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Google’s Matt Cutts is once again weighing in on the sponsored blog posts issue, this time referring to “sponsored conversations”. It seems like this topic seems to come up on Matt’s blog at least once a month now and his (and also Google’s) stance on sponsored posts and links haven’t changed a bit.
If you aren’t familiar with the ongoing debate, the concern for Google is with websites posting favorable reviews and links to another website without including the rel=”nofollow” tag in the link code. On the surface, Google’s position on this issue seems perfectly reasonable and correct. Why should a poor website move up in the search rankings simply because they bought a review on a popular blog? In my opinion, it shouldn’t. Many internet marketers, however, also make a valid argument. In this hyper-competitive day and age online, it can be very difficult to keep up with the many marketers using so-called “black-hat” tactics without using a few questionable techniques themselves.
As an online marketer myself, I can certainly relate to this concern. It doesn’t take a lot of keyword research in Google before you will find a website ranked highly that really doesn’t belong. A quick lookup of the site’s backlinks will often show some questionable links and likely include paid links and blog posts.
The fact that Cutts continues to bring up the issue of sponsored links on his blog tells me one of two things. Either Google is extremely serious about this issue and is going to crack down hard on anyone caught buying/selling paid links without the nofollow tag, or that Google is really having a tough time cracking down on this issue. My honest guest is that both are likely true.
I have no doubt that Google is fine-tuning its abilities to detect these links and will heavily penalize those caught in the act. So, what is an honest marketer to do? At this point in time, I recommend being very selective and careful if you are going to continue buying links and sponsored ads that pass pagerank. A few discrete ones here and there will likely go unnoticed, but continual or obvious use will eventually be caught. If you are finding sites ranking ahead of yours due to improper linking, it is important that you report the paid links to Google. It might take them a while to get to your report, but Mr. Cutts has made it clear that they are rapidly going through submissions.
Human nature and tough competition will always result in people “bending” or flat-out breaking the rules. Personally, I can’t sleep at night knowing that I’m acting unethically or unfairly gaming the system. Using these inappropriate link-building tactics will likely work for a time, but it always catches up with you. If you still feel it is your best interest to continue breaking Google’s rules, make sure you make your money before getting caught! I’m not sure how many second chances Google will be giving out on this issue!
Before ending this post, I do need to mention one thing. As Matt Cutts mentions in his blog post, it is perfectly allowable to buy links, sponsor blog posts, or buy any other advertising. The point is that any link to your site that is the result of the linking webmaster receiving money or other benefits needs to include the rel=”nofollow” tag to prevent the passage of pagerank. These types of marketing can still be great for driving targeted traffic to your website, just don’t use them to increase PR.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s an interesting topic, Justin, and I’m thinking that it’s also a dangerous topic in a way.
I tend to write a lot of reviews on my blog, and I don’t get paid for any of them. I made that a policy a long time ago, and the only review I wrote when the person knew it was coming was when I held a contest and that was the prize.
Now, Google could come along and ban my site for writing paid reviews, but I haven’t written any. I also haven’t added the “nofollow” because, one, my blog is a dofollow blog, and two, this is supposed to be America, where we’re innocent until proven guilty, and one would hope that I wouldn’t be presumed as guilty if they came to me and wanted me to prove that I wasn’t paid. I mean, how would one prove that something didn’t happen if there was no prior contact anyway?
So, we’ll see how it all goes. I do fully understand, though, their issue with those folks who write paid reviews, and it can be traced back to a certain company, because they feel it throws off the algorithm. However, in the long run, just because something may be paid for doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not the best place for a person to go for whatever their needs happen to be, right?
Mitch’s last blog post..The Keys
You bring up a great point, Mitch. I think that Google isn’t going to penalize you on its own unless your html code makes it obvious that it is a paid review (ie coding from a website like payperpost). My concern is if a competitor reports one of my sites as having paid links in order to gain an advantage. Hopefully Google will honestly look into these reports before taking any drastic action. I would be interested in seeing if anyone from Google has addressed either of our concerns yet.
I’ll have to search around and see what I can find.
Since I don’t see it as competitors, I’ll say that it depends a lot of whether someone gets irritated enough at a blogger that they then go and report someone to Google. I don’t think either of us will have that kind of worry, but it’s really no matter because all that might happen is that you won’t end up with any page rank, and let’s face this fact; almost all of our blog posts have no page rank anyway.
very nice and informative post justin, you have elaborately learn whole topic, and now i am convinced with your thoughts, i have made my blog yesterday dofollow for commentators because i thought they will have some benefits if they are genuine, for us we can easily judge our readers and their comments but for algorithm it is more difficult then we estimating. very serious issue this is. hope that google will find any way to fight against this dramatic issue.