Why Buying Non-Automated Links for Page Rank is OK

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.