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Would Google view this as a purchased link?

by marmalade
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

I'm thinking of purchasing links in various places on the Internet, such as blogs and websites in my niche, for the purpose of getting direct visitors to my website. However, I wouldn't mind if I also get a boost in the organic search results thanks to the additional incoming links to my site.

If I understand correctly, Google has some ways of spotting purchased links, although they can't be sure.

Now, I'm using a tracking script to help determine the results of my link purchases. That script works by adding a string such as ?ad=adgroup1 to the link, for instance: www.example.com/?ad=adgroup1 where example.com is my domain.

I could then assign an ad group ID such as adgroup1, adgroup2 etc. to all the different places I'm advertising on to track results.

What I'm asking is, would that help Google to detect that it's a purchased link? Let's face it, it doesn't look natural at all with an added string such as ?ad=adgroup1 to it.

What I fear is that it could make the link useless for SEO purposes, or even punish my website (unless it's nofollowed). I could still get the benefits of direct visitors through the links I buy, though, which is the main idea.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.
#google #link #purchased #view
  • Profile picture of the author TheContentAuthority
    Marmalade,

    Google isn’t going to be able to tell if you paid someone to make a link just by crawling it or even having an employee manually look at it.

    They can however see that you have links coming from sites that are known to be involved in that sort of behavior on the web. I would just avoid looking suspicious and you should be fine.

    No your parameters that you add to the URL will not send off a red flag that the links were purchased. You do however have to be careful that the parameters you added don’t interfere with the user getting to the page destination.

    Best,

    Shawn
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    • Profile picture of the author mrgee
      Hi..
      Also if all your links end with ?ad=adgroup(1or2or3etc) this may look a little suspicious and may represent a footprint that can be tracked. So point is don't have all your links like this..Make them appear natural, if they all end in something similar that ain't natural..
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  • Profile picture of the author PROmotions LLC
    Google says that any link created / purchased for the sole purpose of boosting rankings is not allowed. If you think about it, 80% of links out there are created for that purpose, so as long as your links are not on sites that just constantly get bombed with backlinks like dummy blogs, etc, you will be fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    If you email your invoice to Google, then yes, they will think it is a paid link.
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  • Profile picture of the author LiftMyRank
    Only google are allowed to engage in text advertising otherwise you're a naughty naughty little blackhat that needs to be squashed
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  • Profile picture of the author Rock Solid Links
    Have you considered scrapping the script in favor of Analytics?
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    • Profile picture of the author marmalade
      Thanks everyone for your replies.


      Originally Posted by Rock Solid Links View Post

      Have you considered scrapping the script in favor of Analytics?
      I don't know much about (Google?) Analytics, but I'll look into it.
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  • Profile picture of the author A S M
    Google can't know if you ever purchased links but what they can know is that there are links coming to your site from reported/spammy sites that they have detected in the past. Hence , giving you short term results or even non at all.

    Instead of investing in links you can try a more safer approach by investing in a software that finds links for you like scrapebox. You take each link it finds , you perform a little analysis to make sure its high quality i.e. run it in majesticSEO to be sure they are good quality, then manually put your link. Just a thought if your to lazy to find the links manually.

    You can also flip through the pages on WF and their are plenty of people offering free quality links.
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    • Profile picture of the author marmalade
      Originally Posted by Ariseo Solutions View Post


      You can also flip through the pages on WF and their are plenty of people offering free quality links.
      Could you expand on this?

      Btw, would fiverr be a bad place to buy links since some of those sellers are offering to put links up on their websites, which could mean that Google already views them as spammy link-sellers?
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      • Profile picture of the author marmalade
        Btw, would links with tracking ID's such as example.com/?ad=adgroup1 etc. still pass link juice (pagerank)? The tracking thing is not used to generate dynamic pages, but only to indicate where the visitor came from to my site.

        Any knowledgeable person could answer this? Thanks
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        • Profile picture of the author Rock Solid Links
          Hi Marmalade,

          Generally, the type of links you are looking to purchase, for example Fiverr, are not going to generate traffic. Therefore, I do not believe the need for tracking visitors is necessary. If you do plan to buy links from Fiverr, or even the WF, you will want to make sure those links are indexed by Google. There are a variety of ways you can do this, some free and some paid.

          As for Google Analytics, it is a good, free option for tracking where your visitors come from. Perhaps this page about Analytics and traffic sources will be helpful to you.

          Best,

          Mike
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      • Profile picture of the author A S M
        Originally Posted by marmalade View Post

        Could you expand on this?

        Btw, would fiverr be a bad place to buy links since some of those sellers are offering to put links up on their websites, which could mean that Google already views them as spammy link-sellers?

        I dont use fiverr... I dont like anybody messing with links... I might use a software sometimes, but even then i analyze each link I get and make sure its good.

        If you go through the pages of the SEO section .. people posted lists of various sites you can go put your backlinks on .
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Originally Posted by marmalade View Post

    What I'm asking is, would that help Google to detect that it's a purchased link? Let's face it, it doesn't look natural at all with an added string such as ?ad=adgroup1 to it. .
    Of course it would. I don't know what half the people in this thread are thinking. A good deal of bought links are caught by MANUAL REVIEW (a great deal reported by competitors) if your links like that pass juice (are not nofollowed) then of course it sends a red flag to Google. People suggesting otherwise are daydreaming but yeah there is no magical way for Google to determine bought links as long as its not obvious or a easily discernable pattern/footprint
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