Contextual Advertising Talk

Are Paid Links Evil? SES San Jose

“Are Paid Links Evil?”  That was the controversial question debated at a propaganda-filled panel discussion at this year’s SES San Jose Conference.  One argument, endorsed by the big-gun search engines such as Google, asserts that paid links are akin to manipulation, causing a negative impact on search credibility and generally muddying the already murky waters of the web.  On the other side of the aisle is the Pro-Paid Link contingent, sprouting the ideals of competitive market, fairness, anti-hypocrisy, and relevancy.  The panel for this discussion included:

• Jeffrey K. Rohrs of ExactTarget (Moderator)
• Matt Cutts, a Google search quality engineer
• Michael Gray, blogger at Wolf-Howl.com
• Todd Malicoat, blogger at Stuntdubl.com
• Todd Friesen, the Director of online media at Range
• Greg Boser, CEO, WebGuerrilla
• Andy Baio, founder of Upcoming.org

First speaker Matt Cutts feels the panel’s eponymous question “are paid links evil” fails to get to the heart of the matter, preferring what he believes to be a more appropriate query, “do paid links that pass PageRank violate search engines quality guidelines?”  His answer unequivocally is YES.  According to Matt, the FTC demands disclosure in the offline world of all compensated marketing activities.  When that disclosure is applied online, he feels it must include not just human recognizable admissions but those understood by a machine as well, to be achieved in one of the following ways:

• Redirect through a URL blocked by robots.txt
• Redirect through a URL using a 302
• Use JavaScript to direct the link
• Apply a “nofollow” to the link
• Add Meta-Robots “nofollow” to the page header

However, all paid links are not verboten.  In fact Google supports link buyers using the following sources: AdBrite, Quigo, IndustryBrains, Microsoft AdCenter, Yahoo! Publisher Network, or any site that does not pass PageRank.  Should you decide to use non-nofollow links, an ineffectual choice considering Google’s adeptness in finding and devaluing those links, Mr. Cutts assures the following road blocks:

• “limited Time” links which may not provide long term value
• “Run of Site” links, which Google prides itself on finding and eliminating
• Links purchased from “sloppy seller” who link to bad sites in bad neighborhoods
• Links bought from sellers who cloak the links only to you, which Google never sees
• Buying links that can be found and reported on by your competitor

Matt likens link buying to driving alone in the carpool lane (ethically questionable) and goes on to suggest being more interesting and creative in luring natural links to your site.

In a highly emotional presentation entitled “A Tale of Propaganda and Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt,” second speaker Michael Gray rallied the crowd with a highly effective condemnation of Google’s motivation.  As he explained, while there are both commercial and non-commercial sites on the web, commercial websites generally do not attract natural links as easily as non-commercial sites do.  Without paid links, Google will fill the top results for commercial queries with mostly non-commercial sites, causing the only relevant results for a searcher wishing for a commercial action to be the paid results, which earn money for…..wait for it….Google.  The word hypocrisy was thrown about.

      Michael also noted that “Google is not the government,” and is overstepping its authority in trying to govern how sites are built, especially when they take part in this mini-economy of paid link sales, in a different format which is quite lucrative to them.  Finally, Mr. Gray called out Google as deceptive in its launch and use of nofollow in 2005.  While at the outset, nofollow’s primary function was to protect bloggers and content publishers from linking to bad areas and to control spam.  Only after its adoption did Google claim it should also be placed on paid links, in an effort to redirect criticism of nofollow.   They not only don’t want you to buy links, they want you to feel really dirty about it if you do. 

      Todd Malicoat was next to speak on “7 Reasons Why I am a Link Libertarian” which are:

1. Semantics:  “Paid” is rather ambiguous as every link was a relative value and cost.
2. The Google algorithm encourages linking, and is actually the founder of this economy with their PageRank in the toolbar.
3. Economics:  People will eventually tire of paying for links and stop buying them, as Adam Smith claims, “if left to its own means, the efficient market will sort itself out.”
4. Transparency and Relevancy:  As an SEO, transparency of advertising is not his responsibility.  Paid links assist clients and exposing them hurts relevancy.
5. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt as a policy is appalling.
6. Paid links facilitate a competitive market, which in turn, advances the Web.
7. It’s impossible to “design websites as though search engines did not exist’” because they do exist, and within those parameters, paid linking is both justifiable and necessary.

Todd ends his presentation explaining why he won’t report paid links as he’s learned too much from the practice, and values their ability to keep the SEO’s and businesses vigilant in keeping their links pertinent, concealed, and seemingly natural.  This attention will only increase the quality of the sites themselves.  With paid links, despite the invisible nofollow, thinking you’re getting PR that you are not, and risking the extra man-hours for review and possible penalty, the reward of higher traffic, rankings and sales far outweighs the risks. 

Todd Friesen from Range was next to the podium.  He suggests that if buying links promotes a profitable return on investment for a company, that company will continue to buy them, despite the rules, and so they should.  And if the company is benefiting from the paid link, chances are the searcher is benefiting as well by getting as they are getting what they need, yielding good results for the engine.  The worst that can happen is that you waste your money, though those links may still increase traffic over having none at all, and at the very least you’ve opened your eyes and learned something about what does and doesn’t work.  Besides, since only the buyer and the seller actually know for sure that a link is bought, a search engine such as Google could never actually ban or heavily penalize sites, since there would be no way to prove it. 

Next up is Greg Boser of WebGuerilla who admits to driving in the carpool lane as sometimes the benefit of not being late outweighs the cost of the ticket (in response to Matt Cutt’s analogy).  He recommends that site owners should be held responsible for their editorial decisions with regard to paid links and feels that paying for a link on a relevant site is far less pollutant than other web practices that do not have the same industry stigma.  Greg uses an example of Google endorsed Yahoo! Directories and their practice of evaluating your site (for a fee) to validate its merit to be part of their directory, which is in fact, a paid link.  It is his opinion that Google should in fact stay out of your business.

Finally, Andy Baio from Upcoming/Yahoo! takes the stage.  Andy claims to be representing the common user/searcher and while he feels that if a link is relevant and possesses editorial review, they shouldn’t be discredited by the search engines, he still thinks the overall practice of link buying is one step up from spam; very bad for the quality of life online and relatively “shady.”   He does, however, admit that allowing link brokers to run ads on Google is hypocritical. He feels that in buying paid links, you are tricking the search engines and altering the results users get, and this is not right.  He goes to say that the sites that are purged from search engines for paid linking, weren’t really good sites anyway, and good riddance.  Finally he behooves the audience not to buy links as when the novelty wears your participation in the practice will hurt both your reputation and profits. 

The panel discussion closed with a question and answer session where many of the same points were reiterated, and very few issues were solved.

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