Secrets out – It’s Trust that Google kills for paid links
My presentation on Saturday at Think Visibility is about link building and the idea that there are three types of links – links for PageRank, links for TrustRank and links for keyword rankings.
People seem to worry about whether paid links and paid blog posts are passing PR or if they pass anchor text for keyword rankings but the actual issue is that paid links don’t pass Trust.
Makes sense when you think about it that way, doesn’t it?
Because Trust isn’t something that can be tested, unlike PageRank and anchor text, not many people really talk about whether a link passes Trust or not.
We’ve been focussing on building natural links for years and the thought that Google blocked Trust on paid links was one of the key factors behind that focus. Now Matt Cutts has blogged about it everybody else might catch on too.
The Forrester report discusses a recent “sponsored conversation†from Kmart, but I doubt whether mentions that even in that small test, Google found multiple bloggers that violated our quality guidelines and we took corresponding action. Those blogs are not trusted in Google’s algorithms any more.
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Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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hi, Patrick, how’re you doing?
Interesting post – I always think of ‘Pagerank’ as being google’s ‘Trust’ algorithm & thus ‘links for trust’ & ‘links for pr’ would be the same thing. Would’ve been interested to hear you at ThinkVisibility & find out where you feel the difference lies. Sadly can no longer attend! Are you planning to stick your slides on slideshare or anything?
dan
“links for PageRank, links for TrustRank and links for keyword rankings”
Totally agree Partick, although I also use links for non seo effect traffic generation and muddying/varying the link profile too if the link profile can me easily duped.
Looking forward to hearing you speak at TV and hope to catch a beer with you too:)
Shaun
Dan – can I have your ThinkVisibility ticket if you can no longer attend? I was on holiday when the event was announced thus missing out.
Google page rank is important but some people make it into first priority to only comment on blogs with high PR.I know of sites with PR zero that are ranking very well in the search engines and get loads of targeted traffic.My point is, Google looks at lots of things besides PR when deciding search engine ranking.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Pagerank = link popularity but trustrank is far more valuable because once you get a degree of trust from google, you can do far more things in regards to building links.
Paid links still pass trust, pagerank or whatever you want to call it, provided Google don’t catch on that it was a paid link in the first place
If we think about trust at human level we can get some variables that can be converted to the internet.
To trust someone you need time and interaction. Hardly any people will give relevant links and not talk about it.
If a like has been on a website for a litle period of time, maybe it’s not ready to be considered a “trusted” link I say less than 6 months.
There are so many aspects you can consider to get a good trust rank algorithm
Good post,Great thoughts and helpful informations……
Ah Paddy “talks a good game” Altoft.
Moneyexpert.com who you made a song and dance about for the entire time still sit top of the UK serps.
Position = success.
Talk = Rubbish.
Stop talking and start doing for a change.
Waffler.
Thanks Trevor for your valuable input
Like Trevor’s idea… stop talking and start working… works for me…
There is so much fear and paranoia surrounding “paid link”. A lot of people think they will be punished or penalized for purchasing links. If this were the case, then I would purchase some links for my competitors and watch them get spanked in the serps.
Also, what if I’m legitimately buying the links for traffic. Google would say that I should then add a no follow to this link. However, I’m not going to request that. If I buy a link that I think will send me traffic, I’m not going to go out of my way to request they make it a no follow link because I’m afraid I might get spanked. That would be silly.
The bottom line is that paid links will never hurt you. They may not help your page rank or position in the SERPS, but they will never hurt you.