Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

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Link Storm - in a tea cup

The saga continues this week with much speculation regarding Google and “paid links”.

Since the beginning of Google it has been all about links, and the amount of “juice” that can migrate from one site to another because of a link. As a result the way to the top of Google has been down to gathering links.
One way to do this was to pay money for the link.

Over time completely new business models have been formed putting buyers in touch with sellers. Some of these schemes can look a bit obvious as the links displayed are questionable in relevance or value to the donating site.

Google has set its sites on the practice of paid links, but many of us feel that this is perhaps nothing more than sabre rattling. Admittedly there will be sites caught by automated filters, there may be some obvious, blatant and high profile sites caught manually but with in excess of 8 billion web pages on 100 + million web sites in existence how are Google to know if money changes hands, especially if the link is in keeping with the theme of the page. Is this not the whole idea of the Yell and Thompson directories?

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