Organic results are based on relevancy and genuine popularity aren’t they?*

What Patrick has been highlighting is spot on, and this kind of stuff from Google only creates cynicism, sloppy results and also tempts those that are essentially being white hatters to move towards the more grey area of SEO.

*rhetorical question!

I don’t agree. IMHO Google is trying to give credit for links based on merit and provides a nofollow attribute to allow paid links or anything else that shouldn’t pass Pagerank. The conspiracy theory doesn’t add up for me. To me it makes sense that the web should be a meritocracy and you shouldn’t be able to buy ‘high office’ But hey, I’m a purist

d

“but surely buying links is, essentially, advertising. How can Google tell me where I can and can’t advertise?”

I think what no-one seems to be focusing on here is perhaps a lot more sinister than anyone has cottoned onto here. Google, the big corporation that it is, makes it harder for the majority of smaller, newer websites to rank themselves (vs bigger branded/more established websites). Historically buying links from directories and other sites would help give your new site a shot in the arm. Now google wants to remove that shot in the arm, effectively holding your site down.

With no traffic comes no new links, with no links comes no traffic – so what do people turn too, simple – ADWORDS. I honestly believe Google are making it harder for the majority of smaller organisations/brands to compete well in search results. If google punish us for buying links, then perhaps enough of us will instead put that budget into Adwords, which ultimately is what Google Corp are after (in my humble opinion)!