Google bans Paid Links

Just came across this ridiculous piece of hubris - which would have been a reasonable, if typically heavy-handed, April Fool’s Joke - had it not been published on the 14th.

Google may provide a special form for paid link reports at some point, but in the mean time, here’s a couple of ways that anyone can use to report paid links:
- Sign in to Google’s webmaster console and use the authenticated spam report form, then include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report. If you use the authenticated form, you’ll need to sign in with a Google Account, but your report will carry more weight.
- Use the unauthenticated spam report form and make sure to include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report.

It is not possible to separate “links sold for traffic” from “links sold for PR” - Google themselves have made sure of that, it recurses to the very basis of their original existence as a search engine (unless you reckon that “traffic” and “authority” have no relationship whatsoever).