Link buying is an effective marketing strategy but has an evil twin in Googlebombing. Here's a look at the issues.
Over the past six months, much has been made over the good and bad of link buying. Angry blog posts, posturing from Google, and near fights at search conferences made this one of the biggest issues in 2007. It's an epic struggle of good versus evil in which the credibility of the internet hangs in the balance -- or at least that's how it seems.
After months of talking, Google fired the first shot in the war on link buying: an algorithm update. The update dinged the PageRank of some top publishers and sellers involved in selling links.
The issue is extremely important because of how significantly link development can impact your Google traffic. Trust me. I have several clients in the healthcare space who haven't implemented a thing but have seen success through link development alone.
The link buying debate can be confusing for the uninitiated. If you're not in the SEO community, you may not be sure what the issue is or what's at stake. Of course, it doesn't help that SEOs discuss these matters in our typical, technical and somewhat geeky manner (nofollow tags, link juice, etc.). The language makes SEO seem secretive, confounding and angering marketers when their sites lose traffic or rankings.
From what I've seen, SEO matters such as link development are harder for marketers to explain to clients than on-site fixes, and a lack of understanding may be the reason they lose internal interest. In an effort to address this audience, I'm focusing my writing topics at those marketing managers tasked with "making SEO happen" and explaining it to C-level executives.
Let's start with a quick 101 on the importance of links.
Out of site: a link building primer
In order for a site to rank well for a topic or specific keyword, it needs to have quality links pointing to it from other quality sites, preferably using the targeted keyword in the link. The concept is very much at the center of how Google ranks pages and finds grounding in the educational principle of authoritative references.
If an author publishes a book on quantum physics and cites several other physics books, people in the field will likely believe the cited books are experts on the subject matter and worth reading. This concept was transferred to the web and evolved further as social media exploded.
I'm a TV junkie. So when asked about the latest celebrity dalliance, my opinion may count for more than someone else's who can't tell the difference between Mary-Kate and Ashley. This idea holds sway in the world of link building as well. If I told you that The Superficial is a great site for celebrity gossip you would trust that site because it came from me.
For a time, all was good in the kingdom of search as the world of link karma worked in a very "wiki" way. Sites that had content about Caribbean vacations would link to Starwood's Caribbean hotels because it was in the best interest of their users. Links were swapped, given away and even paid for because there was no harm. For the most part, users got links to good partners and sites received a boost in Google.
Then, the concepts behind link development spawned several search result jokes like Miserable Failure, French Military Victories and others.
It stands to reason that as the Google team got wise to such Googlebombing, it recognized how easily the company could be manipulated through the use of links. People could buy enough links to gain high rankings as long as their site was somewhat on topic. The ripple effect on Google would be significant because the quality of its results would go down; users would visit less, and there would be less clicks on those paid listings.
With that as the backdrop, here's a look at both sides of the case.