
Ask HN: How do you justify Google’s SEO policy of not allowing paid links? - sunnykgupta
You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a link to my website.<p>=BAD<p>You own a website, I own a website, I pay $100 to Google who decides when to show my ad on your website and keep $60 for itself.<p>=GOOD<p>How do you justify Google’s SEO policy of not allowing paid links.
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anthony_franco
You're absolutely allowed to pay for links, that's what pretty much all
internet advertising is based on after all. Google just doesn't like when you
pay for links that pass PageRank. So as long as you do a nofollow on the link,
it's fine.

~~~
pdevr
Copying my previous answer here (and more explanation at the end):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821157)

Yes, and I think OP was trying to point out Google Adsense allows "paid links"
to be displayed on the same website: _" You own a website, I own a website, I
pay $100 to Google who decides when to show my ad on your website and keep $60
for itself."_

In other words, if you pay Google (30% more money)[1] to display the links on
another website, you are alright. However, if you directly pay the website
owners (roughly 30% less money) for them to add a paid link on the same site
at the same spot, you are running afoul of Google's rules. So, as a business
owner, to be in the good books of Google, you incur 30% extra expenses. I am
not trying to criticize Google here (I use multiple Google services), just
pointing out how many small business owners see this.

More explanation:

 _< a class="rhtitle"
href="[http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?longurl"](http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?longurl")
target="_top" title="google.com/Chromecast"><span>Online Content Now on
TV</span></a>_

The code above is an actual Adsense advertisement (I have removed/changed the
code and id everywhere). There is no no-follow anywhere there. So, it appears
as if it is alright to insert a link with no no-follow as long as you are
paying Google. Correct me if I am wrong.

[1]
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en)

~~~
phpnode
These ads are pulled in via JS, in an iframe, so it's not quite the same thing
- they don't pass link juice.

------
eis
You have to distinguish between ads and links being part of the page content.

As long as you seperate ads clearly from the site content and maybe give them
a rel="nofollow" attribute, there should never be negative consequences.

Paying someone for low quality content around links to increase search engine
rankings lowers the quality of the overall web for everyone.

Google does a lot of questionable stuff and I personally don't like the power
they weild over the web. However, in this particular instance, I can't see
anything wrong with this policy.

~~~
sunnykgupta
How do you specify ads apart from other links.

Maybe I'm talking about a product, call it spammy, but I'm all praises about
the product. The visitors to my website are actually reading this article,
indicating that the article is not boring, badly-written content.

At the end of the article I write the line, "If you want to try out the
product head over to [http://theproduct.com"](http://theproduct.com").

Why does a multi-millionaire company get to decide that my HTML markup is
`wrong` if there is no "nofollow" in my HTML?

I know they have the right to decide who gets listed on their search engine
and who does not. If that is the case, they should not call their results
fair.

~~~
quonn
> Why does a multi-millionaire company get to decide that my HTML markup is
> `wrong` if there is no "nofollow" in my HTML?

They don't "get to decide" anything. It's just that _you_ don't get to decide
either. After all there are many others who also want to be listed at the top
for a particular query.

Simply, their algorithm works in a particular way. Other tags might also
affect the ranking, such as h1 tags, for example. There has to be _some_
mechanism.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

~~~
sunnykgupta
Indicating, that its a shortcoming in Google's search algorithm that makes
anybody who wish to get listed on it's index to follow these `Rules`?

~~~
quonn
My point is that short of picking the search results randomly, any mechanism
will have some rules (no matter how complicated) that affect how things get
ranked.

~~~
sunnykgupta
So be open about the shortcomings in your algorithms instead of trying to show
that the practice is bad, try telling people that your algorithm is not
competent enough to know if the intentions are good or bad.

Hence your algorithm requires you to comply to the nofollow rule.

------
weavie
The general point of Googles page rank algorithm is to find the best and most
relevant content. It's premise is that people are more likely to want to link
to good content than bad content. When people start using money rather than
quality content to influence the algorithm, it destroys it's premise and thus
undermines it's effectiveness.

------
meleva
Actually it goes like that:

You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a
link to my website. The link is presented as an organic, non paid link. =BAD

You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a
link to my website. The link is presented as a paid link, with a no follow
attribute. =GOOD

On a side note, your breakdown of the Ad Revenue using Google as a middleman
is wrong. If you pay Google 100$ (via Adwords) to decide to show ad on my
site, I will get 68% of that 100$ and Google will get 32%

Adense revenue share:
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en)

------
lazyjones
It's not justifiable. It's just band-aid for widespread malpractice, but as it
is now, this just favors paid links that are hidden better, e.g. inside
articles, random texts etc.

The whole concept of "link juice" is no longer useful. Google should identify
and count real humans visiting web pages via GA and Chrome and rank search
results based on actual website usage, and not on how well they can cheat in
SEO.

~~~
DanBC
Doesn't that just mean there'll be an underground AmazonTurk for people happy
to visit websites to noodle around for a few minutes / hours?

------
phpnode
I don't think it is justifiable. Google's policies are a bandage for gaps in
their algorithms, rather than fix their algorithms (admittedly, this is hard
and it's not like they aren't trying) they have reached a point where they can
use their monopoly power to dictate how websites act. They punish behaviour
which hurts their main business - adwords.

I would expect an anti-trust case in the coming few years.

------
PauloManrique
My 2 cents: if you pay for Adwords, you'll be on the top of the page, so you
can buy from Google your way to the top of search results. Sure some people
realize the first results are paid, but still, get a decent title on your
campaign and you're on the top of the page.

We should also mention that Google tells people to "merge" adsense on the
website, so it doesn't appear to be an ad, inducing people to think that it's
part of the website. Have you ever been on a download website with ads with
graphics saying "Download" right next to the button just to make confusion and
make you click on them? Yeah, I see plenty of those using adsense.

~~~
DanBC
I would have though Google would be strongly against ads like that. Do you (or
anyone) have screenshots?

------
WriteYourRep
If google allowed paid links that passed on page rank, SEO instantly becomes
pay to play. Preventing a situation where it only takes money to rank is in
Google's best interest because it promotes a healthy internet ecosystem.

------
onion2k
Buying links is fine.

Buying links in order to 'cheat' your way to the top of Google's search page,
thereby skewing the accuracy of their results, isn't fine.

I'd liken it to Ford paying 500,000 people to drive a Ford car and then
claiming to be the #1 best selling car in the country. If they did that
publicly it'd be ok (and compilers of car sales listings would ignore them).
If they did it secretly then it really wouldn't. Tagging a link with
'nofollow' essentially makes it public that the link isn't trying to cheat the
listings.

------
arikrak
It's dishonest to your users to display a paid link and and not tell them.
Google feels the same way about displaying paid links that they look at. What
does that have to do with ads, which you can display from anyone on your site?

Also, Google only keeps 32% of the ad revenue not 60%:
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en)

------
nl
You are completely free to pay for links.

Google is completely free to have their algorithm work however they want to
provide the best possible results.

(Personally I think using paid links as a signal for good websites is unlikely
to improve results. You may not agree with this, but that is separate to the
issue as to if they should be free to implement their algorithm however they
like)

~~~
pdevr
Yes, and I think OP was trying to point out Google Adsense allows "paid links"
to be displayed on the same website: _" You own a website, I own a website, I
pay $100 to Google who decides when to show my ad on your website and keep $60
for itself."_

In other words, if you pay Google (30% more money) to display the links on
another website, you are alright. However, if you directly pay the website
owners (roughly 30% less money) for them to add a paid link on the same site
at the same spot, you are running afoul of Google's rules. So, as a business
owner, to be in the good books of Google, you incur 30% extra expenses.

I am not trying to criticize Google here (I use multiple Google services),
just pointing out how many small business owners see this.

~~~
colinbartlett
I think the biggest difference between the two is that one looks like ads and
the other looks like natural links. I'm pretty sure Google wouldn't penalize
you for having your own advertisements on your site when they are clearly
marked as such.

~~~
pdevr
Even when they were marked as sponsored links, they were penalized, according
to this post[1].

On a sidenote, my post was downvoted by someone even though it was on-topic. I
disagree with you, but have upvoted so we can discuss this rationally.

[1] [http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/why-did-my-pagerank-go-
down/](http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/why-did-my-pagerank-go-down/)

------
annacarthy
Paid Ads = OK Paid links that look organic = bad.

You are not allowed to pay to increase your ranking. You can buy ads on Google
or another site and that's ok as long as they are marked as ads.

~~~
sunnykgupta
That is what I'm trying to ask, how do you define marking as an Advert?

Does every advertisement necessarily carry a 'Advert' banner?

~~~
lauradhamilton
The definition of "advert" is something that you paid for.

If you're asking how does Google know if a link was paid? It has some
algorithmic ways, and it also relies on paid link reports from competing
webmasters.

------
hadoukenio
Google doesn't like it when you cut out the middle man.

