A Word About Buying Reviewed Links for Page Rank

Yes, I said for PAGE RANK!

I am humbly requesting Mr. Cutts to change the language of his request for people to report paid links, to “report automated paid links” or something more along those lines for the purpose of reflecting the difference between automated linking systems and human-reviewed links. I provide two reasons below.

The standpoint of most SEOs is that buying links is a legitimate form of advertising, especially if the words “sponsored” or “paid” appears above the ad.

Google’s standpoint (in this case Matt Cutts) and that of many bright-white-hat SEOs (as in Danny Sullivan) is that “advertising” using links is fine, but they should be differentiated from non-paid links with the use of nofollow tags, javascript redirects, etcetera. This will ensure that the links are being purchased for advertising, as opposed to purchasing links for Page Rank.

This all relies on the idea that everyone - from the small mom-n-pop hobby site, to the large corporate mega-sites - should have an equal, fighting chance at showing up for any given search query on Google. However, it is my view that this assumption is fundamentally and fatally flawed. Here’s why:

#1 Large corporate sites already have a huge advantage over smaller sites, no matter how good the content on the smaller site is. Their brand recognition alone makes it more likely that they will receive more incoming links. So giving smaller sites the ability to purchase a human-reviewed, page-rank-passing listing actually levels the playing field more than dissalowing the practice completely.

#2 If someone asks you to link to them, it is reasonable for you to request compensation for the time and effort it takes to review their site and consider linking to it. Nobody likes to work for free. And just because you do not work for free, does not mean that you don’t “vouch” for the site should you end up linking to it from your directory, sponsored link section, or even within the body content of one of your pages.

IMPORTANT: This is about human-reviewed links from websites that actually take the time to check out the quality of the submitting site. The submitting site doesn’t have to be a big name, have the best content, or a good design. The point is that someone has looked at it to make sure they are not trying to rip people off, serve up meaningless content (as in incoherent scraper sites), promote illegal goods and services, or utilize spamming techniques.

If a website is serious enough about the success of their business to pay a listing review fee, and the reviewer finds their content to be of some value, what the heck is the problem with passing page rank through on the link? The link buyer is being proactive like any good business person, and the seller gets compensated for their time, bandwidth and other assets, such as their own hard-earned Page Rank. So again, what is the problem?

Matt Cutts, please change your language on this blog post so people understand that buying and selling human-reviewed links is a legitimate way to increase traffic, brand awareness and, yes, even Page Rank.

By the way, unwise webmasters who have a rubber-stamp policy when it comes to reviewing links are hurting the reputation of their own website, both in the eyes of the visitor and the search engine. If they want to do that, let them. It is their business mistake to make.

I know this is a hot topic and there are some great points coming from either side of the discussion. Please feel free to share yours below. I am always open to changing my mind, but so far the benefits of allowing human-edited paid links to pass on page rank far outweigh the disadvantages for both search engines and end users. And I won’t even get into things like the Yahoo Directory, which I DID nofollow because it is MY Prerogative to do so - not Google’s.

According to a Digg entry I just read titled FDA to Regulate Vitamins Like They’re Pharmaceutical Drugs? the Food and Drug Administration is once again trying to get a handle on the largely unregulated health supplement industry. This time, however, they are expanding the campaign to include “complimentary” and “alternative” medicine.

I followed the link and read the docket cited: # 2006D-0480. Here are some quotes:

The term “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) encompasses a wide array of health care practices, products, and therapies that are distinct from practices, products, and therapies used in “conventional” or “allopathic” medicine.

So CAM means anything that isn’t “conventional” and the FDA wants to define “conventional” for us. Or, more likely, the pharmaceutical industry wants to tell the FDA how to define it. But that might just be my tinfoil hat talking.

“First, depending on the CAM therapy or practice, a product used in a CAM therapy or practice may be subject to regulation as a biological product, cosmetic, drug, device, or food (including food additives and dietary supplements) under the act or the PHS Act.”

So CAM can include dietary supplements. They’ve been after this one for a long time now. Maybe they’ll get it this time? And second, it can include a “device”. So, as the Digg above suggests, would massage stones become a medical device? What about those ionic bracelet thingies, or healing crystals?

ALTERNATIVE medicine should be just that. It is an “alternative” to paying out the nose to have a doctor tell you A: Something you already know B: Something that is untrue or C: Send you to someone else so you can repeat and get answers A or B.

Disclaimer:
Today might be a bad day for me to blog about this topic. See, I hurt my shoulder snowboarding over the winter, and in the last couple of months I have been to the Emergency Room, an Orthopedic Surgeon, a Massage Therapist and a Chiropractor.

The ER took X-rays and said it was just sore and needed to be in a sling. The Ortho said never to wear a sling because the muscles got stretched too much and needed to strengthen up. The massage gal said it came out of alignment and scar tissue was developing on the traumatized muscle, and that I should let it rest. The chiropractor put some electrodes on my shoulder and shocked me for about ten minutes, billed me and sent me home.

After all this time I still have no idea what is wrong with my shoulder, and none of them would refer me to get an MRI. God forbid we actually KNOW what is wrong so it can be treated instead of lining the pockets of “conventional” and “alternative” doctors, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies (I have been popping Advil like Pez for months), etcetera.

Someone made an interesting point on the blog. If the FDA can’t keep drugs like Vioxx and Zelnorm from hitting the market before proper testing is done to show they don’t give people heart attacks, can’t keep ecoli-contaminated lettuce off the shelves, and can’t keep half the dogs and cats in the US from dying of kidney failure from poisoned food - How do they have time to worry about how much dandelion root I eat?

Catalyst Online posted a blog entry about a Trademark Bill passed in Utah recently. Although the post is a few weeks old and was mentioned elsewhere, I only just got around to reading it.

Here is the gist of it:
The Utah legislature passed a new law under the Trademark Protection Act that prohibits people from bidding on ads that are triggered by trademarked keywords on sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

So if you live in Utah and have been making money off of PPC arbitrage for terms like “Nordictrack treadmills” you might want to move over the hills and set up shop here in Colorado. We serve “real” beer here, and the snowboarding / skiing is better anyway. ;-P

On a side note, I listened to Heather Frahm speak at SES in Chicago last year, and have since been pointing certain pharmaceutical leads over to her blog at Catalyst Search Marketing. There are certain legal issues involved in the healthcare and pharmacy industry that are best handled by people who specialize in that area. If you are in a regulated industry like pharmaceutical drug manufacturing, go talk to Heather and don’t trust your business to “just any SEO company”.

I just received an email from Water for Life USA announcing a competition for affiliates and thought I would pass it on to our readers who run fitness content websites. The deal is pretty simple, really: The affiliate who sells the most water ionization systems between now and September 30th wins a fully-paid trip to their choice of any of the 5-star luxurious Mayan Sea Garden or Mayan Palace resorts.

Despite their obvious need of an Internet marketer to tell them how much Internet users hate loud music when they visit a website, the accommodations are top-shelf. The trip you win from this water filter affiliate competition is valued at over $2800. Not only that, but every sale brings you about $300! To learn more or sign up to be a Water for Life affiliate, click here. (aff)

From what I have seen, Water for Life has a very liberal policy on PPC bidding. Their brand is recognized from much of the other advertising they do, so it would be wise for smart PPC marketers to capitalize on some arbitrage traffic. Otherwise, you can’t go wrong with creating unique, interesting, informative presale copy for organic rankings. Good luck!

For consumers who want to learn more about water ionizers.
For affiliates who want to learn more about the Water for Life affiliate program.

Always at the cutting edge of affiliate marketing, the folks over at AMWSO have managed to take the technology that allows them to embed affiliate links into videos one step further. Now affiliates of participating programs can just publish a feed on their site, and new videos should appear as the feed is updated by the merchant. Check out the AMWSO late-night blog post for more info about how a test feed was set up for Gaiam Yoga Videos.

As usual, Gaiam is looking toward the future of affiliate marketing and allowing AMWSO to use their video clips for testing. Would you like to participate? If so, join Gaiam’s affiliate program here.

The affiliate’s ID remains in the code for each new video, and follows the video wherever it goes. In other words, if someone finds the video on your blog and uses the code to embed it on their own page, you still get the commissions.

Click Here if you have problems embedding videos into your blog.