OzWebMasters

Yet another site has lost its lofty PageRank, and for good reason. phpBB is great (I use it), but the obligatory link from any installation of their forum is not a vote for their site. Yes, using their software could be seen as a vote for the quality and usefulness of the product - but that’s the product, not the site.

The question remains - was this adjustment done manually, or is it part of a new and improved algorithm for spotting links that are part’n'parcel of installing free software?

SEM expert Andy Beal provides this list of tips:

1. Only buy links from sites that are highly relevant to your web site content.
2. If the site you are buying links from already has more than 5 paid links on the page, walk away.
3. If the site labels the links as “sponsored” or “paid links” or anything like that, walk away.
4. Be selective in your targeting. Don’t buy footer or sidebar links if you can help it. Buy a single link from a relevant page.
5. Vary your anchor text. Try to make your anchor text look natural. If you buy links on 100 pages, and they all use the same text, you’re asking for trouble.
6. Avoid any paid link where the seller is also an affiliate for the broker.
7. Check that the page ranks well for its targeted keywords. If it doesn’t rank well for its own keywords, it will likely not help you.
8. Point the links at different pages. Don’t buy lots of links for your homepage.
9. Try to get the links in a contextual format. A link that is part of a highly relevant paragraph will be more valuable.
10. I guess I should round this out to ten. Don’t worry about PageRank. A brand new page may be highly relevant to your industry and rank well, yet the PR shows 0/10. Ignore that, PR takes forever to catch up.

And I agree with every one of them!

I can add:

11. Check back a few weeks later and make sure they haven’t added a “nofollow” to your link
12. Use the keyword suggestion tool at Google Adwords to find related keywords for the keyword you wish to found for - and use a related keyword in your link text

This is a pretty amazing way of understanding the user experience of your site - it records the pages they visit, the movements of their mouse, and how they fill in a form. This would be of special use to anyone using those mile-long sales pitches with lots of testimonials and benefits (and the price buried within a paragraph near the bottom). You’d soon learn if people just skip to the bottom and search for the price… RobotReplay is presently free!

BTW, it also records key clicks, and there are paid alternatives:

TapeFailure - $8 - $98/month (with a one week free trial).

ClickTale - Free - $99/month

Place a text link between those two tags and you get a transparent link - it won’t appear on the page (unless the visitor has javascript turned off - rare), but some search engines might read it as a legit link. Loren Baker, in a case highlighting a site that is #1 for a very good phrase in Google, explains the hows & whys of it all:http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-loves-transparent-links-hit-counter-spam/5615/

Basically, they offer a “free” hit counter as a means of placing these types of links on your site. Currently, at least in this instance, Google are allowing/ignoring/not knowing about this practice.

A bunch of psuedo-directories (ie the only qualifying factor is that you pay to be listed) have been dumped by Google: a search for their brand name no longer finds them. They have seemingly been penalized manually, either in reponse to one or many complaints, or just via Google’s own analysis of the situation. Google stated a few months ago that they won’t be tolerating paid links

Good call Google!

I say “scam” because it is like a cross between a pyramid scheme & a massive reciprocal linking enterprise. A bunch of psuedo-directories began to link to each other, collectively inflating their PageRank. Then, with a higher PageRank, they found they could charge as much as $50+ for a listing in their directories. Which then encouraged copycats, and before you know it there is a section of the web that purely consists of directories linking to each other, and containing sites seeking to boost their own PageRank by paying to be listed.

A nice little cottage industry, but of zero use to people who search using Google, and of zero use to people browsing these directories. Almost as bad as Made-For-Adsense sites.

I just posted this in response to an article on a common SEO topic these days. It’s one thing for Google to say they will clamp down on paid links, but another for them to be able to detect them….

What it REALLY come down to is how can Google detect a paid link? Unless Google have direct access to my PayPal account, all they can do is make educated guesses, based on things like:

- trigger words within the site suggesting they sell links
- page layout, paid links tend to reside in the margins
- links not relevant to the site’s topic

Even if Google get really good at detecting paid links, it’ll just mean that SEOs and webmasters will need to mask what they do.

This will always work:

- No detectable mention of the fact you sell links anywhere on your site. You could use an image that says “want linkage, email me”
- Place the link within the normal content of your page, exactly where you would place a non-paid-for-link
- Limit the practice to one unique link per page, and to sites that have content related to yours

The above would be un-detectable by Google unless they have staff manually checking sites, and they actually email you and ask about paying for a link.