The arguments i get into on SEO Forums
I often get into arguments on SEO Forums, I’m sometimes somewhat of a black hat, but that is not saying that i don’t have an idea about right and wrong.
I would never try to optimize a page if it wasn’t of some value to users, that is why i first and foremost recommend that you work on your content, make sure that it actually is better then your competitor.
If you do some limited black-hat along white-hat SEO, then you will quickly get to rank on your keywords. But you also risk that google says “hay this looks suspicious, lets have a look at this site”. That’s why its a good idea to make sure that your content actually also is better then that of your competitors, because chances are that google will leave you be, if they consider your site to be of value.
But this is just my “opinion” of my own website, you might think, it doesn’t have to be what other think of my site.
This may very well be true, but this is also where you make the biggest mistake any business owner can make. First and foremost, there are facts, the world dose not consist of “opinions” alone, “opinions” are wrong, but the truth is fact.
It starts to get easier when you begin to think this way, it gets you closer to the truth, rather then the “opinions”. You don’t care about “opinions” as a successful SEO, because then you’d might as well close your business. You can however include them in your considerations, there is a difference!
Remember, the wisest of men follow their own directions, and they trust no one but god alone.
In this case, its about paid links. Google is unlikely to punish a site for having paid links, it may still happen in some circumstances. But if your site is of overall good quality, and in good standing, then its unlikely.
Some SEOs don’t care about the quality of the sites that they promote, they spam links everywhere, and most importantly, they buy links, and expect results. You can’t expect results as a SEO, but you can do your part, after which the rest is up to the search engines.
I’m not directly against paid links, because its still perfectly justifiable way to make money on your website. You should just make sure that you wouldn’t accept just any website asking for a link. Be sure that those you sell your links to, are sites that you can agree on, for whatever they are about.
The places where paid links becomes a problem, is where irresponsible SEOs and/or website owners, use them to promote their spammy sites, or carelessly use them to make money. Just because a site has paid links, is no reason not to include it in the search results, and is also very unlikely to harm the site in any way, given that it meets before mentioned guidelines.
So the big question is, is it okay to sell links on your website? Yes, but you should make sure that you actually only accept the sites, of which you would recommend to your users for free, in fact, such links should be dofollow links, regardless of they are paid or not. Links are after all the primerey method search engines use to rank sites, so it would only harm the results to make them nofollow.
The reason google doesn’t mention the exceptions, is that SEOs and website owners, could just use it as an excuse to buy or sell links, and they obviously don’t want that to happen. So whether you buy or sell links, be sure that your site, and the ones you accept, are of value to users.
More about this in my next post.
