Mild-mannered webmaster by day …
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?
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3 Responses for "Google and the hypocrisy of paid link directories"
I personally believe that link isn’t necessarily irrelevant to your website’s content just because it was a paid link. There are some really outstanding (and objective) reviews written by bloggers. I think Google should come up with much better solution to provide “relevant” results in their algorithms. A lot of small businesses will be hurt if they actively pursue this avenue. Too bad that neither Yahoo! nor MSN can put any significant completion in this plain. Unfortunately Google had become not only synonymous with online searching (”to google something up”) but it also had become major objective when it comes to SEO. Unfortunately in SEO, Google generally take the center stage.
I believe that google is totally to blame for this link selling business going on - they expect the world to tow their line and fit into their solution. Look at what happened with no-follow - nothing positive came out of it for anyone except google - bloggers still get spammed!
Google should find a more effective response to a challenge to their business - selling ads for websites - that does not depend on everyone else putting on their best behavior.
I can hardly imagine what the SERPs would look like if Google filtered all sites that buy and sell text links (assuming they could detect them).
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