WordPress, Google and Paid Links
The discussion concerning sponsored links in WordPress themes has a relevance to the wider question of buying links, and how it plays with the algorithm used by the current market leader in search engines. Google, through their vicar on earth, have set out their position in the usual partial fashion. This seems to be how it is as of now…
It’s vital to note that this applies only to paid links placed, in the opinion of Google, for SEO purposes and not paid links.
Will Google penalise sites who buy links? No
By penalise, meaning drop from the SERPS, no - that would be far too anti-capitalist. And because then we would all fall over ourselves to buy links for our competitors - we’re nice like that, aren’t we… The only thing Google will do is make them not count - see next.
Will Google penalise a site selling links? No
They have stated that the outbound links will carry no authority, (if detected, or thought to be detected). Which has no effect on the seller of links, they’ve already banked the money. The buyer of links might like to consider this point in more detail.
The myth persists that Google will instantly drop a site detected as selling links from the SERPS, for example, the so-called 180-day penalty and so forth - there doesn’t seem to be any strong evidence for this. Although it’s difficult to demonstrate either way - banned sites tend to banned for multiple reasons and it would always be difficult to prove the ban was due to paid links.
Can Google detect every site selling links? No.
Of course not. Easy enough to flag up for inspection a page showing 20 external links in a list, with a preponderance of directories, proxy hosting sites, etc. etc. - but a page showing 2 or 3 dotted about and not in a sidebar block…? And how can they know that money has changed hands?
This doesn’t always worry Google, considerations like a higher truth… They can drop you if they want, and it’s their website so they can do what they like.
So can buying links help a site/page? Yes
After all that - yes. The likelihood is that sufficient links will sneak under any radar that exists and will create some benefit. Whether it’s a significant, or indeed cost-effective, benefit is more debatable. The tendency to hunt higher PR pages to the detriment of relevant pages is probably where link buyers waste most of their money.
