11/19/2007
By Mark McFall
What are paid text links? Paid text links are links intended for the purpose of primarily passing along Page Rank. However, according to Google’s new appended guideline, it is now considered a violation. In that regard, I decided to randomly pick three well known floral services in an effort to gather information on any potential guideline violation regarding text link buying.
I figured that by picking three companies that maybe there would be similarities present between them (if indeed they were actively practicing this technique) that would help bring to light a pattern that could easily be followed. For my task, I picked www.ftd.com, www.1800flowers.com, and www.proflowers.com.
Just so we are all on the same page, let’s read what Google says about this issue:
Why should I report paid links to Google?
Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.
However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.
Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:
- Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag
- Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file
Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank. If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank, let us know.We’ll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links.
Clear enough? I’d say so. In fact, Google even calls it’s users into action on the whole ordeal. As we look below at some images I posted of backlink results for each of the three players feel free to click on anyone of them to be taken directly to Google’s search of those backlinks in real-time.
What did I find? Well, a definite pattern. A pattern between these entities is significant because a pattern suggests that many (but not all) of the backlinks are artificial and not natural. In particular, a cursory look below will reveal a suspicious page-link common to all three of the floral entities.
On that, look below at the images for the Title Tag that begins with “Leanne Wildermuth.” See it? Once you click into that page from the search engine there appears to be paid text links off to the lower right of the screen.
Also below notice the Title Tag that begins with “Potty Training” in two of the images (the other “Potting Training” page is located on page 2). See it? Once you click into that page from the search engine you will discover that it too appears to contain paid text links.
The fact of the matter is that as you examine backlink after backlink a growing suspicion begins to build. Especially when some of the backlink pages are enticing you to buy text links as you yourself carefully scroll through. What will be interesting is that if Google gets wind of these giant floral companies manipulative behavior what will happen? After all, all three of those floral entities spend millions of advertising dollars every year with Google. One can’t help but wonder how objective Google will be should all this be confirmed by the Google people. In any event, many (but not all) of the backlinks below appear off topic and not even remotely related to flowers which ought to be another clue. [see Part 2 for update]
