Macalua.com

Here’s another chapter to the Jeremy Zawodny paid link soap opera. This one’s courtesy of Matt Cutt, Google’s resident WRO (webmaster relations officer):

Google’s stance on selling links is pretty clear and we’re pretty accurate at spotting them, both algorithmically and manually. Sites that sell links can lose their trust in search engines (highlights are mine)

Jeremy vs Matt. Yahoo! vs Google. Everyone wants to know how this will play out.

• Will Jeremy fold and add nofollow?
• Will advertisers pull out because of that?
• Will Jeremy say up my arse Google?
• Will Matt counter with a sitewide penalty/ban?
• Will Matt take it to the advertisers?

I’m with Jeremy on this. Google’s penchant for “do this/don’t do this” is getting a little too big brotherly for me. Besides, how can Google possibly detect paid links algorithmically? What if I pay a ODP editor to add my site to DMOZ, does that make DMOZ a paid link network? What if I owned multiple companies and then decide to promote them over at a high traffic/authority site like Macalua.com (heh) do I risk getting all my websites spanked? They all belong to me and I can’t link to them because Google feels I’m trying to game their system??

From Joe Hunkins:

I am concerned about the issues raised by Greg - that Google’s desire for no paid links pressures you, the publisher, to second guess what the big G needs and place those concerns over your own.

Who’s in charge here anyway?

From Nick Wilson:

I agree Joe, Google’s stance on paid links worries me greatly, and has done for a long time — these are OUR websites - get it?

From Randfish:

It’s highly hypocritical to argue against a paid linking model, when your businesses revenue is based largely on that model (AdWords and AdSense). If Google wants to discount these links because they think they’ll get better results, no one’s stopping them or saying no. But, lumping every link that has a commercial purpose or a monetary exchange would kill the link structure of the commercial web… It’s just not sound thinking.

From one of the paid sponsors on Jeremy’s blog:

I purchased one of the sponsor ads on Jeremy’s Blog. According to you, Greg, I should be penalized for purchasing advertising space on a high-profile and high-traffic website.

I have good rankings on the search engines already, thank you… I purchased this link for traffic and care less if it gives me a boost in G, Y, or M.

P.S. I think it’s B.S. that a site owner could get penalized for displaying paid ads yet it’s ok to display Google’s paid ads? Can you say… MONOPOLY?

And the Comment of the Year award goes to Tim Linden:

Personally I think there is way too much emphasis on optimizing your site to rank well in search engines. Search engines should be the ones worrying about rankings.

Pucha :)