Search guru-supreme Danny Sullivan got an answer out of Google this weekend concerning the search engine's long-suspected practice of punishing websites in search results when they are alleged to have sold outbound links not including a nofollow tag. It's a controversial policy that has an unclear impact on the search landscape.
As critics point out, however, Google still allows advertisements for paid links to be run through the Google Adwords service. Though they don't pass on pagerank, AdSense ads themselves are of course paid links that do deliver traffic for a fee. Perhaps Google just doesn't like paid links that they don't get a piece of the payment for.
Links bought with the intention of increasing not just traffic but conferring pagerank authority from the seller to the buyer may in many cases give artificial authority to the sites of link buyers. Punishing this practice, though, may hurt the pagerank of reputable sites that the public fully expects to appear high in search results but whom happen to sell links.
Like any system for determining worth, counting inbound links is now as open to gaming as anything. Where the line lies between gaming Google and engaging in legitimate commerce is ultimately subjective. Google is in all likelihood not even going to try to go after all sellers of paid links; just the most "egregious violaters." As Sullivan says, though, it is Google's search engine - none of us have a right to any particular treatment in it.
For extensive and informed discussion on the topic, see Sullivan's coverage at his group blog Search Engine Land.
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thank god
Posted by: user | October 8, 2007 4:20 PM
do you know if this policy excludes paid links that have the "nofollow" attribute (and therefore don't transfer pagerank)?
sean
Posted by: Sean Tierney | October 8, 2007 4:37 PM
Sean, I presume that nofollow makes everything cool - surely being able to sell adspace that links back has got to be acceptable, no?
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | October 8, 2007 4:44 PM
Sean,
Adding nofollow to a link makes it perfectly fine with Google.
Posted by: Jeremy Luebke | October 8, 2007 4:48 PM
Generally the sites that engage in this behavior are of poor quality to begin with, so in nearly all cases any such punishment is fitting.
Posted by: AGronowski | October 8, 2007 6:18 PM
My web services make almost as much off sponsored links as subscriptions. I only accept ads that are related to (but not competing with) the service, but advertisers expect no nofollow attributes. I get little traffic from Google in the first place; advertisers pay for servers, Google traffic does not. Paying users come from fanatic users telling their friends and blogging about it, not searches.
Telling me to give up the revenue that keeps things running because their search engine is too stupid to deal with those links is unreasonable. Boo on Google, I'll get along without you.
Posted by: Dan Grossman | October 8, 2007 8:54 PM
quote from article: "Like any system for determining worth, counting inbound links is now as open to gaming as anything"
Actually this is not true - as things like GoogleRank or Technorati authority begin to convey more and more value its worth considering what systems are more open to gaming than others. For instance one system that we use to convey value is the passing of scrip - money to one another. However since, at each link of the chain both parties evaluate carefully the 'value' of the thing they are receiving. Therefore it is considerably harder to 'game' and the scrip - ie 'money' tends to accumulate at the organizations that generate the most value. Yes, I'm deliberately over simplifying to make the point.
Posted by: miles thompson | October 8, 2007 9:05 PM
From the article: "Perhaps Google just doesn't like paid links that they don't get a piece of the payment for."
Are Google AdWords not served via JavaScript? Is it not still very well known that Google searchbots do not read JavaScript (to-date)? If you serve up a number of your own out-bound text-links via JS, then you will have no issue (grant you don't get the benefits of the PageRank, etc.)!
Posted by: Martin Ringlein | October 9, 2007 4:29 AM
My site has had a big problem with PR. Google has hit my site, moving it from a PR4 to a 1. My site really isnt out to change the world of tech and make millions of dollars, but really its just not the point. I only had 1 Text Link Ad on my site, so it was an easy decision to just get rid of it.
Posted by: Steven Finch | October 9, 2007 4:42 AM