The Google Conspiracy Theory: What Was Said

The article on purchasing links for page rank was supposed to look simply at whether link buying was a good practice for website owners. The conclusion I reached and tried to prove was that any website owner who wanted to take a long-term approach to SEO should avoid buying links.

The primary reason behind this conclusion is Google and Yahoo’s adamant stance against purchasing links for search engine gain.

Although several website owners are currently purchasing links and seeing a positive effect, this does not mean that Google is not actively trying to detect those who buy links.

The responses I received against Google were numerous. However, the idea that Google was trying to make SEO more difficult by discouraging link exchanges and link purchasing for website owners, in order to drive more traffic to their AdSense program, ran through all the responses.

So is this true? Is Google looking to undermine the honest efforts of honest web admins who are web admins looking for a decent ranking in the world’s most popular search engine? Did the Googleplex devise a grand and sinister plan to force the wallets of small business owners?

If Google Is Against Link Buying, Then Why Do They Sell Links Through AdWords?

Google would be hypocritical to encourage us not to purchase ink.

This is a good point, as it is apparent that it believes in the power of link advertising – it represents the largest share of Google’s revenue. If Google were indeed against text link advertising, there would be only one conclusion that we could draw: Google does not like text link advertising because they want to be the only ones to sell text links.

Therefore, Google is using the power of its network to achieve the desire that every website owner has to get a top ranking in Google, thereby attracting more people to buy AdWords and forcing any text-link competition out of business.

The problem with this conclusion is that Google is not penalizing websites for text link advertising if it is done in a specific manner.

Notably, concede that Google probably wants to gain as much market share as possible in the text link advertising industry, but so does every other text link ad network. This does not mean that Google is sure to change its SEO requirements to eliminate the text link advertising industry.

In fact, one could even argue that Google has protected the industry. The introduction of the “nofollow” tag was a response to blog comment spam. Whenever spam is added to a link, Google and a few other search engines will not pass on any PageRank to the site being linked to.

This has served as a way for website owners to sell text links as advertisements without being mistaken for participating in a program to raise a website’s search engine ranking artificially.

They are against purchasing text links for the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings.

It is these purchased links that they are trying to detect and that their engineers have warned web admins about. Web Admins ‘ Argument Against Google: You Have No Choice But AdWords

“In my opinion, Google does not want this done because sites that begin to rank well no longer need to purchase text links through AdWords or AdSense revenue for Google. Let’s face it, in order to recirculate through traffic,, you need to ran well;, if you don’wellI your only other option is to purchase your position through AdWords or AdSense, if you are buying AdWords, then it is the same as if you were to buy text links from someone else to get your PR to boost up and achieve better results in the engines.”

Google is not against purchasing text links for advertising purposes; they are only against buying links for the purpose of getting a top ranking.

The problem is that it is not the same thing. The first problem with this idea is that it equates natural rankings with the value of paid listings. Paid listings have consistently shown that they are not nearly as effective as organic rankings. Users are more likely to trust a website if they find it through an organic listing.

The idea that Google wants every website owner to participate in AdWords is not far from the truth, and it’s probably not deceptive. After all, I don’t know any business that would turn down an offer to sell their product to every person in their industry. But the idea that Google is somehow trying to force website owners into purchasing an AdWords campaign is a sinister one.

Google cannot Prevent Websites From Ranking Well.

There is only a limited number of websites that will achieve a top ranking for any keyword. In fact, we know exactly how many websites will receive a top ranking. On the first page, there will be 10 ranked websites, and on the second page. One, there will also be other websites, etc. The fact is that, for any given keyword, regardless of how many people are competing for it, there is a fixed number of top rankings available.

The purpose of AdWords is that Google cannot keep websites out of the top 10.

They must always have 10 websites in the top 10, as well as 10 more websites in the top 20, and so on. It doesn’t matter if Nettle discounts link exchanges or purchased links, or if they turn traditional SEO practices on their head; they still force a certain fixed number of websites to rank well for any given keyword. Regardless of how hard they try, they cannot force a greater number of people to use AdWords by thinking.

The theory that Google’s organic listings and paid listings are linked in some way is not new.

In this scenario, we can see that it is impossible to turn more people into listings. Regardless of how difficult they make the ranking criteria, we will always have a fixed number of websites that rank well.

Does Google Reward AdSense Users With Favorable Rankings?

Another conspiracy theory that seems to have many believers is that Google rewards AdSense publishers with more favorable rankings. That is, if you spend a regular amount of monëy on paid listings, Google will then treat you more favorably in their natural search results. The theory would make Pavlov’s dog drool.

Once again, however, we have a problem. This time, we fail to see any empirical evidence to support this theory. When AdWords first appeared, SEOs tested their hypothesis by purchasing listings of varying lengths. The results? There was absolutely no correlation between purchasing an AdWords account and your organic search ranking.

Back to What Was Said

If I were to summarize the article, however, I would say that it discourages purchasing links for the purpose of improving rankings, as well as exchanging links solely for page improvement, which is often done as an attempt to manipulate rankings.

So, What Should You Do

So, if purchasing text links for pagerank is not a good idea, and since it seems as if Google is now trying to downplay links that are part of a paid link exchange program, what should website owners do? What is the plan to get a top ranking?

You should still try to get inbound links to your website. You can even do so through link exchanges, although it’s best to do so naturally. What does this mean? It means only linking to sites that are of value to you, and being willing to link to a website without expecting a link in return.

It means getting rid of that enormous directory on your website that leads to tens of thousands of websites that are really only there for the sake of getting a high ranking. You should also engage in activities outside of direct SEO that can help you earn free links. Press releases and news stories, as well as writing exclusive articles, are all powerful ways to get frëe links without having to do anything in return.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with Google’s approach to link exchanges, if for no other reason than for the sake of your users, you should always approach link exchanges as a way to offer more value to your users. What you will find when you take this approach is that your traffïc will increase more than any link exchange program can bring, and your search engine rankings will increase as well.

Post excerpt from Mark Daoust