What Are “Paid” Links?

Posted by Ty

March 3, 2008

Well, this has been a much “heated” debate lately, and it continued on at SMX this past week. Matt Cutts came out and basically told us in the audience that if you are paying for a link, and that link has no relevance to your site, link equity will not flow or be passed onto you. Simply put, if that link has no benefit to the user, then watch out.

Now there was a question that was asked about this scenario:

What if you want to be part of a chapter, association or the like that directly relates to your site, is a good fit, they are a respected and trusted site, but require you to pay them to be a part of their chapter, association etc.. and as part of the “deal”, they put a link on their site naming you as a member? Well, they all agreed this is good and fine. So everyone, don’t be afraid to buy links from sites that you feel will give the end user a good experience.

Nice to hear.

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