Why Buying Links is a Looked Down Upon by Search Engines

Here’s a question: would you buy traffic?  Probably not, and if you have never gone down that road, let’s explain what you’re “missing”.  Thousands of viewers randomly referred to your website who really don’t care about what you’re saying.  Who knows, your site may even be appearing as an annoying pop up ad, and you can guess what that means…click and goodbye.

Similarly, most serious webmasters and marketers avoid buying links just as they avoid buying traffic.  Why?  First, consider the attitude of the two most important search engines in the world.

Google Guidelines Make It Clear

First, Google.  Google makes it clear in its Google Webmaster Guidelines that it does not tolerate what it considers “link schemes”, which are basically cheap tactics that SPAM-doers use to get ahead without the extra work.  These schemes include manipulation strategies, SPAM-link, “bad neighborhoods”, an unusual abundance of reciprocal links and excessive link exchanges.  Google also forbids buying or selling links that pass PageRank.

Matt Cutts of Google even stated that Google only allows paid links that “don’t affect search engines.”  In other words, Google only wants what it deems “clean and relevant search results”, and let’s be honest, paid listings are all about the opposite—getting something big for a cheap buck, not honest, hardworking SEO.  This major search engine that has an entire department devoted to “quality and relevancy” is not going to reward any webmaster that simply buys low quality links from no name (or notorious) directories.

Google does not actually publish a list of approved directories; however, Eric Enge at SEOMoz assures us that roughly 20% of all Internet directories actually meet with Google’s high standards, and thus only 20% of these websites matter.  How many of these few sites do you think actively support link buying?  Google is only going to accept links from websites that have an editorial process.

Yahoo’s Paid Directory—Is it a Paid Link?

What about Yahoo’s directory, which could arguably be called a paid link, since Yahoo charges $299 a year?  Yahoo actually doesn’t promise you anything—even after you make the payment.  Yahoo presumes your site is categorized appropriately and features professional copy, but doesn’t actually do you any favors as regards high rankings.  The only positive in this case is that Google trusts Yahoo’s editorial process and thus does give attention to its listings.

Google goes on to say that not all paid links are SPAM-practices, and indeed, there is nothing wrong with the basic definition of a link exchange.  However, there is a big difference between link exchanges for advertising purposes and link exchanges for the sole purpose of search engine manipulation, and that’s what Google has a problem with.

All that said, we have to take whatever Google and Yahoo say with a grain of salt, because as Aaron Wall of SEO Book states, Google has actually violated its own rules and bought paid links itself.  No word though on whether Google is penalizing itself…I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!