Paid link dilemma essayed by e-consultancy
Businesses considering paid links face a Google-related dilemma, a new blog post on e-consultancy has claimed.
Marketers hoping to improve their search engine optimisation need to weigh the benefits of the links against the fact that the search engine firm "doesn’t like" them, the website said.
Indeed, the website has got tough on paid links in recent months - penalising link brokers, buyers and selling through the dreaded ‘minus 50′ devaluation.
"Google quite simply doesn’t want websites to be able to buy their way to the top of the search engine rankings," the post added.
"It isn’t a question about relevance because nobody buys their way to the top of the search results for a phrase that isn’t related to their site."
However, e-consultancy also counsels that "abuse is so widespread" by firms that Google is "totally powerless".
Nevertheless, the fear of devaluing should be enough to prevent paid link buy-ups in the long term, the post concluded.
"Why pay £1000 for a permanent link when Google can devalue it at the drop of a hat?"
