Buying Links: Outside Google’s Guidelines?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Every now and then I’ll hear someone say something like, “It’s my website; I should be able to do anything I want with it.”

Usually, this kind of statement is used to support something outside of Google’s guidelines, like buying links. Yes, you are right. You can do whatever you want on your website, but Google’s job is to help searchers find information so they’re going to implement policies that move them toward that goal.

This is straight from Google’s Webmaster Central:

However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

* Links intended to manipulate PageRank
* Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
* Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
* Buying or selling links

Buying links. I think the reason buying links is frowned upon is because it gives the impression that the linking site gives a strong recommendation to the site being linked to. Such recommendations are valued highly by Google because links are considered to be endorsements or testimonies of a website’s credibility. But if you buy that then it’s not really credible.

And if you think that Google isn’t serious about penalizing webmasters who engage in link building schemes, and particularly in link buying, then watch this video: