Community Discussion

Paid Links Violate Google's Guidelines

February 6, 2014
angie828 Author Level X3

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Just last week, Google hit a French link network that was in violation of their guidelines and then stated that a Germany network would be the next one that was hit. for those that were hit in the French link network, a notification should have been received from Google as well as a ranking reduction most likely. Earlier in the week, Matt Cutts, head of search spam, posted on twitter that another German violation of paid links has been spotted and basically warned them about it. His exact tweet was:

A reminder(in German) that paid links that pass PageRank violate our guidelines.

It was also posted in a blog post that states unnatural links might receive penalties and that goggle reserves the right to do that. All types of unnatural links are explained in this article. If your site was by chance hit, then it also describes how you can file a reconsideration request.
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Comments 5

February 7, 2014
ricky44
I guess that Germany should have seen fair warning coming then if it happened to France!

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February 10, 2014
Beverly
It surprises me how so many webmasters and bloggers are willing to risk their own site's authority status to sell/buy do follow backlinks.

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mqss
It surprises me how so many webmasters and bloggers are willing to risk their own site's authority status to sell/buy do follow backlinks.


Google is targeting link networks, because link networks work as long as they are private and not accepting massive number of customers. Paying for a homepage link from high authority site in similar niche is still the most effective link building technique in my opinion.

There is 0% risk involved when:
  • Links are placed close to head (power of footer and probably even sidebar links is deducted)
  • Site isn't publicly selling links (no sales page, just a contact form without "Ask us for pricing" kind of text)
  • There aren't many spots open (If there are 10 links to non related sites, it triggers an alarm)
  • Link spots don't change often

Basically with 20 paid PR3+ niche related homepage links there is almost no limitation on what you couldn't rank. Paid Links Violate Google

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blueeyes
I agree with you Beverly. And if they knew or had been warned, it is something you would have thought would have never happened.

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February 13, 2014
tangee
Either Germany was not paying attention or they just don't care.

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