If you haven’t already, check out Halfdeck’s post about objections to Google’s paid link policy. Halfdeck has collected 24 arguments against Google’s stance on paid links (and ruthlessly demolished the vast majority of them).

Halfdeck inspired me to leave a comment/mini-rant on his blog post. I decided it was worth republishing here so my readers (all three of you) can enjoy it in all its glorious crankiness:

The only argument I can really sink my teeth into is #22:

“Google, you’re being hypocritical. You said Yahoo Directory is ok because people pay for the review, not the link. So if someone pays me, I review his/her link, and then add the link to my site, why should I get penalized?”

I just paid $199.00 to get my company’s website listed in Business.com, because I kept reading over and over that you need to list your website in “quality paid directories” like this. Who decided Business.com was quality? A quick scan of my subcategory and I see tons of poorly categorized listings. I dig a little deeper and find a number of MFA sites and dead links.

Then I discover that out of hundreds of links on that page, only 6 were marked (paid), including mine. WTF? This is a paid directory, is it not? So I ask customer service about it. Answer: “The listings that do not have the word ‘paid’ have been with Business.com since 1999.” Translation: Sucks to be you. Now hand over that $199.00 and STFU.

Business(.com) as usual.

What do you think about Google’s stance on paid links? Should “quality” paid directories be allowed to collect money for link “reviews” without being labeled black-hat, link-selling spamgoblins?

New here? You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!