7 ms·

It's Time For Google To Take A Stand On Paid Links

31 points by fallentimes 17y ago

coderdude 17y ago
I cringe every time I hear "violating Google's terms of service." What service? The one where they index your site at your cost so they have something to serve their users? This is starting to sound more like the RIAA complaining about a new business model undercutting its revenue. Google is not keeping up with people or technology in this case. People have figured out how to exploit (to a great enough degree) Google's ability to tell a spam site from an authority, and their response is to declare that people are in violation.
- redorb 17y ago
  The terms you agree to when you use Google properties. I don't like it as much as the next guy; but in the environment they are in (capitalism, public company etc..) they have to do what they can to protect their ranking method. Were they supposed to foresee people buying links back in 2003/2004? You have to have new policy or terms for new use cases. *the article feels like a bit of a 'hit job' on conductor / I would like to offer up that things might be at least a little different than they seem from one side/point of view.
  - coderdude 17y ago
    You aren't using any of Google's properties simply by being indexed by them.
- netsp 17y ago
  I agree. It started with the whole nofollow issue. To be fair, the post misquotes Matt Cuts. He didn't say terms of service. He said:"paid links that pass PageRank are absolutely a violation of Google's quality guidelines"
- fallentimes 17y ago
  While I mostly agree with you, Google could easily say: "Fine, then we won't include you in our index". Such an action would easily cripple thousands upon thousands of businesses. It also shows how important it is for Google to have a legit search competitor. Danny Sullivan's comments below the Business Insider article are spot on.
  - qeorge 17y ago
    Agree about Danny's comments. He sums it up quite succinctly, in stating that nothing in this article is new. Its clear the author has little knowledge of the subject matter. In his words, "Plenty of people get this stuff already. It's been out there again, for years."
    - fallentimes 17y ago
      The key is that it's nothing new to the SEO community, but it's plenty new to many small businesses and startup founders.
- motoko 17y ago
  What is the tell between a spam site from an authority?
  - redorb 17y ago
    thats easily a million dollar question; figure out how Google could flick a switch and clean their index with out noticeable false positives - I think they would hand you a check :) * i would assume that the problem parallels with spam emails. i think webpages offer more clues to what the page is about than emails though.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      I would argue that it is orders of magnitudes more complex. Spam passess a single toll gate on the way to each user. You have an address book with contacts and previous conversations and a whole pile of data about previous 'known good' emails in the inbox. Spam filtering has gotten pretty good. A lot better than google at filtering out 'bad' search results.
  - fallentimes 17y ago
    In general terms: Spam: thin site, lacks original content, few pages indexed, crawled infrequently, ranks for a small selection of keywords, weak backlink profile Authority: many pages indexed, thick site, loads of original content, crawled frequently, ranks for a variety of keywords, diversified backlink profile Page Rank used to be a strong indicator of this, but currently a better indicator is how often your site is crawled. That's why one authority link can do worlds more for you than hundreds (or thousands) of spammy/low quality links.
    - dhimes 17y ago
      I guess it's all about how you define "thin," "few", "small," and "weak." A page on how to eradicate your home of carpenter ants would possibly look like all of these, yet may be the most "authoritative" site on the web on the small, niche subject.
- enomar 17y ago
  Their service is sending lots of traffic to your site. Their TOS is more of a spec than an agreement. It says that if you sell links, they may flag you as a spam site. I don't think that's unreasonable at all.
  - coderdude 17y ago
    Yes, they do send people traffic. Many sites rely on Google for most of their traffic. However, paid links does not a spam site make. If they are flagging sites with a legitimate purpose and with original content, simply on the basis that their evermore dated method for determining authority is not working so well anymore, Google (as an authority themselves) should not be flagging them with such a label. I think it is unreasonable, not for denying them traffic, but for labeling them as spam. It's not impossible to find out who's in the supplemental index all of a sudden.
  - netsp 17y ago
    It is unreasonable inasmuch as it is bullying site owners in to compliance, forcing them to disclose information. I think that this is the case. The central effect of flagging a site as spam is not a quality assurance issue. It is influencing these sites' behaviour. The use the fear of Google taking away their traffic as a way of forcing compliance. That is what I have a problem with. As an internal policy or part of their algorithm, do whatever you want. But that is not what they are doing. The point of the policy, the point of this publicly declared part of their secret sauce is not to recognise and flag spam sites, it is to intimidate sites into stopping a practice which hurts Google. It is the effects of the intimidation not the effects of the flagging which are substantial. I think it is also safe to say that they are the purpose of the policy.
    - gnaritas 17y ago
      > The central effect of flagging a site as spam is not a quality assurance issue. Sure it is, spam makes search less useful for users, keeping it out is most definitely a quality assurance issue. > it is to intimidate sites into stopping a practice which hurts Google Which hurts Google's users as well, spam hurts us all, spam sucks. Google is correct here in removing sites which partake in such practices.
- dminor 17y ago
  > What service? The one where they index your site at your cost so they have something to serve their users? There is a trick to save you the obscene costs of being indexed -- simply make your robots.txt like so: User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /
gojomo 17y ago
With apologies to Sigmund Freud: Google forbids us to sell links not because it wishes to do away with linkselling, but because it wishes to monopolize it.
- jonknee 17y ago
  Google has no problem with link selling--Google has a problem with PageRank selling. Sell all the links you want, just use nofollow. If someone wants to buy a link but isn't interested in only receiving the traffic it brings (and not any pagerank), they are probably up to no good anyway.
  - ericlavigne 17y ago
    I just checked the paid links on Google's search page. They do not use nofollow. This fact, combined with your arguments, is consistent with gojomo's hypothesis about Google wanting to monopolize paid links.
    - nostrademons 17y ago
      Google's search results page blocks all crawlers (including Google) using robots.txt, so it's a moot point. Nofollow's only relevant when a page might appear in a search engine.
      - gojomo 17y ago
        And isn't that convenient? Google's main kind of link-selling is unaffected by their rules, but other kinds of link-selling is disadvantaged. ("Use a standard we invented to make our job easier, or risk being frozen out of 70%+ of all search traffic.") And similarly: "We crawl your stuff; but our search results are off-limits." Of course, anyone can block Google, but given the asymmetry in business models and market power that's not much of an equalizing factor. I like Google and think they mean well. Individually each of these policies has a reasonable basis. But Google is now so dominant -- and the positive financial rewards they get from self-serving policies so large -- that their actions deserve close scrutiny. (The Freud-inspired quote I led with was originally about the state; Google's influence on the net is so large that they are a lot like the net's government.)
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
I used to be a bigger Google fan than I am now, and it's all because of this pagerank/link business. It's fine to have an algorithm to prioritize sites. And it's fine for sites to manipulate that algorithm to their own ends. Both of these things are completely natural. Trying to keep this list of who's cool or not -- secretly updated by god knows who -- and forcing the rest of the world to do as you say or suffer economic punishment by de-listing from your engine? Not fine, although Google is certainly in their rights to do so. A better strategy is for Google to adapt, not dictate. As it is, they've created this entire system where everybody games the system but nobody talks about it, and that's counterproductive for the net as a whole.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Exactly. Google should become better at what they are doing, work harder on identifying spam sites. Crawl more frequently to get a better grip on provenance. Maybe set up an 'announce' service where you can dump a url before linking it to establish provenance for your original content. Dictation is not a solution to anything it is a show of weakness.
dejb 17y ago
When you have things of value that can be sold or exchanged you will allways have a market. If some authority tries to ban the exchange then it will be a 'black' market. The harder Google tries to enforce their policies the more it will drive the selling or exchange of links underground. Maybe this would be a good thing but there is certainly no way they can stamp it out. I personally think that the problem lies in the rules of Google's system. A more robust system should be able to account for and adjust for the market realities created by it's own rules. Maybe it is technically impossible but I doubt it. I'm sure the clever people at google have thought of this as well but perhaps they are starting to face 'legacy' system issues themselves.
- halo 17y ago
  Perhaps Google already algorithmically detects and quietly penalises such link-farming, or has tweaked their algorithm to minimise its impact. From their quality guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3 http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...): Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.
  - dejb 17y ago
    I'll bet they do but they can only detect the most obvious cases. It would be possible for website to sell links that even a human couldn't identify as sold, so there are limits to what their algorithms could achieve.
halo 17y ago
I'm often wary of those complaining about Google's policies because they're based on the idea that being listed on Google is a right and not a privilege. This, to me, is faulty logic. Unless they're deliberately taking part in anticompetitive behaviour by blocking competition, I think it's perfectly within their rights to delist or demote you for pretty much any reason they can think of. I think Google have made it pretty clear that as far as they're concerned they don't want people selling links to other sites in a way designed to manipulate search-engine rankings, and if you do so you may be delisted or have a lowered ranking on their site in the future. I think that's specific enough, personally, and think that anyone wanting a more specific policy either wants to work around them to violate the intended spirit and complain if and when Google punishes them for doing so.
onreact-com 17y ago
This issue has been resolved years ago. Google even has a report paid links form in the Webmasters Tools. High profile sites get their PageRank and authority diminished whenever paid links get discovered. Most reputable SEO firms refrain from paid links nowadays and rather focus on "killer content" creation to get links naturally.

31 points by fallentimes 17y ago

I cringe every time I hear "violating Google's terms of service." What service? The one where they index your site at your cost so they have something to serve their users? This is starting to sound more like the RIAA complaining about a new business model undercutting its revenue. Google is not keeping up with people or technology in this case. People have figured out how to exploit (to a great enough degree) Google's ability to tell a spam site from an authority, and their response is to declare that people are in violation.

redorb 17y ago
The terms you agree to when you use Google properties. I don't like it as much as the next guy; but in the environment they are in (capitalism, public company etc..) they have to do what they can to protect their ranking method. Were they supposed to foresee people buying links back in 2003/2004? You have to have new policy or terms for new use cases. *the article feels like a bit of a 'hit job' on conductor / I would like to offer up that things might be at least a little different than they seem from one side/point of view.
- coderdude 17y ago
  You aren't using any of Google's properties simply by being indexed by them.
netsp 17y ago
I agree. It started with the whole nofollow issue. To be fair, the post misquotes Matt Cuts. He didn't say terms of service. He said:"paid links that pass PageRank are absolutely a violation of Google's quality guidelines"
fallentimes 17y ago
While I mostly agree with you, Google could easily say: "Fine, then we won't include you in our index". Such an action would easily cripple thousands upon thousands of businesses. It also shows how important it is for Google to have a legit search competitor. Danny Sullivan's comments below the Business Insider article are spot on.
- qeorge 17y ago
  Agree about Danny's comments. He sums it up quite succinctly, in stating that nothing in this article is new. Its clear the author has little knowledge of the subject matter. In his words, "Plenty of people get this stuff already. It's been out there again, for years."
  - fallentimes 17y ago
    The key is that it's nothing new to the SEO community, but it's plenty new to many small businesses and startup founders.
motoko 17y ago
What is the tell between a spam site from an authority?
- redorb 17y ago
  thats easily a million dollar question; figure out how Google could flick a switch and clean their index with out noticeable false positives - I think they would hand you a check :) * i would assume that the problem parallels with spam emails. i think webpages offer more clues to what the page is about than emails though.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    I would argue that it is orders of magnitudes more complex. Spam passess a single toll gate on the way to each user. You have an address book with contacts and previous conversations and a whole pile of data about previous 'known good' emails in the inbox. Spam filtering has gotten pretty good. A lot better than google at filtering out 'bad' search results.
- fallentimes 17y ago
  In general terms: Spam: thin site, lacks original content, few pages indexed, crawled infrequently, ranks for a small selection of keywords, weak backlink profile Authority: many pages indexed, thick site, loads of original content, crawled frequently, ranks for a variety of keywords, diversified backlink profile Page Rank used to be a strong indicator of this, but currently a better indicator is how often your site is crawled. That's why one authority link can do worlds more for you than hundreds (or thousands) of spammy/low quality links.
  - dhimes 17y ago
    I guess it's all about how you define "thin," "few", "small," and "weak." A page on how to eradicate your home of carpenter ants would possibly look like all of these, yet may be the most "authoritative" site on the web on the small, niche subject.
enomar 17y ago
Their service is sending lots of traffic to your site. Their TOS is more of a spec than an agreement. It says that if you sell links, they may flag you as a spam site. I don't think that's unreasonable at all.
- coderdude 17y ago
  Yes, they do send people traffic. Many sites rely on Google for most of their traffic. However, paid links does not a spam site make. If they are flagging sites with a legitimate purpose and with original content, simply on the basis that their evermore dated method for determining authority is not working so well anymore, Google (as an authority themselves) should not be flagging them with such a label. I think it is unreasonable, not for denying them traffic, but for labeling them as spam. It's not impossible to find out who's in the supplemental index all of a sudden.
- netsp 17y ago
  It is unreasonable inasmuch as it is bullying site owners in to compliance, forcing them to disclose information. I think that this is the case. The central effect of flagging a site as spam is not a quality assurance issue. It is influencing these sites' behaviour. The use the fear of Google taking away their traffic as a way of forcing compliance. That is what I have a problem with. As an internal policy or part of their algorithm, do whatever you want. But that is not what they are doing. The point of the policy, the point of this publicly declared part of their secret sauce is not to recognise and flag spam sites, it is to intimidate sites into stopping a practice which hurts Google. It is the effects of the intimidation not the effects of the flagging which are substantial. I think it is also safe to say that they are the purpose of the policy.
  - gnaritas 17y ago
    > The central effect of flagging a site as spam is not a quality assurance issue. Sure it is, spam makes search less useful for users, keeping it out is most definitely a quality assurance issue. > it is to intimidate sites into stopping a practice which hurts Google Which hurts Google's users as well, spam hurts us all, spam sucks. Google is correct here in removing sites which partake in such practices.
dminor 17y ago
> What service? The one where they index your site at your cost so they have something to serve their users? There is a trick to save you the obscene costs of being indexed -- simply make your robots.txt like so: User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /

gojomo 17y ago

With apologies to Sigmund Freud: Google forbids us to sell links not because it wishes to do away with linkselling, but because it wishes to monopolize it.

jonknee 17y ago
Google has no problem with link selling--Google has a problem with PageRank selling. Sell all the links you want, just use nofollow. If someone wants to buy a link but isn't interested in only receiving the traffic it brings (and not any pagerank), they are probably up to no good anyway.
- ericlavigne 17y ago
  I just checked the paid links on Google's search page. They do not use nofollow. This fact, combined with your arguments, is consistent with gojomo's hypothesis about Google wanting to monopolize paid links.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    Google's search results page blocks all crawlers (including Google) using robots.txt, so it's a moot point. Nofollow's only relevant when a page might appear in a search engine.
    - gojomo 17y ago
      And isn't that convenient? Google's main kind of link-selling is unaffected by their rules, but other kinds of link-selling is disadvantaged. ("Use a standard we invented to make our job easier, or risk being frozen out of 70%+ of all search traffic.") And similarly: "We crawl your stuff; but our search results are off-limits." Of course, anyone can block Google, but given the asymmetry in business models and market power that's not much of an equalizing factor. I like Google and think they mean well. Individually each of these policies has a reasonable basis. But Google is now so dominant -- and the positive financial rewards they get from self-serving policies so large -- that their actions deserve close scrutiny. (The Freud-inspired quote I led with was originally about the state; Google's influence on the net is so large that they are a lot like the net's government.)

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

I used to be a bigger Google fan than I am now, and it's all because of this pagerank/link business. It's fine to have an algorithm to prioritize sites. And it's fine for sites to manipulate that algorithm to their own ends. Both of these things are completely natural. Trying to keep this list of who's cool or not -- secretly updated by god knows who -- and forcing the rest of the world to do as you say or suffer economic punishment by de-listing from your engine? Not fine, although Google is certainly in their rights to do so. A better strategy is for Google to adapt, not dictate. As it is, they've created this entire system where everybody games the system but nobody talks about it, and that's counterproductive for the net as a whole.

jacquesm 17y ago
Exactly. Google should become better at what they are doing, work harder on identifying spam sites. Crawl more frequently to get a better grip on provenance. Maybe set up an 'announce' service where you can dump a url before linking it to establish provenance for your original content. Dictation is not a solution to anything it is a show of weakness.

dejb 17y ago

When you have things of value that can be sold or exchanged you will allways have a market. If some authority tries to ban the exchange then it will be a 'black' market. The harder Google tries to enforce their policies the more it will drive the selling or exchange of links underground. Maybe this would be a good thing but there is certainly no way they can stamp it out. I personally think that the problem lies in the rules of Google's system. A more robust system should be able to account for and adjust for the market realities created by it's own rules. Maybe it is technically impossible but I doubt it. I'm sure the clever people at google have thought of this as well but perhaps they are starting to face 'legacy' system issues themselves.

halo 17y ago
Perhaps Google already algorithmically detects and quietly penalises such link-farming, or has tweaked their algorithm to minimise its impact. From their quality guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3 http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...): Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.
- dejb 17y ago
  I'll bet they do but they can only detect the most obvious cases. It would be possible for website to sell links that even a human couldn't identify as sold, so there are limits to what their algorithms could achieve.

halo 17y ago

I'm often wary of those complaining about Google's policies because they're based on the idea that being listed on Google is a right and not a privilege. This, to me, is faulty logic. Unless they're deliberately taking part in anticompetitive behaviour by blocking competition, I think it's perfectly within their rights to delist or demote you for pretty much any reason they can think of. I think Google have made it pretty clear that as far as they're concerned they don't want people selling links to other sites in a way designed to manipulate search-engine rankings, and if you do so you may be delisted or have a lowered ranking on their site in the future. I think that's specific enough, personally, and think that anyone wanting a more specific policy either wants to work around them to violate the intended spirit and complain if and when Google punishes them for doing so.

onreact-com 17y ago

This issue has been resolved years ago. Google even has a report paid links form in the Webmasters Tools. High profile sites get their PageRank and authority diminished whenever paid links get discovered. Most reputable SEO firms refrain from paid links nowadays and rather focus on "killer content" creation to get links naturally.