Can Buying Links Get You Banned From Google?
Posted by: Marketing Guy Date posted: September 5th, 2011 Published in: Link Building, Search Engine Optimisation, SpamThrowing this one out for the pros – do you think Google will ban an average website for buying links? I’m not so sure – in fact I think the whole link buying idea is more of a fantastic PR campaign on Google’s behalf than reality. Let me explain my chain of thought;
- Does Google like link buying? No, of course not it’s manipulation of their link based algo.
- Can Google implement a penalty? Yes, of course they do it for loads of sites.
- Can Google ban a website? Sure, see above.
- Will Google ban a website for buying links? I’m not so sure.
Yeh, I hear people talking about it all the time. Usually newbie bloggers and SEOs that decide to lecture people on SEO and spout out some regurgitated BS that is basically what Google says publicly. But has anyone ever actually come across a solid black and white example of where a website got banned for buying links? I’ve been looking for one and as someone who has worked in search for over 10 years, I’m struggling to find a solid example.
Let’s break down the link buying debate
Some SEOs say buying links is fine and others say it can hurt you. But these arguments generally boil down to one core point – can an external factor (that could be controlled by my competitor) hurt my rankings? In general the answer is no. Not because it’s impossible – if you have a big enough network or enough money you can screw someone up royally. But because it’s impractical. So much so that the average business is unlikely to be the victim of an intentional link attack.
But that’s kind of the point I’m leaning towards here – if link buying was so brutal for you SEO campaign, then wouldn’t more websites be affected? Wouldn’t there be more people moaning on the SEO and business forums about their loss of rankings? The only people I see complaining these days are thin content websites who frankly should have seen that one coming…
Where does Google stand?
Well, obviously Google doesn’t like us buying or selling links. So every piece of carefully crafted doctrine that escapes from Googleplex tells us that buying links is bad. And every mindless zombie that laps up everything that Google poops down their neck will nod in unison while they chant, “buying links is bad”…
But other than the chat (which as you can tell, I’ve taken with a pinch of salt for a very long time now), what hard facts are there? I Googled it a bit earlier and only could find DP forum thread from 2008 where a guy got banned because he bought 30,000 backlinks in one month (lol) and some Google Groups discussions with paranoid webmasters. Maybe a couple of high profile cases where Google had to act but other than that…
And how would Google manage link buying on a large scale? I’m not talking about brokerage services which have a notable footprint that can be algorithmically filtered, but the individual actions of millions of website owners and SEOs?
The reality is that Google can’t start throwing around penalties for every Joe Bloggs who buys a link. The fact that they only just updated their spam report form should tell a story in itself. Link manipulation, regardless of the technique used, has to be the main concern for the folk at Google – anyone else get the impression they are beginning to accept the fact that they can’t cope with problem “algorithmically”? Case by case reviews of link buying examples may be on the cards, but realistically, can even a human tell if I bought the link or my competitor did?
We all buy links
I don’t care what your favoured link building technique is – we all buy links. Any client paying for link building services buys links. Any blogger submitting a guest post to a news site (or even a crap blog) is buying links. Any forum signature or directory submission is buying links (time spent producing content for other websites = money for the other websites). Linkbait is buying links – hell, it’s the ultimate achievement of a link monkey – free, natural links (in exchange for loads of research, hard work, etc). In fact a lot of what SEO’s do is just link buying. Google calls it link popularity. The business world calls it marketing.
Like I said before, I’m split on this topic. I have no fear that Google will ban a website for buying a handful of links mixed in with other link building tactics. I believe they can ban websites for doing that if they want, I’m just not sure if they have the scalable means to implement that without human intervention. I also believe that quite a lot of what Google says is idealist BS and taken far too literally by far too many people. I believe it’s possible for a competitor to poison your rankings via links, I’d say 99% of the websites out there are insignificant enough not to need to worry about this, anymore than they need to worry about being slapped by Google. I believe that anyone that pushes to far may be brought back down to Earth with a bang, but for most of us – the vast majority who play it safe and don’t rock the boat too much – there is no real danger…
So I’d like to ask for some feedback on this one. What are your opinions on link buying? A legitimate business move with little or no risk, or something stupid that should be restricted to throw away websites? Is it just a necessary evil for the casino/viagra/etc people?
Can anyone put up an example of a legitimate (non spammy) website that was banned for buying links? Added – clarification (for the old and gray), I’m not expecting anyone to post specific examples of their own or client sites that were banned – just looking for discussion on the subject one way or another. The point being there aren’t many examples that aren’t either high profile examples or full time spam efforts.
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Comments
JC Penney: http://searchengineland.com/new-york-times-exposes-j-c-penney-link-scheme-that-causes-plummeting-rankings-in-google-64529
Plenty of high profile cases to point towards. JCPenny being the most recent. Google tends to make examples of legitimate sites now and again – usually after their shady tactics have been exposed online by a well-known source. But generally speaking, they let sites get away with it. After all, the rankings would look odd if suddenly a popular brand didn’t rank for keywords that users were expecting to find it for.
Nice post dude. However there’s a very similar one over at SEOWizz done about a year ago – http://www.seowizz.net/2010/07/buying-text-links-the-truth.html
But yes, you’re right, every link is is some way ‘bought’ – people linking out to good content that they like, although the author of the content may not have paid actual monies, they did something in return for a link – wrote good content! Similar with dofollow comment blogs – you might not have paid money, but you commented, which is something the webmaster wanted. Basically, all links are given out because the person doing the linking out got something they wanted, be it money, good content or a comment to add credibility to their blog.
As for anyone saying ‘paying (money) for links is bad’ – maybe you just want to support the website – bloggers have families to feed, right
Interesting Topic… I am working on a post (almost finished) where I am talking about the link buying and where to draw the line… yes I do agree with you that almost every kind if link buying can come under the umbrella of Link Buying… on the other hand we do have to agree that link buying can kick you out of the SERPs so ultimately we have to draw a line in link buying and IMO this is very important…
Yes I have seen many webmasters who use their head when buying links and does not buy 30,000 links in a month… and I believe if you use your head link buying can work for you…
Honestly the whole game of “Google don’t like link buying” and “penalty” is like if you are caught probably you are dead… so it’s not wrong to say that unfortunately Google is not as smart in deducting link buying as it should be… and link buying is bad only if you get caught!
Yeh I did think about the JC Penny example, but wasn’t that more a case of Google having to do something after it was publicly outted? Plus, there are times you don’t really need to enforce your rules with everyone if you publicly make an example of someone – the implied threat of being banned does more benefit (for less effort) than enforcing every case of link buying. Google is all about the automation after all and a quick win that results in an industry being afraid of its own shadow is in character…
I do agree that legit sites that might get a bit more breathing space, but what do you all think about the vast majority of average small / medium business sites / blogs / etc? Does Google have the resources to basically police them all, or is the fear factor the most effective tool they have?
Cheers for that link Emma – I hadn’t read that one. Some good tips there! I really just decided to churn out an article on the subject after reading yet another newbie blog post which basically amounted to someone that doesn’t really know much about SEO lecturing that link buying was evil, etc etc.
Yeh Moosa, that’s more or less where I’m at as well. I think the bottom line with this is that Google is happy for people to be afraid of link buying, but realistically if you do it in a limited manner and don’t push the boat out too far then Google probably won’t notice or care. After all, it’s just good business and like or not, Google has created this entire industry so in order to be competitive, businesses do need to do what it takes to stay afloat.
Great comments folks and welcome to FN!
Scott