Paid Text Link Schemes (see Part 1 for Context)
Are Paid Text Links Still Working for FTD, 1800flowers & Proflowers?
After all, Google did Update their Backlink Data on
By Mark McFall
Back in November 2007, I decided to review three of the most popular floral entities on the internet www.ftd.com, www.1800flowers.com, and www.proflowers.com for any potential illicit practices or patterns related to manipulating the search engines. In that study I became aware of those floral companies employing a Black Hat SEO tactic termed by Google as “paid text link schemes.” For those of you who may not know what “paid text links” are, they are purchased links from other websites or blogs that are intended for the sole purpose of passing along PageRank which exposes a hole in Google’s algorithm. You see, according to Google:
“Webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.” (Citation)
Though the idea behind this method of ranking websites does make sense as it is based largely on a voting scale, some companies have exploited Google’s technology in an effort to manipulated and artificially rank their websites. In Google’s eyes, you can’t buy votes rather they must come naturally.
Since Google has made it known that it pulls results based on how many websites are linking to a particular website the result is that link brokers have sprung up all over the internet. Aggressive floral companies like FTD, 1800Flowers, and Proflowers, are drawn by the lure of what’s called Black Hat SEO or Spamdexing for the purpose of instant financial gain.
In my original study back in November of 2007 I demonstrated using Google's own site command (e.g. link:www.ftd.com etc...) and showed backlink snapshots of non-relevant websites that are primarily responsible for supporting the three floral company’s strong web-presence through the use of paid text links. While the images focused only these two link supporters: “Leanne Wildermuth” and “Potty Training” (see original study), the fact of the matter was that as you examined backlink after backlink the evidences mounted; especially when many of the backlink pages were (and are) enticing you to buy text links as you yourself carefully scroll through.
Well, since the time of my original piece a peculiar situation has arisen. The link broker who is responsible for placing those ads on those websites, text-link-ads.com, has been penalized by Google and no longer shows up in Google’s search-able results.(except by exact URL address). But what does this mean? Did the penalization have ripple effects?
Well, on January 11th, 2008 Google updated its backlink data and guess what? The backlinks for the three floral companies are still there and Google is still recognizing the links I originally focused in on as supporting these three floral entities strong web-presence. Looking at all three of these floral companies supporting backlinks and the pattern of paid text links suggests that Google only penalized the seller (text-link-ads.com) and not the provider (e.g. Leanne Wildermuth & Potty Training) or the buyer (FTD; 1800Flowers; Proflowers): Here is a side by side snapshot of the backlinks for these floral companies with the paid text link providers that I originally focused in on highlighted in red:
[images were taken on January 14th 2008 after the recent backlink update. The same paid text link providers from November 2007 are still there. Pick up conversation below and to the right]
In actuality, these three floral companies have bought their way to the top by exploiting a hole in Google's technology. All is not lost, however, Google does want to know of situations like this by asking people to report it here. The problem though is that Google is too big to respond quickly as the given information must pass through many channels within Google. And what will they do once it reaches the right Google person? After all, these three floral entities spend millions of advertising dollars with Google. How will that effect Google's judgement? While one can't help but wonder, I do have confidence that Google will eventually react. The funny part about all this is that these three floral competitors are apparently using the same text link broker which makes them an easy target for these type of reviews. If they would have used different brokers, well, none of this would probably have come to light. As an SEO myself, my educated guess about all this is that each of these floral companies are using different SEO Firms but each of the Firms are outsourcing to one source: text-link-ads.com. Since Google has penalized the main source, it is likely that the ripple effect will take time but it will come. Links that are associated with bad neighborhoods almost always become themselves a bad neighborhood. Any way, that's my reflection on all this.
Even by a cursory look at these images one can arrive at suspicion. After all, what is the likely hood that by natural process this is real? Slim to none given the fact that there are millions of websites out there.