This is my follow on from my post yesterday:- Dancing With The Gevil – Defamed By Google?

Fair enough, for those people who have been caught selling links primarily for boosting search engine results.

The funny thing is I have seen so many blogs today that are selling Text Links who have not received a penalty, yet lots of sites that write high quality paid reviews penalized.
I am referring to the PR6+ sites with 10 or more text links in the sidebar that are totally off topic.

As per my previous article, I don’t believe this should cover editorial links that are given during a review that is a form of consultancy. I have always made that clear that that is the purpose of my reviews.

It really does seem I am being penalized based upon the Payment processor and market-place I display most prominently, PayPerPost, though I have seen a few sites that display other Paid Post badges also hit heavily.
The most prominent PayPerPost writers seem to have been hit the hardest.

I Don’t Sell PageRank

Here is the description of the service I offer on my profile on Sponsored Reviews

Blog Search Engine Performance, WordPress, Niche Marketing, Affiliate Marketing Tips and Social Media with Original Opinion and Loads of Attitude

50% of revenue from reviews is donated towards WordPress plugin development adding additional exposure.

I look on reviews as a form of consultancy.

You are paying for my time, not just for link equity or buzz.

My reviews are typically 2000 – 3000 words and I strive to highlight both good features and flaws constructively and offer suggestions for improvements.

My readership is not mass market, but contains many thought leaders and influencers.

I talk about tools and strategies to help with creation of various types of niche websites, social media, social networks, blogging and WordPress. I can easily review a site not just based on content, but also from an SEO perspective.

If you actually follow the link, there is no mention of PageRank anywhere on the page. They do mention link popularity, but the number of links a site has is also a traffic indicator, possibly more accurate than Alexa.

Here is my profile on ReviewMe – you might notice it is quite similar

50% of revenue from reviews is donated towards WordPress plugin development adding additional exposure.

I look on reviews as a form of consultancy, you are paying for my time, not for link equity or buzz.
My reviews are typically 2000 – 3000 words and I strive to highlight both good features and flaws constructively and offer suggestions for improvements.

My readership is not mass market, but contains many thought leaders and influencers.

I talk about tools and strategies to help with creation of various types of niche websites, social media, social networks blogging and WordPress.

I can easily review a site not just based on content, but also from an SEO perspective.

Again, no mention of PageRank, just Alexa, Technorati (which is an indication of links) and RSS subscribers.

Lets take a look at PayPerPost Direct

To find me within the directory, you would have to filter on a price range of $100 – 200, no direct link to the profile

I am considered by many to be an expert on:-

* Blog Search Engine Performance
* Search Engine Optimization
* WordPress
* Niche Marketing
* Affiliate Marketing Tips
* Social Media
* Blogging Community

If you are looking for good, detailed, solid information and are not looking to be spoon fed, you are going to love what I write.

My primary blog is in many ways a community project with the content provoking stimulating discussions.

Average Tack: 5 / 5 Google Page Rank: 5 Alexa Score: 17797

I should really log in and get that PageRank updated, because it currently gives a value different to what is displayed on Google’s toolbar. I don’t think it actually is different in real terms as far as the ranking of my own content, although who knows, I might actually be a PR6 now that has been downgraded, and my readers seem to like my content.

I did use a more sales like appraoch with some HTML that I grabbed from my Blogcatalog profile – with PayPerPost Direct any initial contact is just that, an initial enquiry and they have a built in message system. The first message I send to any enquiry always ensures that they accept a neutral review, as in they have no editorial control, and to ensure they understand that any and all links will be editorial, with my own choice of anchor text. On more than one of the reviews I have even pulled out a keyword research tool to get a good idea of what to use in the post title, and to some extent topics to discuss and link text.

Tack is something that is important, it is based around advertiser feedback

I Reject Reviews – Lots Of Them

ReviewMe 33% (2/6) Accepted
Sponsored Reviews 80% (4/5) Accepted
PayPerPost 37.5% (3/8) Accepted

Total 47.3% (9/19) Accepted

That doesn’t cover all the offers I pass over within the various directories, or the people who have approached me directly. The direct offers I generally ignor totally or refuse politely, depending on product. There is one ebook I still have to take a look at to see if I am going to write a full review. That will be free even though a paid review was offered. Why? It has an affiliate program, if it is any good, I will earn more as an affiliate over the long term.

Editorial Control

Google representatives have stated many times that paid directories are OK, as long as they are not selling PageRank specifically, and there is some editorial control over the process.

I Don’t Sell Advertising

Any advertising you might find on this blog is affiliate marketing, and where I remember, that is blocked and nofollowed.

PageRank = INFLUENCE

It seems as I suggested in my previous article that Google have singled out anyone, or any collective group or company who gives a hint in their promotional material that they are selling links based upon PageRank.
Selling links based upon even a similar term, such as listing the number of links to your site does not seem to currently be a problem, and this might be a slow but manual process.

If you mention PageRank as an indication of how “pretty” you are to advertisers, you are going to be treated like a prostitute.

As I also mentioned in my previous article, PageRank can also be looked on as a measure of influence that can never be assessed just by looking at a pure number of established links, or a traffic rating from Alexa.

Whilst I would love for PayPerPost to move away from displaying PageRank, influence makes a huge difference, but even then they will need additional metrics for traffic, not Alexa, but their own system coming in approximately 1 month.

Adam Lasnik

Adam Lasnik from Google commented on the Sphinn story for Danny’s post.

I totally understand and support tough-but-fair evaluation of our methods, but at the end of day, I’d hope the majority of folks here would agree with our goals of aiming for a more leval playing field on the web as well as a greater surfacing of quality content.

It doesn’t seem like they are trying to level the playing field to me. From my evaluation they have been on one hand quite surgical in which sites to take out, and on the other hand have not paid any attention to the quantity and quality of the content.

Here are 2 quotes from Adam from April when interviewed by Eric Enge

Two, taking a step back, our goal is not to catch one hundred percent of paid links. It’s to try to address the egregious behavior of buying and selling the links that focus on the passing of PageRank. That type of behavior is a lot more readily identifiable then I think people give us credit for.

That’s one of those things where typically you know it when you see it. As I mentioned, our interest isn’t in finding and taking care of a hundred percent of links that may or may not pass PageRank. But, as you point out relevance is definitely important and useful, and if you previously bought or sold a link without Nofollow, this is not the end of the world. We are looking for larger and more significant patterns.

As I pointed out on Sphinn, I have over 1800 pages indexed, and of those over 1500 are showing in the /* supposedly primary index.
That actually compares very well with many PR6 optimized sites, and better than most.

Among those pages are 9 pages from which I linked to clients who hired me to review their service or website. Those reviews typically took between 4 and 10+ hours to perform and write the content, to receive between $35 and $130 in my pocket, pre tax.

Obi Wan would certainly, at this time be saying “Adam, these are not the paid links you are meant to be looking for, move along”

Maybe Google have identified PayPerPost as a bigger long-term threat not only to their search index, but also to their monetization of the web, than what was currently only about links that were easy to identify, such as those in the sidebar.

Rather than trying to tackle the mass of 50,000 PayPerPost bloggers, they are highlighting the most prolific or prominent bloggers using the service. Sure they have also hit the Stanford Daily very hard, but that is just one very visible site.

Shoemoney has been saying “Don’t Make Google Look Stupid”

I honestly don’t think PayPerPost currently are making Google look stupid, but the danger for Google is allowing them to grow.

Some more great discussion on this from Rob and Meg, and thanks to Snoskred for the support – Hmm legal fees paid by Nigeria maybe? ;)

One point raised in the comments of my last post by Tomaz was about the Review My Post links, part of the PayPerPost affiliate program. With close to 400 clicks in the last 10 months, and 3 conversions, it is not ideal, as so few people who click through qualify for PayPerPost. If everyone who filled in the application form was accepted, it would be worth $0.75 per click which isn’t shabby, and hell as far as I care the link can be nofollow – it is just a great way to help someone make some immediate cash – maybe PPP will improve the conversions.
Anyway short term, I am going to remove the button for Review My Posts – that is the only minor concession I am going to make.

I don’t sell PageRank.

Whatever change Google have made in the data held about my site, it doesn’t seem to have prevented any of my content ranking, and unfortunately it is impossible to say what data they are working on to begin with.
They could well be using a dataset from 1 year ago in their experimentation with some new algorithms, or just as easily some data from last week.

The Toolbar PageRank Trap

• Google created PageRank
• Google created a way for people to see PageRank
• Google created a way for webmasters to access PageRank via API

Google seems determined to penalize anyone who mentions PageRank within their advertising as an indication of the value of the advertising or review service provided – essentially they are assuming that a mention of PageRank within such material means that the intention of the site owner is to sell PageRank.

I suppose that this assumption is the same as assuming that if a good looking female consultant, writer, TV presenter or speaker includes their photograph as part of their promotional materials, that the primary service they are providing is related to the sex industry.

Services such as PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Text Link Ads, Text Link Brokers & Sponsored Reviews do include Google PageRank among their listing and value criteria, and I do realize that a higher PageRank does make advertising more attractive to advertisers.
If you hadn’t noticed TV presenters, all things being equal, are often chosen based upon looks and not just intellect, lingual dexterity, and professional reputation.

Google themselves use PageRank within listings as a signal of quality. As an example, here is a page which contains a listing of SEO related blogs which have been selected for quality of content. The Google directory is an exported copy of the DMOZ directory, and inclusion within the SEO sections is highly prized.

PageRank could easily be looked on as an indication of INFLUENCE.

A blog with a higher PageRank might well have a lot less readers, but those readers will be more influential. As an example whilst Vanessa Fox no longer works for Google, and probably has far fewer subscribers that I do, I know she is a lot more influential.

Paid Post Arena Visibility

It is true I am highly visible in the paid posts arena, I have been included in a press release for PayPerPost, they listed me on Wikipedia and I have a prominent profile in their PPP Direct service (Ajax – no PageRank).

They even mentioned me in one of their promotional opportunities about PPP Direct, highlight that I had written a review about it, but there was absolutely no requirement for anyone to link through to me.

Despite the fact that PayPerPost list my PageRank among other metrics within their directory, I strongly believe that I am not “selling links” – I look on what I write as a form of consultancy, actually quite low paid consultancy considering the time I invest in the few site reviews I do accept.
The PayPerPost interface is a little limited in the specification and notification department, as are most enquiry forms for any business. As you would expect, a lot of additional discussion of requirements happens after an initial equiry, and within that discussion I insist that any links I provide will be editorial, with my own choice of anchor text.
That being said, I am SEO aware, I write articles frequently on how to give people useful anchor text, and if I determine I wish to highlight a particular web document, I am going to link to it using the best anchor text that I feel is appropriate.

In the Webmaster guidelines Google themselves state:-

A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you.

I am very comfortable explaining what I do in regards to paid reviews, I believe the content I create is of the highest quality, offers good value to my clients (I don’t like to look on it as advertising, though that is a component), and I also feel that if any of my clients were speaking with their competitors, they should feel quite comfortable pointing out the reviews I have made of their sites to their competitors.

In many ways being open and comfortable explaining what I do could be what has led to what seems to be a penalty in my displayed toolbar pagerank.

Only A Visible Penalty?

From what I can determine, the reduction in toolbar PageRank for this domain is the only thing which has happened.

• My pages are being indexed frequently – in fact my content appears in Google’s index just minutes after it is published, and a large amount of my content is reindexed every few days because it is often being updated.
• Google seems to be crawling everything – I can’t call this “deep crawling” because my site is actually very flat compared to most blogs, with the majority of pages no more than 2 clicks from the home page, and heavily interlinked.
• Whilst Google no longer reports supplemental results pages directly, the difference between a standard “site:andybeard.eu/” search and “site:andybeard.eu/*” search is minimal, indicating that as much as 85% of my pages are in the primary index. I don’t block a fair number of my pages that might be regarded as duplicate content from being indexed. As Google representitives have stated many times supplemental results are mainly due to lack of PageRank being passed to the pages, and not due to duplicate content. It is true that duplicate content pages often have very few links, thus end up as supplemental results, but this is more a by product.
• Most of my content appears to be ranking as well as it has ever ranked, actually in many cases better than many of my peers talking about the same products, publishing content around the same time.

Potential Unusual Factors

There are a number of potential unusual factors in the links I have received to this domain over the last 6 months which might be looked on by Google’s bots as possible things to flag, and I am going to list every single one of them, totally openly.

• The Dofollow List or D List – My site was added to a list of Dofollow bloggers that grew and spread into a blogging meme. I didn’t add myself to the list, and I didn’t spread it in any way. The links I received from it were all very targeted as they were deep links to my list of Dofollow plugins, but without any useful anchor text.
• Technorati Train – I had been exchanging Technorati favorites with my readers for some time, and Maki @ DoshDosh decided to do the same. I linked through from one of my posts to Maki, and Maki added me to a list of blogs that exchange favorites. That list was picked up and turned into another long meme from which I received a number of deep links.
• Indexed Search Results – I have 2 or 3 pages on the site where I pick up an RSS feed of the last 100 links to a post on my blog, or someone else’s, cache the results so it isn’t constantly hitting the server, and output the results. In many ways this is almost identical to what Google provide their blogspot users in the form of “linkbacks” to their posts.
• I have one page that pulls in search results on a specific keyword from Technorati, and again caches the RSS results, and outputs them to the page. The web page in question is very useful, in fact just as informative in many ways as a Mahalo search result – appropriate really because the topic is… Jason Calacanis – I have had some decent links to the page as well, from highly credible sources.
• How do you differentiate between keyword stuffing on every page… and “Web 2.0″ ideas like tag clouds? I have growing tag clouds on the bottom of my single “post” pages – they are useful for users, and give me some SEO benefits for moving juice around, but at some stage, on some very busy posts, it might become a little excessive, and dilute the value of the content.
• Dofollow – removing nofollow from comments in itself has risks for 3 primary reasons
  • Overall juice leakage – I have some pages with close to 200 external links, often to unrelated sites – those same pages might have 500 or more internal links to compensate but it does need to be considered on a busy blog.
  • I encourage people to use pingback or trackback when linking through to one of my posts, and encourage linking to posts rather than to my root domain. Unfortunately that is also a form of reciprocal linking between highly related pages on the web, because one page is invariably discussing the same topic as the other.
  • Linking to low quality domains – I moderate comments and trackbacks quite ruthlessly and apply my comments policy – I am sure some low quality sites slip through, but in general I know the blogs of most of the peole who link to me and who comment
• David Airey was recently having some problems possibly due to some links he sold, or maybe due to the birthday competition and specifying anchor text. I donated a prize to the competition – prize givers were not given any real indication on how the competition was going to be run, although David did ask for us to provide a description of how we wanted to be linked from his page – I am not criticizing David over this, and my rankings for particular terms which people decided to copy and paste have increased – it is a lot like article marketing and author resource boxes – is article marketing with a resource box soon going to give you a Google penalty? I doubt it, which is why I am surprised over Google’s attitude.
• I have one link out there for a large donation I made to a WordPress Plugin author – the link was offered freely after the donation was made, and the place being linked to and the anchor text is totally logical. I seem to remember links for charitable donations, or I suppose other donations are not what Google are meant to be targeting, but if the links look the same as a list of paid links, with a PayPal button underneath, I am sure Googlebot and even a human inspection might misinterpret why a link was given. I will be restarting donations to plugin authors soon – I paused it partially due to it being overshadowed by other WordPress development competitions which were also giving links to sponsors on high ranking domains, and supported by Automattic.
• I have some links from some of my other domains pointing to this site, to relevant content, or to meet legal requirements in the UK
• I have content being syndicated, both with permission and without. It generally contains links to the original article – I don’t hunt down people syndicating my content, and I publish it under GPL, so I can only require some kind of attribution, such as a link anyway.
• I started a meme back in January to boost awareness for MyBlogLog communities of quality blogs – I have seen even Google employees take part in blogging memes that offer some value

Paid Reviews or Consultation or Selling PageRank?

I don’t sell links on any of my domains for a number of reasons, but if I was going to include unrelated links if anything it would be to my own niche sites. To my knowledge I have never clicked on a link labeled “Sponsored Links” though I have clicked on links that were display advertising. If I was to sell display advertising I would have it running through a tracking script.

Here is a full list of the paid reviews I have written on this blog

So I have written 9 reviews, and turned down as many or more, some of which weren’t very relevant, but mainly because I didn’t have time… time for me is the biggest factor, it is what I believe people are paying me for. All links I give in such reviews are editorial

My readers seem to enjoy my paid reviews. I don’t think I have ever had a negative comment, in fact much the opposite many readers have linked to my reviews as an example of how such reviews can add to a blog, and to the web as a whole.

Plea Bargaining

Google have an attitude that if they decide you are guilty of some misdemeanor based upon their guidelines, you get a penalty.

Guilty until proven innocent?

The penalty I seem to have received is a major drop in my visible PageRank, and based upon the ranking of some of the sites I have linked to for certain phrases, may also have affected my ability to pass PagerRank and other ranking factors… globally, not just on a per page or per link basis.

The standard procedure to have some kind of penalty lifted is to fix whatever you have done wrong (in Google’s eyes), and submit a re-inclusion request through their webmaster console.

Unfortunately this isn’t really guilty until proven innocent, it is more like guilty until you repent.

If some slimy snake-oil SEO has discredited your site with various practices that Google doesn’t approve of, you eventually have a chance of re-inclusion, as long as you admit you did something wrong, rectify the problem, and vow never to do it again.

But what happens if you think you have done absolutely nothing wrong?

PayPerPost Is My Payment Processor

I use PayPerPost as my payment processor for the review / consultancy services I provide as an alternative to using PayPal or Google Checkout. They do take a small additional fee, but they also provide a very useful escrow service, and provide me with traffic. PayPerPost are certainly within my top50 referrers every single day and I believe it is targeted traffic.
I receive probably as much traffic daily from PayPerPost as I receive from other services… per month, though I know I am lucky to be a featured blogger, and that other bloggers might not receive as much traffic from the PayPerPost Direct site.

I have had someone show disrespect for my blog for displaying the PayPerPost logo, actually it was someone who used to write for DownloadSquad after I criticized them quite strongly for complaining about splogs, and then linking to the culprit… without using nofollow, just like The Guardian in their recent interview.

What would happen if Google decided in the future that PayPal isn’t a “trusted” payment processor, and is a poor quality signal?

Surely Google can’t give me a penalty for displaying my payment processor on my blog?

Quality Symbol Not Indication Of Ability To Pass Juice

The general public look on the little green bar on the Google Toolbar as a signal of quality, that is what Google tell them.

Here it is in Google’s own words

Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar’s PageRankâ„¢ display to tell you how Google assesses the importance of the page you’re viewing.

But a penalty on my visible Toolbar PageRank isn’t what Google are telling their users. Google users think my content is of less value, and has less authority. They don’t understand that Google also apply modifiers to the green bar which may be for reasons other than quality.

My content is still ranking in Google, thus Google still looks on my content as being the same quality.

The Google PageRank currently being displayed to my visitors is a deliberate manufactured lie to my visitors.

It is also a lie to potential advertisers – I don’t sell links, but I do sell my authority, and my hopefully increasing PageRank was a positive signal of quality relative to my increasing status withing Internet marketing and Search Engine Marketing.

Tarred & Feathered By Google

Google are going the route of humiliation as a deterrent to people using services such as PayPerPost, both bloggers writing content, and advertisers (PayperPost advertisers include corporations such as Ford Motor Company)

I am not going to defend the position of “Paid Links” which take 3 seconds to approve. That is an advertising value vs gaming search engines debate, and is not something I am involved in, not even under cover.

I spent over an hour on Skype with a colleague last night, about 3am because I just happened to be at my computer, giving him some reassurance on something SEO related. Before the conversation he asked how to pay me, and my consultancy rate. I don’t do that kind of SEO consultancy, it is not part of my current or even future business model.
I am sure however if I had stated $60 or even $100 per hour, I probably would have ended up with some work with his client just monitoring things. I could probably charge a lot more within more specialist niches where I have more experience.
If I spend 5 hours or more on a review on this blog and get some financial compensation, it doesn’t cover the value of my time, so how the hell can it be looked on as selling links just to game the search engines.

The money is just a token gesture, a way to filter requests so that people think about relevance.

At this time I am not worried about the 15,000 visitors Google send to my blog every month.

Google are attacking my personal brand, my business, and my integrity.

It Is Not Just My Domain

I have checked a number of domains that appear to have had an unusual decrease in Google Toolbar PageRank. I am not going to name them as I don’t believe that is the right approach to take.
Just as I have over the last 6 months, since April, each of those sites has continued receiving quality inbound links, but seems to have been hit with a penalty.

Lets Just Assume This Is A Mistake From Google

If Google had hit my rankings at the same time, then this label they have placed on my site as being of poorer quality might have been justified, but as ranking prominence has remained, it is a false representation of my site’s value.

I don’t think really think Google intended to defame me so I am going to keep cool and see if they fix the problem over the next week or so. Who knows they might even decide to issue a public apology to those they have been misrepresenting to their users.

For previous coverage, please refer to my posts about Google Paid Links, and the highly informative Gevil

Edit – I made a mistake with the Gevil link, it should have been to the .org

I am not sure I am going to be able to knock him off the top spot, and this very post will probably gain him a few more votes, but I would like to think that one of my older articles could at least be a contender.

If This Content Is So Good, Why Hasn’t It Been Submitted Before?

There are a number of reasons why my old post on WordPress SEO and Dynamic Linking might not have been submitted by anyone in the past, and I think it is important to elaborate.

• The post in question was originally written in June, thus it pre-dates Sphinn – Danny doesn’t mind older content being submitted as long as it adds something of value.
• It was written as a Paid Post – I am sure some people are shuddering already, and others might just have a little gleam in their eyes – after all what better way to emphasise a point about some paid content and links being of high value than to have it highly rated on Sphinn
• Sphinn Might Not Accept a Paid Post – This is one reason I personally didn’t submit it sooner, because I respect the wishes of the admins, as well as the community. I asked Danny in a comment on Sphinn and I have taken his reply to mean that this submission would be acceptable.
• I was unsure of the “current climate” regarding paid links – I think in part SES San Jose has brought even some of the most white hat SEOs to question Google’s stance, and whilst Google’s stance is like a rock against a storm tide, hopefully… eventually… we will have some clarification on some of the more grey areas.
• The article was a load of junk? – no one has given me that reaction so far in the comments, or the other correspondence I have had about the article – the article also generated a lot of consulting enquiries which I turned down or have yet to progress to the next stage
• The content wasn’t original – whilst I reference other people fairly often, it is never without my own opinion, and in this case I think most SEOs think “siloing” is advanced linking structures – this article goes well beyond siloing

Gaming Sphinn?

Of course not…

I am just making my readers aware that I have submitted an article they might have enjoyed or even been tempted themselves to submit to Sphinn, if it wasn’t for the “stigma” of it being a paid post that might damage their reputation in some way.

Want to Make A Statement?

This might be one way of doing it…

Matt Cutts reads Sphinn, at least occasionally.

So do a lot of people who don’t fully understand the arguments frequently raised by SEOs about paid links, and services such as ReviewMe, Sponsored Reviews and PayPerPost

This post in particular I feel highlights something wrong with Google’s arguments and I am quite happy to provide it as an example (many people would be scared to do so)

Won’t Google Discount The Links?

All links within the site review were given editorially. The PPP interface doesn’t really provide for this, but it was negotiated before acceptance and I have documentary proof though it is private communication.

It Looks Like Google Have Already Discounted The Links

Google Backlink check on Emonetized

I should note at this time that the review was a one off “contract” and thus I am not receiving any monetary compensation for the links in this article.

That also proves that Tim’s blog is in the same area of topical authority, it is natural for me to be linking to him, and all the links are relevant.

Tim was honestly giving me a little compensation for the time I spent on a review.

Unfortunately it is impossible to prove whether my links to Tim really pass some Google Juice or not, because Google’s link: command doesn’t provide all the results, and might even skip some of the most relevant.
SEO Round Table highlighted today a few ways to check if links pass value – I have checked a number of my other links to other people and have seen my links credited. My WordPress SEO article has received a fair number of incoming links, and I have linked to it multiple times from pages that received links.

It was also syndicated in full and listed as the feature article on Searchnewz.com (note – I didn’t give a followed link to my syndicated article, although it is syndicated with my blessing)

Using Nofollow To Control Juice?

Matt seems to say that using nofollow to control Google Juice is ok, as long as you don’t orphan content.

Voting

I really don’t want this post submitted, despite the fact it might have evidence (though inconclusive) that Google are discounting some links they probably shouldn’t.

However if you liked my old post “WordPress SEO Masterclass For Competitive Niches” I would appreciate a vote on Sphinn, whether you thought it was great content, or because you want to highlight to Google that some paid content can be great, and the links editorial.

If you think it is junk, tell me so in the comments on that post, and give me some better examples.

Obviously I could just change the permalink to bring it to the front page and give it a little more attention, but I am saving that for a future test on Google’s algorithms

They won’t be taking a cut from sales in any way, and all deals are done directly between advertiser and site owner.

So How Do They Make Money?

The plan is to charge for premium listings in their directories on a monthly basis, and the fees so far proposed are reasonable if they can get traction, though that might require a large marketing budget or a skilled PR job.

Multi-platform

OIOPublisher provide a WordPress plugin, but also a hosted service so that it can be used to sell reviews or links for any kind of blog.

Link Options

Textlinks with the current interface can be purchased for the front page, sitewide or on a contextual basis, selecting a specific page, and the word on that page which should be linked to the advertiser.

Glancing at Features

I haven’t actually installed the plugin yet, so this is just a heads up and overview, but from what I can see posts are selected by post ID and URL – I am not sure how that would work for blogs that don’t provide a post ID though I suppose that is easily displayed.

Ideally there would be an interface that you could have on each page of your blog to specify purchasing a link on that page. Also it seems that contextual links are designed for linking from within existing content only, so there is no way of having a “Related Featured Links” breakout box.

Based on my testing, the WordPress plugin doesn’t seem to add links to RSS feeds, maybe a good thing. I wonder how an interface would work where you could order links to one of your sites for a post that hasn’t been published yet.

The system seems to allow for purchase renewal, but doesn’t have subscription options available.

Purchase control procedures allow you to approve a post, but not publish it until you have been paid – in some way this is a major improvement over other paid post and paid link solutions, because no money is held until such time as the advertiser knows something will be published, although.

The system can be configured to have all links nofollow

Maybe there should be a little more control over this, or some people would want different price points.

Just like the WordPress Bankroll plugin when it was first released, there is currently no support for adding tags to a paid post, but I am sure that can be implemented fairly easily.

I am not sure if paid links also appear on duplicate content pages, I will have to experiment.

The plugin code is GPL, so anything the plugin doesn’t currently do can easily be modified to your own requirements

• If you already own WP Bankroll, depending on your usage, OIOPublisher doesn’t offer many additional features and is missing a few
• Wp Text Ads plugin @ $127 seems like a very raw deal in comparison

At the end of the day, I know which option most people will use, the one that is free and multi-platform. With a large userbase, there is a high chance that an advertiser community will also develop though it will take a while to get larger advertisers on board, and there is very little quality control.

This doesn’t really replace the marketplace provided by PayPerPost, ReviewMe or Sponsored Reviews all of which serve mass markets with their existing client base.

I am also not sure it replaces a service like PPP Direct – WP Bankroll I mentioned in my review of PayPerPost Direct and the 10% surcharge is minor when they eat the costs and provide some level of escrow.

Will plugins like this lead to bloggers being banned from various paid post services? It is possible, because I have noticed a massive trend in charging an inflated amount for reviews just to appear higher in the listings on each service, with no intention of selling paid reviews for that price. I priced things based upon what I wanted to receive for my time.

As far as text links, I think I might be in the minority as I have never signed up for Text Link Ads or similar service, simply because they have an exclusivity clause in their terms and conditions. You couldn’t “play the field” and sell your own links, whilst also selling text link ads.

Text Link Ads do have their Feed advertising program, which possibly pays better and is more flexible than other feed advertising services, but you could always replace them with your own.

OIOPublisher is certainly worth a look.

This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer.

Disclaimers are strange things…

Matt can basically discuss anything he likes, whether true, false or possibly true in the future, without his parent company being held liable for anti-competitive practices. It would be very interesting to see if that disclaimer would hold up in court, with Matt being head of the Webspam department.
On his unofficial blog he is in the position to cause an awful lot of financial damage to a lot of very well funded startups, and a fair number of massive internet corporations.

Google is in a Monopoly Position

Whilst everyone has a choice about which search engine they use, they have a significant market share of search traffic, and also a significant market share of the website monetization market, recently increased by the acquisition of DoubleClick (there is an agreement in place, but paperwork isn’t finalised)

What is a Paid Link?

We shouldn’t really think about whether a specific link is paid for, but whether there is a monetary benefit in making the link to another site.

Matt Cutts is an employee and probably has a lot of stock options in Google, yet constantly links through to his employer, from which Google benefit.
Microsoft bloggers frequently blog about Microsoft launches, and even have a mailing list set up.
Yahoo employees blog about Yahoo sites.

If you are a large corporation there are a number of ways to get millions of inbound links.

• Have an affiliate program – use clever redirects on the affiliate links – Google and specifically Matt Cutts has never suggested people report sites that contain affiliate links that are not blocked from being crawled by search engines.
• Buy websites with massive link equity – how much is The Internet Movie Database worth to Amazon from an SEO perspective? Shopping.com and Epinions.com were Ebay purchases. When you go to these sites there isn’t a nofollow link in sight.
• Create Widgets – there are tons of widgets that pass on link equity

Once a large corporation has a lot of existing link equity, it is easy for them to pass this on to money generating sites and services.

Companies are allowed to buy links from the Yahoo directory, which is well known to confer a large amount of trust to a domain, and has been propping up Google’s algorithms for years.
Will we soon see Google state that the Yahoo directory should be made nofollow for all paid inclusions? Matt Cutts has previously stated that the Yahoo directory is OK because there is editorial review.

Matt Cutts has been speaking out saying he agrees with Matt Mullenweg on Sponsored Themes.
A company is paying a theme author as a subcontractor to create and maintain a WordPress theme, and there is attribution to the designer, and the company paying for the work.
Maybe it is a charitable contribution and the designer chose to include a link as a thank you.

How many consultants provide links through to the companies they work for?

How many software firms provide links through to their major corporate clients?

If you make a donation to someone, and they decide to give you a link back, is that a paid link?

If you are a consultant, and are paid to analyse a company, but to make the findings known publicly, are you supposed to stick nofollow on all the links?

If you are a VC or Angel investor, should you have to use NoFollow linking through to companies in your investment portfolio?

Are developers working on an open-source project allowed a link back to their sites (cough WordPress), and then use that link equity to dominate search engines on whatever topic they please?

If you are a blog network, or large internet content producer, is it gaming Google to have links to your sister sites, whether there is a direct financial connection or not?
An interesting twist on this is the WPNI Blogroll. They are providing link equity to the members who are then showing adverts – even if the adverts weren’t converting, would you carry them for the links and traffic?

Should a not for profit organisation link through to their paid members with a live link? One of the benefits is always being included in the members directory, and not just for traffic. These are often high quality credible relevant links, and easy to buy.

A large number of WordPress developers have paid links on their personal sites, as do theme and plugin developers.

If you write a blog post, thanking your sponsors, should you use nofollow?

Some people give away prizes for links, or offer some kind of reciprocation. Links have value, and Google invented the value of a followable link, not webmasters.

If you are a expert in a particular field, and someone asks you to write a review of their site, and the type of review you write means that writing that content might take 10 hours of your time to do due diligence, is it wrong to accept some kind of monetary contribution?
In such a situation, why would you be forced to use nofollow on all links to the site being reviewed?
I guarantee I spend a lot more time on a paid review than someone working for Yahoo for their paid directory.

Imagine someone created a commercial Wikipedia, and paid $5 for every link made to it.
You might think that is crazy, but 100,000,000 links with good anchortext would create a website that would rank for almost any term imaginable, and the company would be worth far more than $1bn, and would certainly bring in more than $100,000,000 revenue each year.
There is another evil twist you could add to the mix as well…

Sickened

I have read through the comments on Matts blog from where this is being orchestrated.

Why is it coming from Matt’s blog and not the Google Webmaster blog?

Why the focus on the effect of paid links and reviews for small webmasters rather than on the major corporations?

This is like a witch hunt with a disclaimer attached

Where is the precise definition of a paid link?

Biting The Bullet

I am actually proud of the paid reviews I have written, and I am so confident that they are not webspam, I am going to “bite the bullet”.

I have already submitted The Matt Cutts blog as webspam, because he is frequently linking through to his employer with undisclosed links.

Now I am doing what many would think of as being unthinkable, I am submitting my own content to Google’s Webspam form

Here is what I have just submitted to Google

paidlink

I am submitting my own content, because it is my own strong belief that there is nothing “webspam” related to the paid reviews I write, and am willing to submit them for scrutiny.

http://andybeard.eu/2007/03/sponsored-reviews-now-live-in-depth-review.html
http://andybeard.eu/2006/12/search-engine-glossary.html
http://andybeard.eu/2007/03/volusion-review-and-suggestions.html

I should also note I also give away half my earning from those reviews to WordPress plugin developers.

I would love an official response that I can publish stating whether Google has any problems with the quality of work I have done for my clients, or the fact that I include live followable links in the reviews I write.

Do you think I am going to get an official response?

Do Google employees have the balls to decide whether something is spam, or will they just blame it on their algorithms?

I didn’t write about Google’s CPA service, because everyone else was covering the subject, I just left a few comments on other people’s blogs. I don’t write about something unless I feel I can add something substantial to the conversation, even if it is highly relevant.

This is where paid posts comes into the equation, because you get paid to write your review irrespective of the number of clicks a link gets, or how many unit sales are made.

Guaranteed Income

I used to work in sales in the offline world, and most of my income was based upon sales results. Unfortunately most f the time I didn’t have a product that was ready for final sale, and the games development studio didn’t have the pedigree to close a development contract just based upon design documents.

It is always good to have some level of guaranteed income, your basic salary. The total rewards are potentially not as high, but there is that level of financial security.

Fast Payment

One of the benefits I mentioned in my review of the Sponsored Reviews service was their payment terms, with payments being made within 2 weeks.

I also mentioned that as they are part of a more established firm, Text Link Brokers, I expected payments to be made on time.

Good to their word, today I received payment, just 12 days after my review of their service which is exceptional.

Giving Away The Money

I am giving away 50% of my earnings from Sponsored Reviews, ReviewMe and Pay Per Post as donations to WordPress Plugin Developers every month, and I would still like some more nominations of who I should give the first donation to.

Notice the Added Value

My donation promotions create a huge amount of added value for the people requesting reviews, and as I continue with this donations theme over the coming months, the donations page will be come cornerstone content with lots of repeat viewers.

Hopefully the resource will become popular among WordPress enthusiast, but it also becomes a showcase for anyone interested in demonstrating ways paid posts can be written with integrity.

ReviewMe have just launched their affiliate program, I am actually in 2 minds about it but will be displaying the badge in a prominent position for a few weeks in my header to see how things go.

It pays out $25 (at least to me) for a first review, I am not sure about other sites. Their is no recurring income, and no benefit for signing up other bloggers.

ReviewMe as a service are (as standard) taking a 50% cut for all reviews, so in theory there is some margin to pay some kind of recurring income both on advertising spend and reviews made by a blogger.

I am a big fan of recurring commissions for affiliate products rather than one-off payments, especially if the service is good and has some stickiness.

Subscribers

As I recently mentioned when ReviewMe allowed me to adjust my pricing, I am quite willing to write reviews for free for regular readers – for details take a look at my previous ReviewMe overview.

Alternatives

Another service similar to ReviewMe is just around the corner, Sponsored Reviews by the same guys as Text Link Brokers.
My biggest concern with all of these text link and review programs isn’t how much I get paid, but their terms of service. No matter how much people rave about text link ads, I would never agree to their terms of service.

ReviewMe, the pay for review service initially stated that they were going to be updating site information on a monthly basis. As many people might have noticed they didn’t quite manage that, in fact it has been over 2 months since my first, and only review for them, of Aaron’s Search Engine Glossary. (I still have to make an affiliate site from his content).

When the service launched, this blog was less than one month old, so whilst I had already gained a reasonable number of subscribers, and for a new blog, reasonable traffic, I didn’t benefit from the attention the service was receiving.

This is how my ReviewMe profile looked up until possibly just a few days ago:-

I didn’t receive an update email, but I did notice something in my referral stats that someone was “checking me out”, so I popped onto ReviewMe to see what was happening.

My stats have now been finally updated:-

It certainly looks like a much more credible site to perform a product review, which might be why someone was checking me out. Combined with the 50% discount ReviewMe are currently offering (coupon code: trial) then it might be an offer too good to refuse.

I am actually quite happy to review stuff for free, or if someone wants me to run my eye over their blog and offer some kind of critique, I am more than happy to do it. I am not a professional SEO. If I can drop in an affiliate links for something, even better :)

I certainly won’t review or link to risky products, and if I am asked to review something, it is going to be published whether positive or negative irrespective of whether I will get paid for it.

I Hate Snapshot Ratings

Don’t you hate stats that are an inaccurate snapshot. They don’t portray the potential growth or decline of a site.

Since the snapshot was taken I am mow close to 13k in Technorati and my 1 week Alexa was 20k.

RSS subscribers is hard to measure now. This site tends to attract newer users to RSS and blogging, and thus Google Reader and Email are the primary method of subscribing. We might even see bloglines subscriptions declining in the near future – it seems their site traffic has fallen more than 20% in the last 6 weeks.

Set Your Own Price – Massive Shock

I just popped by the ReviewMe blog to grab a graphic, and I noticed a new announcement.

You can now set your own price for reviews. This is a very good feature, because that allows you to take into consideration blog growth. I must have been very close to the $150 bracket as it was, and honestly expect to be below 10K Technorati and solidify my below 20k Alexa in the next week. I also should hit 550-600 subscibers in that time.

It gets even better, you can even manually tell ReviewMe to update your ranking

The fun thing about Technorati is that the data is based on 6 month stats, and this blog only went live 17th October.

Of course that heavily depends on how many people are going to go dropping their subscriptions because they didn’t read my widely promoted disclosure policy.

I feel I am an honest guy, I tell things straight, and if people want to pay me for reviews I would most likely do for free because it is on topic, and they just asked, I am not going to throw the money away.

However I strongly believe my reviews and time are actually worth more than ReviewMe currently are willing to pay me by default.

I don’t intend to use text-link-ads on this site, I much prefer links in the body of the content, in exactly the same way I much prefer people to link to me from a post occasionally than add me to their blogroll. There is also another reason, they have an “exclusivity clause” for text based advertising. It doesn’t affect ReviewMe, but it would affect other text links – possibly they don’t enforce it, but this is the year of freedom – Google have relaxed on what is allowed, maybe Andy will relax the terms for TLA as well.

Well anyway here is the TLA link value calculator – just see what links in my content should be worth… per month, not lifetime, and that is without any work in reviewing.

I should also state that at least 6 splogs also pick up most of my content, with all the links live. No they are not mine, and I am not going to hunt them down, as they are actually giving me better than full attribution. I doubt my paid reviews will end up on WebProNews, they would have to make an editorial decision as to whether they added value to their site.
With the various archive pages and tag pages here, any review ends up being links from 10 pages, of semi duplicate content, much of it LSI linked.

At the beginning of March I will be raising the price to $150, of which I will receive $75, and I will probably raise it again at the beginning of April.

Currently you can get a review, after the 50% discount for $50 – or free if you have something highly relevant, are a regular reader / commenter, or just if you ask nicely and are a worthy cause, or an embarrassing victim.

It should also be noted that many of the bloggers needing a link to their disclosure policy from their feed content also needed a solution.

So I have created a simple Disclosure Policy Feedflare

The code is written to point to a page with a page slug or equivalent of “disclosure-policy”

<FeedFlareUnit>
	<Catalog>
<Title>Disclosure</Title>
<Description>Links to the Disclosure Policy</Description>
</Catalog>
	<FeedFlare>
<Text>Disclosure Policy</Text>
<Link href="${../a:link[(@rel='alternate' or not(@rel))]/@href}/disclosure-policy/" />
</FeedFlare>
</FeedFlareUnit>

Don’t copy the code from here, but use the links on the Feedburner Feedflare Library page.

For WordPress users, the feedflare should work should work without any modification
For users of other platforms, you might need to make a few changes, and host the feedflare on your own site.
I haven’t figured out a way to use this with either the new or the old blogger unless you host on your own domain. Blogger users however no longer have an excuse regarding moving to their own domain, as blogger allows you to redirect flawlessly now – no more need for meta refresh hacks. They could also store the feedflare on another domain.
Many other platforms allow you to upload various document files, hopefully they also allow you to upload XML, and you can create a modified XML file with whatever permalink structure your blogging platform uses.

This should be an ideal feedflare for people doing paid reviews for PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Sponsored Reviews etc, and also for affiliate marketers trying to conform to FTC Word of Mouth Marketing legislations.

For an example disclosure policy, you might like to try DisclosurePolicy.org

I am blatantly going to copy down the full list of features from their blog, because these things tend to change over time, and also it is “due diligence”. I wouldn’t want to miss something out that was important, such as them requiring disclosure.

1. Lower Transaction Fees – Our transaction fees will be much lower then Reviewme, which means more money for the blogger and more affordable pricing for the advertisers.
2. Search for Both Publishers and Advertisers – Advertisers can search for publishers and publishers can search for advertisers.
3. Automated Rating System – Our rating system will make it easy to find high quality blogs.
4. Bidding System – Advertisers and publishers can negotiate pricing
5. Manual Pricing – Bloggers will be able to set their own prices. Our system will make recommendations based on our automated ratings system, but bloggers will be able to choose their own price.
6. Full Disclosure Required – We take our responsibility very seriously.
7. Tag Based Organization – Our interface is well organized and easy to use.
8. Quality Standards – Our minimum standards for bloggers will insure that only quality blogs are allowed into our system.
9. Customer Service – We will have dedicated live support available during business hours.
10. Large Base of Advertisers – 360 Enterprises, Inc. currently serves thousands of businesses, which will be hot to purchase reviews from our bloggers.
11. Service Oriented Model – Our large staff will be actively working with advertisers and bloggers to maximize their exposure.
12. Bi-Weekly Payouts – Get paid fast! Most of our competitors payout monthly.

I have done one paid review on this blog, for Search Engine Glossary. I pointed out in that review that anyone asking for a review at that time would be doing well, because the stats hadn’t updated based on my then traffic rated by Alexa, and my subscriber numbers.
The numbers used in ReviewMe are still the same 1 month later. My subscriber numbers and Alexa rating are constantly increasing.
One of the big advantages of this new service (other than the larger piece of the pie for bloggers), is being able to set your own price or negotiate.
I am also wondering whether the service will be suitable for niche websites rather than blogs.

It should also be noted I am an advocate of disclosure in many ways having spent a lot of time and money developing my disclosure policy plugin.

Update: Todd wrote about this as well earlier – important point is that the developers are the same guys behind http://www.textlinkbrokers.com – that means they know the business extremely well, and have an established advertiser base, in many ways just like Reviewme. You can be fairly sure that they are going to be very reliable in payment, which is often a worry when dealing with unknowns.
Update 2: Andy Beal mentioned Sponsored Reviews. Notice how he handles disclosure of his relationship with TLB, and he is one of the few top bloggers in this space that has some form of disclosure policy on his site.
Now if Andy was using my Disclosure Policy Plugin (he is one of the few that have looked at it), he would be able to set it up so that in reference to Pay Per Post or ReviewMe, he would have something like.

Pay Per Post is a competitor to Sponsored Reviews launched on 1/15/07. Sponsored Reviews parent company is a sponsor of this blog with their Text Link Brokers service

Maybe something like that isn’t necessary yet, but what happens if next month they are looking to have adverts for Sponsored Reviews appearing on pages mentioning competitors.