Why Paid Links That Pass PageRank Is A Bad Idea
Buying links to artificially boost PageRank has become quite common in recent years, despite obvious disapproval from Google.
During the last Google PageRank update (October / November) many sites got severely penalized by Google for buying or selling links that pass PageRank. (Several of these sites took a big hit, such as dropping from a PR 6 to a PR 3)
Although many webmasters have reported that the drop in PageRank has not adversely affected their rankings in Google (organic traffic), the long-term impact is not yet evident…
Note: I recently posted an article here titled The Truth About The NoFollow Attribute where I explain the significance of Google PageRank as well as the NoFollow attribute. Suggest you refer to this article for a better understanding of what is meant by “PageRank” and “NoFollow”, if you are not familiar with these terms.
Paid Links and Link Schemes
Google is very clear about the fact that paid links that pass PageRank is in violation of their webmaster guidelines and can have a negative impact on your site’s ranking in their search results.
“Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating”
“Some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results”
Google specifically includes “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank” as an example of a link scheme.
Source: Google – Link Schemes
In fact, Google even goes as far as encouraging people to report any site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank.
Source: Google – Why should I report paid links to Google?
What about paid advertising links?
This is what Google has to say about paid advertising links:
QUOTE
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
UNQUOTE
Source: Google – Why should I report paid links to Google?
When may it be worth it to buy links that pass PageRank?
In principle, it is not worth it if you are serious about search engine optimization. The fact that many webmasters have gotten away with it for a long time does not mean the risk of being discovered by Google is low.
Google is continuously working on improving their already advanced algorithm and trying to outsmart them for short-term gain is not very smart. I guess the question should be: “Do you feel lucky?”
I can only think of one case scenario where you may not care about the potential negative impact of buying links that pass PageRank, namely if you have no interest in how well your site ranks in Google.
Some webmasters could not care less about Google and PageRank. They are mainly interested in buying links on high traffic sites in order to get traffic. They do not rely on organic traffic. This is often the case when a webmaster is using a squeeze page, simply to build his list or subscriber base.
On the other hand, if you are serious about building a website or blog that will rank well in the search engines then I would strongly advise you against paying for links that pass PageRank.
All the best,
Francois du Toit
Your Host Francois du Toit
