they're not assuming anything. They're merely pointing out that a purchased link is not the same as an actual vote for a website in the form of an organic link. And that's 100% correct.

I do agree that a paid link doesn't, and shouldn't, have the same weight as an organic link but who says all links are for SEO? If i buy or sell a link for traffic google aren't going to be able to determine if that is the case and they are treating all purchased links as link schemes designed to skew the SERPS.

People were advertising with hard-coded links long before google made links a factor in their algo. If they want to continue using links as a factor in their algo it's them who has to find a way of identifying and not counting paid links.
This bully boy attitude of frightening people in to not advertising with links (and supposedly using adwords instead) is unfair.

They're not threatening to penalize anyone for links...they're threatening to penalize people for paid link schemes. There's a big difference between the two.

What makes it a scheme? if two people buy links what differences could make one a scheme and the other valid advertising?

Big G isn't anywhere near stupid enough to suggest that webmasters will be punished or penalized for participating in the Internet advertising marketplace. They're just looking for the scams (e.g. RLE, "Buy my PR5 Link for $5", etc.)

There is no way they can tell the difference. Hell, Even on the same page and for the same price two different people can have entirely different motives for purchasing the link.

If two people buy homepage links on slashdot it's perfectly feasible that one purchased the link for PR and the other purchased the link for traffic.
If someone is purchasing a link for traffic why should they be bundled in with the "link scheme" scammers who are trying to cheat the algo?

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Big G isn't anywhere near stupid enough to suggest that webmasters will be punished or penalized for participating in the Internet advertising marketplace. They're just looking for the scams (e.g. RLE, "Buy my PR5 Link for $5", etc.)

It's interesting they're encouraging people to advertise in their competitors directory.

This is too far...

The best and logical way would be that Google simply discard all the link exchanges, buyed links, and bad link schemes.

If Google would be GOOD at detecting link exchanges, brought links and bad link schemes then it can simply discard and filter them out; and sites would rank based only on the value from the remaining GOOD links.

Link exchanges are legitimate in some cases, also, Advertising is legitimate ( if one company advertise their product on an other website, it would result in a page and link on that website, right? which can be considered paid because the company paid for the advertising ).

Basically, all advertising in the net results in links, basically pad links ( banner links, text links, etc ). So Google wants to ban site that do adversiting? Do they want to remain the only wants who sell links ( Pay Per Click is also a form of buying links )
This is absurd.

I think Google is trying to scare people from doing link exchanges and buying links. Why? Because they are bad at detecting them. If they would be good at detecting them, they could simply discard and filter them. But Google algoritm is far from eficient at detecting link exchanges and brough links, they want to scare people from using it.

And also because Google algoritm is far from eficient at detecting them, this could result in many false positives, and it would be desastrous if they ban sites on this.

I do not think link exchanges is good, and I do not recommend it, I hate spam too. But banning sites for it, especially as the Google algoritm is not good at detecting legitimate link exchanges and bad link exchanges ( otherwise would simply discard them and would not be so big deal ) is too far.

Originally Posted by alex_m

Basically, all advertising in the net results in links, basically pad links ( banner links, text links, etc ). So Google wants to ban site that do adversiting? Do they want to remain the only wants who sell links ( Pay Per Click is also a form of buying links )

Well it IS fair to point out conflicts of interest. People can choose to agree or not about what they mean, but knowledge never hurt anybody.

It's interesting they're encouraging people to advertise in their competitors directory.

I've never fully understood why they do that myself. The only thing I can come up with is that Yahoo! was the original directory and their whole business model centered around the late-90s "portal" concept, so big G doesn't really view them as a true competitor.

alex_m: I would agree in most cases...sites shouldn't be punished for buying links and exchanging links about 90-95% of the time. The problem is the obvious SEO cases...PR(x) links for sale, SEO-based link exchanges, etc. If there's a trail that leads back to a suspect, hang 'em high. French law all the way on it.

I have to say that I've changed my tune since starting this thread, mainly thanks to the likes of ADAM and chrishirst, so thanks to everyone who replied

That's what we like to hear, mah brutha.

Learn at the feet of the Comic Book Guy and Carlito...we'll teach you how to be SEO-cool.

Big G isn't anywhere near stupid enough to suggest that webmasters will be punished or penalized for participating in the Internet advertising marketplace. They're just looking for the scams (e.g. RLE, "Buy my PR5 Link for $5", etc.)

That's the impression I get, too. Actually, I admit I'm glad to see them cracking down on link farms and the like. I get so much junk e-mail from junk sites it's quite a nuisance and while I totally understand everyone wants their site found, in most cases the sites are all ads and extremely little content. It's so obvious that those sites aren't out there as an information/content resource, they're just out there looking to get a few $$$ off Google AdSense.

I've been used and abused by men as much as Google has been used and abused by the money-grubbing public; I have to admit, I love it when they take measures to stop the insanity.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

This doesn't worry or bother me in the slightest. If anyone reported me for buying/selling/trading links, it's apparent from looking at the links I have to my sites that I don't...at all. I don't believe in buying a link for any reason other than traffic (i.e. advertising), and 99.9% of links present a negative ROI option in that regard for anything I'm doing. So I have no reason to.

As far as whether other people are worried...quite frankly, I have no sympathy for them. The ones that don't have a reason to worry can generally establish why they don't, and the ones that do have a reason to worry...well, they're the RLE crowd anyway and I don't have the time of day for them.

What does RLE crowd mean?

What you have described looks more like keywords spamming rather than anything else. Keyword stuffing or keyword spamming (as you wish to call it) is what Google penalized more and more.

Originally Posted by snappamedia

What does RLE crowd mean?

"Relevant Link Exchange".

What you have described looks more like keywords spamming rather than anything else. Keyword stuffing or keyword spamming (as you wish to call it) is what Google penalized more and more.

How did you come to that conclusion?

Originally Posted by elena29

What you have described looks more like keywords spamming rather than anything else. Keyword stuffing or keyword spamming (as you wish to call it) is what Google penalized more and more.

Mmmm I have to disagree with you there

Well keeping good practice wont harm you.

Google is a business running their operation the way they see fit. From an organic search results standpoint I don’t see where they owe us anything. Google can do as they see fit and we can choose to follow their "suggestions" – or not. They can then decide whether our sites are valuable enough to show up in THEIR search results – or not. I have no problem with that.

Some of their "suggestions" are threats that they surely know they can't appropriately enforce. But I am glad they keep trying because if they didn't noone would have any fear and we would be back to white keyword text on white backgrounds, etc. Fear is a powerful thing. You should always think twice before putting on the gray hat.

Reading Google’s guidelines gives an idea of what path you should go down. Is there propoganda in their guidelines? I believe so. But I believe what they do is NOT to make us pull our hair out, but rather to keep people (seo’s) from blatantly manipulating the system/algorithm. My advice is to take what you read with a grain of salt, and then go and look for a second opinion. When I hear someone has a great idea I don’t run out and implement it. I want to hear it from a second respected source, a third source, etc. Only then do I implement it. Now even this can backfire - i.e. reciprocal linking worked forever until boom went the dynamite.

Do your own SEO if possible. If you pay an seo company to do it (and there are good ones out there), they can get you results but the results will NOT last (get a second opinion on this if you don’t believe me). In fact the results can die as quickly as they were grown. So remember that the path you will go down changes often. And that's how Google wants it and plans to keep it. Ever-changing. By doing so, we can't know what exactly to do to manipulate the results. And if we find a way, we are one spider visit away from going: !#$%&@! I was #3 for my main keyword yesterday, and now I’m on the 11th page! Trying black hat techniques is a real risk/reward proposition - and the risk is often greater than the reward.

Apply common sense to the guidelines and stay committed to your web site. Doing that alone will keep you ahead of 90% of your competitors and the results will come. If you are not committed you will do a lot of work now, achieve some positive results, and then wither away when you quit staying up on things. Remember that Google knows it must provide reliable search results to continue being the force it has become in the search world. As long as you don’t get your site banned, if your site is a great resource for its intended target audience then ultimately Google will have no option but to promote your site. Because if they don’t they aren’t supplying those searching for sites such as yours the information they seek – and Google is without a doubt realizes as much - because that IS their business.


Jason

Well, link schemes like buying or selling links, link spam, reciprocal link with bad neighbourhoods can not boost your Page Rank as they have no value in terms of google. Google may take action any time against the sites involve in these type of schemes.

Why don't they just stop whining about their Link Algorithm and Page rank manipulation and get something which is good out of the website instead of measuring the quality of the website by other person linking to that website.

Their concept is stupid, each website has its own uniquness and if they are good at text search they can manipulate.

Google still ignores Meta Keywords, A W3C standard.

When the stocks surge they will get back to the work.

Quality of a the wesbsite is within that website, its not in someone else's.

Originally Posted by sri_gan

Why don't they just stop whining about their Link Algorithm and Page rank manipulation and get something which is good out of the website instead of measuring the quality of the website by other person linking to that website.

Search engine's don't 'understand' the text on a page. Rough analogy: assuming you don't speak Chinese, you could make an educated guess at whether a page with Chinese content was relevant to a search for "Chinese Phrase Here" by looking at things like the phrase occurrence in places like <title>, <h1>'s etc. But then imagine that you have another page with Chinese content on it with similar occurences of that phrase - how do you know which one to rank #1?

(In an ideal world) the links to a page can give valuable additional information. Anchor text can be a good descriptor of the linked page. Sheer volume of links can give an idea of the popularity/importance of a page - I said in an ideal world. This extra information can give a fuller picture of the page in question. But of course, links are abused and can give the impression that a page is a better match for a search than it should be. The solution isn't to just abandon the idea of gathering useful information about a page from links - it's to detect which links are there purely to manipulate rankings, and then ignore them.

Ummm...what?

sri_gan, there's a reason Google ignores keywords, and it has nothing to do with "W3C Standards". By the way, the <meta> tag itself is standard, as is the name attribute...but keywords is merely an extension and W3C doesn't recognize it as standard in and of itself. The reason why (i.e. that webmasters/SEO wannabes have been screwing with it for the past 10 years) is on this page:

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_meta.asp

In other words, Google ignores the tag because they have to. And W3C is okay with that.

This whole "Google should analyze the on-the-page factors and worry less about linking" argument holds no water either. On-the-page is even easier for someone to screw with than off the page. Years of hidden text, Javascript redirects, cloaking, and other stupid pet tricks have shown us this time and time again, and they'll continue to do so.

Not only that, most websites "suck" from a uniqueness point of view. There are so many people playing follow-the-leader, or using cookie cutter websites, or using some stupid template that they found on Template Monster, or jacking content, or about 100 other stupid things, that relatively little unique content exists on the Internet anymore. Where's the "quality" in that?

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Ummm...what?

LOL that's what I thought when I read what I'd written!

Originally Posted by sri_gan

Google still ignores Meta Keywords, A W3C standard. When the stocks surge they will get back to the work.

I ignore meta keywords too. You don't see 'em, they don't matter. Is my page about coolness because I said so?

Originally Posted by sri_gan

Quality of a the wesbsite is within that website, its not in someone else's.

I can't think of anything more bass-ackwards. Person goes to Google trying to find info about frogs. There are 2 (count 'em) pages on the web about frogs. Now Google has to compare those two pages (that are on different sites) against each other to figure out which one is more quality. That's the service Google provides. For free.

That's the whole purpose behind REAL SEO. Quality exists in absolute terms.