Written by Adam Audette
November 6, 2007
Is Buying Links Actually Illegal?
More questions in our on-going "Ask the Experts" series:
Question
"Is buying links illegal? Why is it so important to SEO (it seems), and why is Google trying to arrest people for it?"
The answer panel for this question is:
Jeremy Weiss
Blue Phoenix Consulting
Chris Nielsen
Nielsen Technical Services
Michael Linehan
Marketing Alchemy
Thomas Schmitz
Marketing Piranha Blog
Portent Interactive
Reg Charie
DotCom Productions
Zero Grief Hosting
Is Buying Links Illegal?
Answers
Jeremy Weiss: Illegal? No. Against Google's guidelines? Yes. Why is Google trying to arrest people for it? Because they feel that people who buy and sell links are trying to game their system. On the flip side of the coin, many feel that Google is penalizing people for not buying those text links through them.
Chris Nielsen: Yes. If you buy or sell links you risk that knock on the door from the GPolice. The problem is that Google at one point decided that they would use how sites link to one another as a major part of how they determine the good sites from my sites. The problem is that since I can ask you for a link, or better yet pay you and hundreds of others for links, my not-so-good sites become easy to find like the good sites are.
It is a simple case of misuse and abuse, but unlike keyword stuffing and hidden text on a page, Google has seemingly said that linking is too good to simple stop paying attention to it, and so they are trying to hurt sites that they think are buying or selling links. Like most prohibition acts, this will only drive the link addicts underground and increase prices.
I predict that at some point they will change the way links are considered, so that it is less of a factor, and the effort required to gain much advantage from linking will be so costly that few will pursue it as they have in the past.
Michael Linehan: Imagine you go to some big corporate networking event. You are looking for someone to help improve your website's results. Someone you start chatting to (person A) enthusiastically recommends a particular company and introduces you to the CEO. You are feeling quite happy at your good fortune, due to the enthusiasm and sincerity of the recommendation. You think you have found a great resource.
Later you are chatting with another person (B) who equally enthusiastically recommends a different web company and introduces you.
Yet later, you accidentally find out that person A is a "recommender for hire". They'll recommend anyone for anything for a few bucks. On the other hand, person B's recommendation was sincere and given purely because they thought they were steering you to a quality resource.
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Which one are you going with?
- What kind of recommendations/links do you want to receive to help your own business?
- What kind of recommendations/links do you want to give others?
- What do you think is the best way to deal with links to build the quality of business you want to have five years from now?
- How would it reflect on you if you are putting links on your site just for the bucks? Someone goes to that other site and gets ripped off --- that's coming back on you.
The search engines want to give relevant results. They want links to be an indication of the quality of your products, services and site. Paid links certainly don't do that. My opinion is an ad should always be identifiable as an ad - and a paid link is just an ad.
Thomas Schmitz:
Buying links is not illegal, as in against the law. Google is not a government and does not have the authority to arrest anyone.
Now that we have established that Google is not going to handcuff you and haul you away, it is true that Google does not like paid links. Google and other search engines see these as an attempt to manipulate the organic search rankings. This is why Google so loudly discourages the practice and is trying its damnedest to identify and make paid links impotent.
Google also takes the stance that undisclosed paid links are a form of deceptive advertising, even having found an FTC quote to back this up. However, to me this seems to be a self-serving case of 'thou dost protest too much.'
Reg Charie: I would not say they will arrest you, (15 to life for linking), but they frown on it as they want links to grow "organically". If you are buying links then they will consider them of little value.
Buying links is not out of the question though. I have clients that pay to be on sites like The Thomas Register or Tourism portal sites where they must pay to advertise. IMO if the category is topical they will not ignore it.
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LED Digest 2524: Ask the Experts, Vol 2
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