Paid Links

[ghazia]

How search engines identify paid links?

[hiltonn]

Sure, Google is trying to "not count" links that are paid for. Websites that are really bad offenders (basically sites that have been deemed to not be worthy of passing link value ) will not be able to pass link juice on to other sites.!

[JaviB]

I think that search engines could detect paid linking systems like some sites that automatize link exchanges, but is not possible to detect if I pay to you to link my page in your site.

[Tom Albas]

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag
Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

[nicktyler]

Google are trying to identify paid links that voilate the guidelines but if you think about it this is near impossible.

If I meet a stranger in the pub and start talking to him and then he tells me he has a website. i buy him a drink and he puts a link on his site. How is Google ever going to identify that as a paid link. The bottom line is any link could be paid.

That is an extreme example and lots of links ae alot more obvious. I think Google probably spend more time on spam and automated software links. They have a way to go with reliably identifying paid links.

But that doesn't mean you should do it. You might spend $1000 today on paid links that can't be found out and then next week an algorithm update and BAM! Good bye $1000.

[ashleysmith12]

hi
most of the paid link are from google adword so google know which link is paid.

[nicktyler]

^^^ While that is true I'm not sure they are the links we aer talking about in this thread and certainly not the only or most paid links.

[Hustle]

SEs won't tolerate buying links on other sites.

But if you're clever enough to not leave any footprints, high PR paid backlinks can give you a decent boost in SERPs.

[C Rebecca]

There are two type of paid links,
1. When you pay the webmaster to host your website's link
2. When you buy link building package or service

Google has no algorithm to identify the paid links of type 1... google takes appropriate action, ff your competitors file spam report against your website.

In link building packages and services, you blast links to different websites which Google can discover easily (using its algorithms)

[Crank]

That's no so hard for a SE to identify paid link:
code from a link broker installed,
huge amount of ext links to sites of different niche
links disappeared and appeared again etc.

[eurekapsycrille]

You know pal, if search engines know how to track paid links, those who sell the so-called "high PR links" would never exist. So I've came up a conclusion that they can only crawl and index links. But cannot identify if a particular link is paid or not.

[TBInternetMarketing]

Originally Posted by C Rebecca

Google has no algorithm to identify the paid links

Yea very true. They can possibly detect obvious paid links, and links where you get 10,000 in one day, but not likely normal paid links.