South Florida Web Marketing Blog

Paid links: do you still have to worry about them?

Once again, paid links are a hot topic in the search engine optimization community. The website of J. C. Penney had number 1 rankings for many competitive keywords. It turned out that the J. C. Penney website obtained these rankings through buying links on over 2000 pages.

The paid links were reported to Google and many of J. C. Penney’s rankings dropped from number 1 to number 70 and below.

What are paid links?

If you pay the webmaster of another site to link to your website, then the link is a paid link. Paid links can be used to advertise your website on other sites. As long as the paid links use the rel=nofollow attribute, Google doesn’t have any problems with them.

The problem arises when paid links are used to get higher rankings in the regular search results on Google.

Google is very clear about paid links

Google does not like paid links. According to Google’s official statement, you should avoid paid links at all costs:

“[Some] webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

Google even has an official form that enables you to report paid links to Google:

“If you know of a site that buys or sells links, please tell us by filling out the fields below. We’ll investigate your submissions, and we’ll use your data to improve our algorithmic detection of paid links.”

Should you use paid links to promote your website?

The problem with paid links is that they work. As long as nobody notices that you’re buying links, paid links can have a positive effect on the search engine rankings of your website. However, as soon as Google detects the paid links your website can get in major trouble.

There are several problems with paid links:

• A competitor might report your paid links to Google and your website will be penalized.
• A competitor might buy links that point to your website, report them to Google and your website will be penalized.
• A competitor buys links to a throwaway domain, sees where they appear, drops the links and waits for you to buy them. Then the competitor reports you to Google for buying links.

While paid links can improve your rankings, they are also extremely risky. If you plan to build a lasting business, you should avoid paid links. The potential damage exceeds the benefits by far.

Your website must have backlinks to get high rankings on Google

Backlinks are very important to get high rankings on Google. That’s why Google works so hard on filtering the wrong kind of links.

The links that point to your website should be from related websites and they should contain the keywords for which you want to get high rankings. Do not manipulate the links to your website by buying links and do not join automated link systems to increase the number of links to your website.

If you want lasting results, focus on ethical search engine optimization methods. There are many ways to get good links (related websites, blogs, social bookmark sites, directories, etc.). IBP helps you to get them all.

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“Only those who constantly retool themselves stand a chance of staying employed in the years ahead.”  — Tom Peters, Author

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” –  Chinese Proverb

“I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.”  — Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America

“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” — Proverb

“Samson killed a thousand men with the jaw bone of an ass. That many sales are killed every day with the same weapon.”  — Anonymous

“Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.”  — Gerald R. Ford, 38th President of the United States

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” — Benjamin Franklin, Inventor

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before.”  — Jacob Riis, Photographer and Journalist

“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.” — Thomas Jefferson, Third U.S. President

“A man watches his pear tree, day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both the fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear, at length, falls into his lap.”
– Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.”  — Epicurus

“Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.” — Lee Iacocca, Auto Executive

“A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than a well-educated family.” — Thomas Scott

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”  — Rick Tate

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People toss the term SEO around like it’s a something that everyone knows, but most people do not understand it.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Optimization is a combination of techniques used to create a better web page suitable for the major search engines. By having a web page that is organized in a fashion that is acceptable to the search engines,  the search engines will rank the web page correctly when someone is looking for that keyword phrase in a query.

Optimization techniques include:

• Keyword Analysis
• W3C compliance
• Close examination of the underlying code that makes up a web page
• The web page loading times
• The careful placement of your targeted keyword phrases within the web pages
• The ability to take your web site and mold it to the formatted search engine requirements for the possibility high ranking results.
• Incoming link building pointing at your website

When all the elements are in place for your website, the search engines will be kind. So when someone types in the certain keyword phrase, you can see your web site appear in the first page of search engine results (SERP – Search Engine Results Page)

So why do you need SEO? To drive web traffic to your website.

• Traffic = Visitors and New Prospects.
• New Prospects = New Sales.
• New Sales = New Revenues.

You do not want just any web traffic, you want targeted web traffic. You want the type of vistors that want your products of services. This is a very important point. I could mention a celebrity, like Brittney Spears, on your website, but if you are selling mortgages, it will be a tough way to convert the traffic to what you are selling. You want to target people who are looking for mortgages, not making statements about celebrities.

Marketing a website requires a combination of abilities. Business experience, a deep understanding of the Internet, Proven Web Design Building, Search Engine Expertise, and Web Based Marketing Knowledge. We, at Smittysholdings.com, possess both the experience and knowledge to drive the right type of traffic to your website, not just for the moment, but for long term search engine placement.

It is so important to keep in mind, that any business requires ongoing marketing initiatives, whether it is a brick and mortar store or a website selling products or services. Your web site needs to be treated like an ongoing business concern, with the marketing effort seeking targeted traffic.

More and more people depend on the Internet to locate goods and services, so make your presence stand out. Take your place with other successful web businesses and contact us to find out how we can help you.

Lee Smith
South Florida Website Optimization & Marketing
Ft Lauderdale, Florida
(954) 423-2785