We are often asked how Google can spot paid links.
How would they know the difference between a ‘natural’ link and a link that’s been bought or sold?
What’s wrong with paid links?
First, some background:
Buying and selling links is not ‘illegal’. Anyone can do it. And it might make perfect sense to some websites, either as a revenue stream (selling) or to drive more visits to a site (buying).
But, Google doesn’t like paid links that can pass on PageRank and therefore manipulate Google’s search results. So they ask that all paid links are ‘nofollowed’ – then Google won’t follow these links and pass on any authority from the linking page to the linked page.
Why should I care?
You might not care. If you don’t rely on Google for the bulk of your traffic or sales, then there’s no risk to your business if you buy or sell ‘followed’ links.
But what if you are running a successful SEO campaign and Google is referring the bulk of your traffic and sales? Can you afford to risk your rankings by buying or selling links? Only you know the answer to that.
Just remember that it’s hard to measure how links that are bought or sold affect your site in Google. We don’t know exactly how Google penalise sites who buy or sell links. And even if we did, they could decide to change how it affects your site at any time. They could even be penalising your site now – how would you know?
So how do Google spot paid links?
There are a number of ways Google could spot paid links. Your competitors can even report links that look like paid links in Google Webmaster Tools.
But, do you really need to know exactly how Google spots paid links?
Driving a car without insurance is illegal. I don’t know how the police find people who drive without insurance. But it’s wrong, so to avoid a fine or losing my driving licence I just don’t do it.
Buying and selling (followed) links is against Google’s guidelines. Potentially, it can affect your ranking resulting in less traffic and less sales.
If you don’t want your site’s presence in a search engine that accounts for around 90% of UK searches affected, then follow their guidelines.
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