations into each broadcaster’s possible violations of the Commission’s sponsorship identification rules for the practice commonly referred to as “payola.” Specifically, the Consent decrees resolve allegations that the broadcasters may have accepted cash or other valuableconsideration from record labels in exchange for airplay of artists from those labels, without disclosing those arrangements."
(Emphasis mine) There's definitely a difference between the FTC and the FCC, but the urls above point out that both agencies have weighed in on the notion of payment without disclosure recently, and both say that paid endorsements should be fully disclosed.
Rand, the large company that was out of Google for 40+ days was WhenU. See https://www.benedelman.org/spyware/whenu-spam/ for example. Of course, he was dissatisfied that the company was out of Google for "only" 40+ days.
By the way, good job of capturing the various comments that were flying around the room. :)
Jac and stever, it was interesting to me too that Greg went after the people that build links via viral marketing.
Hi Matt,
This still seems somewhat confused to me as links can be built that a person would most likely ignore but are read just fine by a search engine. Also most sites couldn't be considered consumers, nor do they fall under "broadcast" guidelines of those two agencies. Basically, it's Google that has made links a currency via its algorithm--and especially with AdWords. ;D
I guess in an ideal world we'd be able to quickly determine who is the coolest or smartest or bestest with a few words and a click, but we've all had those friends that greased the wheels with a stick of gum or a meal or a backrub every now and then, and we didn't think less of them.
Hey 4 to one and you held your ground.... and we did not see any other engine present...
best panel I have been to in the past 3 years
and I agree with Mike that Google is not the government... thank god or it would be slow as hell
Thanks for your part of the presentation Matt, it was great to have you involved with it.
So sad that this is a short conference, hopefully I'll get to see you at Pubcon Vegas or maybe Chicago SES.
I look forward to hearing more from you and learning the ins and outs of Matt Cutts ;)
shoot me an email, it's in my comments on your site.
I'll be posting more pics soon. One already here for you ;)
Thanks, AussieWebmaster and Jonathan D. Looking at that picture, I still need to drop a few pounds. Sigh. :)
Nawww you looked great!
It was great to finally meet you face to face and be able to connect (as brief as it may have been) with you.
Matt - sorry for the delay in fixing up the posts. I've got the corrections made at this point. Let me know if you see anything else out of whack.
1. The FTC Rule on disclosure is always relative to the expectation of the consumer. When Doctor Marcus Welby, or rather the actor Robert Young, who portrayed the TV Doctor, pitched for Sanka there was no need for Robert Young to say: oh, I am getting paid for this ad. Consumer expected famous actors to be paid for their commercials -lots of paid link love to Sanka, an endorsement for money, and no disclosure requirement.
2. The recent WOMA campaings have not caused the FTC change their basic rule: disclosure of payment depends upon the ordinary consumer's expectation: does the ordinary consumer recognize that he or she is being pitched to?
3. Do consumers have any expectations about PR's being passed through? If not, and I suspect that they don't, there is no support to be had from the FTC's position ads/endsorsements. You have to have a consumer expectation to begin the FTC analysis.
4. The FCC payola scandal is just fraud and has nothing to do with these issues.
5. Sorry about the mistake about the name -I do know your name, but hockey season approaches and there are several hockey players named "Cullen", and none as far as I know named "Cutts". Sorry again.
Finally, you may be correct in your position about paid links passing PR, but you need to get a better argument for it.
Again, I'm bringing up product placements in movies, games, television, and print. I don't remember seeing any disclosure there. Are you going to tell me that's different? Sure, it's not marketers paying consumers, its marketers paying huge corporations. Does that mean I can buy a link from Warner Brothers or the Washington Post :) and get away with it?
What about blogs created by a company that fronts as a regular consumer (aka: Wal-Mart and their Across America blog)? I recall a public backlash but no mention for FTC violations. Would you ban this blog from passing link juice, ban the blog completely, or just chuckle because it's Wikipedia...er I mean Wal-Mart and look the other way?
There is no clear line here.
Thanks for the great summary of the conference Rand.
It seems to me that Google, who make billions with paid advertising are the wrong people to condemn others for profiting. I agree that paid links skew results, but there must be a better way to stem this tide other than having other webmasters rat on their competition.
I don't think paid links need to be totally eliminated, but some other mechanism needs to be put in place so this practise can be brought to light. Instead of banning paid links, why not institute some measures to make a viewer aware of advertising.
An informed public would take this into consideration when viewing such a site.
How to do this? Sorry, I'm not a Ph.D. Google?
Great post Rand, thanks for taking such good notes :)
I hope you will divulge on here some of the pricing info you share tomorrow.
This was the most 'entertaining' session I have attended so far......great coverage Rand. I agree that this debate is far from over and I don't see a resolution on this issue any time soon. :)
Another thorough and informative rundown, for those of us who can't make it all the way to San Jose (Forgive me. I haven't met my "bad pun" quota for the day.)
Thanks!
Oh, and as far as commercial sites not being designed to court links, I agree that it depends on the industry very much.
KatFrench said (Wed 8/22/07 at 01:04 AM):
"Oh, and as far as commercial sites not being designed to court links, I agree that it depends on the industry very much."
Kat, can you elaborate on this point please? :)
*looks around*
Hi, my name is Aaron and I am wondering how many thumbs up or down I will get for the solution to paid links.
All Google needs to do is start penalizing the buyer of paid links, so if they detect 5 paid links pointing at your site you lose 5 positions for your link text, 15 paid links? You are now on page #2 of organic search you freakin' spammer! HA!!!
Yes, Michael Martinez is a lively one (great recent blog posts BTW man), so is my old pal Graywolf. I believe Google needs a few anti-Google folks to keep them on their feet, this topic is definitely not boring and MUST be discussed, carry on...
Peace and Love,
Aaron Pratt
Hi Aaron,
I think the solution you pose has a fundemental flaw explained well by Todd Friesen.
"Outside of the link buyer and seller, no one (especially not the search engines) know who is involved in a link purchase. Thus, if SEOs ever find that Google will actually ban sites (or directly penalize them) for link purchases, those purchases will be made by competitors to attempt to fool the engines into believing that they are violating the guidelines and should be penalized."
Google bowling all over again!
Exactly. If a bunch of sites start dropping down the SERP due to penalties caused by competitors buying links there would be a bunch or really pissed off webmasters and a lot of bad press for Google (possibly even litigation).
<blockquote>those purchases will be made by competitors to attempt to fool the engines into believing that they are violating the guidelines</blockquote>
Yes, that has been said before by many who are considered "authorities" in SEO but the reality is it is rarely done and would be extremely hard to game. Think of what it would require? Why would someone want to risk their "paid" area that brings in income to hurt someone else? I think if you do the math (and algorithms do) you could give people with a few paid links from "known" areas a break BUT if they cross the line and have paid links from many domains they are done.
I just had someone remove a PR8 link from a paid area on their site that was pointing at me and guess what? More of my pages appear to have come out of the stealthy supplemetal index just as expected. Has Google already started to reduce the buyers footprint as well?
Google can ruin your day for sure but they are quick to forgive.
One more:
Robust paid linkage still works, I agree with the math from the SEO end, sorry Mr. Cutts! :)
Aaron, if I consider my plastic barrels are better than yours, how about I buy your site a few links? Your solution is a touch ingenuous.
Added: I see a few people added comments in the meantime. But one of the reasons why people don't do it at the moment is because paid links still apparently work quite nicely, Aaron!
Ok genius, why don't I buy your sites 10 links on TLA then and see how you feel about your solution then?
Interesting article. The biggest problem is there are paid links that add value and there are way too many that a just spam and link farms. Although in some cases it can be hard for an algorithm to tell the difference, that's what's needed instead of lumping them all together.
I have a outdoor and cycling gear search on my cycling website. There are a few 100 thousand affiliate links. I've done everything by Google's books with nofollow tags and redirect through a page that is disallowed in robot.txt. I don't know if I'm ranked higher by Google because of it or if I'm doing something wrong for the other search engines because over 95% of my search engine trafric is from Google.
Rand, thanks for the nice coverage.
Google is getting very clever everyday. Anyway, I found a spelling error:
(Have you had a chance to talk to some googlers? Thanks!)