Bulk paid links - bad for site?

**philhancox** · 09-11-07

I'm currently on a work placement for a small company with a website that's about a year old. They contract a search engine marketing company for their seo. A high up guy is well chuffed that a) the PR has been increased 3 units in the recent PR update and that b) the number of incoming links has increased several thousand in barely two weeks.
I know almost certainly that a large majority of these links are simply paid links in directories that are presumably bulk purchased. Isn't this potentially damaging for the site, short and/or long term? And secondly, I've been reading that the TBPR is almost irrelevant and not exactly identical to the actual PR so is he being too optimistic?

**DioBach** · 09-11-07

I'd tell him not to worry about his PR, it has no effect on the site's placement and ultimately that's more important. Case in point, one of my site's has had its PR halfed in the last updated. However, traffic via Google has nearly doubled. The only people who really care about PR are link sellers and buyers, increasingly, a risk process given Google's current war against such practices.

The low quality directory links probably will give you a short term boost, but long term, concentrate on getting quality links from authority sites - it's far more beneficial in the long run than the amount of PR you have.

**Mogga** · 09-11-07

How to report paid links

**philhancox** · 09-11-07

Originally Posted by Mogga

How to report paid links

Lol yes I remember reading this post and it partly influences my op. But is paid link building what most seo companies do? Is it a common strategy?

**DioBach** · 09-11-07

When you say paid links in directories - do you mean he just paid to use a directory submission service, or he's actually buying links directly like through a link broker or somthing similar? There's a bit of a difference between the two.

**philhancox** · 09-11-07

I'm not entirely certain to be honest. What is a link broker, and what's the difference between the two?
Thanks for your comments, I'm no seo expert but I'm learning.

**DioBach** · 09-11-07

Well, a directory submission service is when you pay say £50 and the service submits you to a few hundred directories (laughing all the way to the bank at the sucker who just paid them)

A link broker is someone like Text-link-ads.com where you'd got to buy links on content sites rather than in directories, and as such, you can zero in on relevant content and then rent a link on it with your choosen anchor text. It's a lot more effective than submitting to directories, which is why it's so frowned about by Google.

**SimonDance** · 09-11-07

Paid links don't merely reference paid directories, but also might consider paying a web master for his time to download and edit a relevant page of his site.

Directories like Botw also charge a review fee, but shouldn't be put into the same bracket as PHPLD's.

DioBach is right about the link brokers, and Text-Link Ads took a hit recently from the Big G. Have a look at the webmaster guides - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769"

In my view, Google will not penalise your site for having spammy links to your site, it will only discount the links (pass no link value). If you, however, are selling links or 'excessively' reciprocating just to get higher rankings then the fruits will only short term and you will get whacked.

Quoting philhancox: "But is paid link building what most seo companies do?":

Good (ethical/ Best practise) link builders, like my company, will mix free, paid and reciprocal links to high profile websites, directories and blogs only. However our focus is firmly rooted in increasing traffic/ conversions as opposed to being obsesses with pagerank. So whilst other SEO firms might submit to 1000 directories or outsource their link building overseas, we feel its a lot better to focus upon quality - both in your website and the prospective link partners you approach.

I'd be interested as to how long your companies rating last, as Google is getting smarter in sniffing out those spammy paid link truffles....

Si

ALSO...

I wanted to say that Link Building should be a continual process, and should be part of a coordinating online marketing campaign, which might consider social media marketing, PPC and first and foremost sorting out any 'on the page factors'.

**philhancox** · 09-11-07

Oh right, I see. Looking at the amount of backlinks they all appear to be directories and the link is usually in a sidebar entitled 'paid links' 'sponsored links' 'partners' or 'friends'. They also have a few paid blog posts, that kind of thing.
So I assume this might be fair game as they are essentially 'adverts'?

// Posted before reading SimonDances comment. That clears a lot up, thank you! I'm also very interested in seeing how long the rating lasts, if only to prove a point...

**nick279** · 15-11-07

As far as I know - you should stay away from paid links unless they are done fairly 'stealthily'

The big G doesn't like any site purposely selling on bulk(sitewide)/sponsored links for search engine ranking purposes for that reason I still promote good SEO paid directory submission far more than spammy looking paid TLAs all normally linking to off-topic sites!

Your site can't get harmed from people linking to you - and any paid links don't actually hurt you but won't really help either (as their PR has been massivley reduced)

TLAs took a massive hit from G as did most of it's most profitable customers (in terms of link value)

Other than paid directories - you can also approach potential sites with a good descriptive offer with a decent price tag. 9/10 they are happy to take some money for it but remember try to get related links!!!

**drivetowin** · 15-11-07

Originally Posted by nick279

Your site can't get harmed from people linking to you

That's not 100% true but that's a whole area of black hat SEO which should not be discussed on a public forum

**philhancox** · 15-11-07

So if I can try and confirm the SEO value/Google's happiness with:

Paid directory submissions (even if the directory just a clone of a million poorly put together directories)?
Sponsored links/partner/friend links that reside on the sidebar of every page of these directories instead of or in addition to a directory listing?

I understand that links in true content sites that are related etc are good, but I want to know about these additional links which have been gained purely to increase the quantity of links and not the quality.
Perhaps the ratio of quality:quantity links is important?

**philhancox** · 15-11-07

BTW I think i just realised what Diobach was talking about in terms of link brokers etc. The sponsored links in the sidebar are not like Google Adsense, Text Link Ads etc they are literally just

Site 1
Site 2
Site 3

Ironically, all the sites in this list are all optimised by the same agency in the majority of the inbound links I have found.

**DioBach** · 15-11-07

Originally Posted by philhancox

Paid directory submissions (even if the directory just a clone of a million poorly put together directories)?

Zilch if it's one of a million clones. There are only a handful of directories paid or otherwise that potentially could help your rankings. BOTW, Yahoo and DMOZ are about all you'd really want to be in.

Originally Posted by philhancox

Sponsored links/partner/friend links that reside on the sidebar of every page of these directories instead of or in addition to a directory listing?

Pretty meaningless as G can detect them and stops them passing any real link juice.

Good, relevant inline content links are the best and the ones most likely to send you up the SERPs