• Matt probably earns a salary from Google as head of webspam
• Matt has been with Google since 2000, so probably has a few stock options
• If Matt says something about a new Google service that encourages other bloggers to write about it as well, it probably has an effect on Google’s share price, so there is a specific financial incentive.

We have seen how blog discussions can have both a massive positive and negative influence on large company share value, especially with Apple.

Full Disclosure From Google – No Way?

• Matt doesn’t have a comprehensive disclosure policy – he does have a short disclaimer to hide behind
• Matt doesn’t use nofollow on links to his source of income
• Matt used to post messages on popular SEO forums as “Google Guy”, but there was never any specific disclosure

Now whilst Matt has mentioned the FTC in relation to paid links before, it has always been in the sanctuary of his “private” blog. At SES San Jose I believe he is there in his official capacity.

Here are quotes from 2 live bloggers

Tamar at SEO Round Table

Matt is up first. Are paid links evil? He says that this is the wrong question. But the right question is – Do paid links that pass PR violate search engine quality guidelines? The answer is yes.

The FTC has said that you must disclose whether you are being paid to market.
Disclosure on the web: the web is used by both people (surfers) and machines (search engines)

What is adequate disclosure on the web? It is understood by both machines and people.

Make a clear disclosure: this won’t pass PageRank -
- Redirect URL blocked by robots.txt
- redirect through URL that does 302
- JavaScript
- nofollow
- Meta tag with nofollow

The Lisa at Bruce Clay Internet Business Consultants

Matt says that asking if paid links are evil or not is the wrong question. He says the right question is, “Do paid links that pass PageRank violate search engines’ quality guidelines?” The answer to that is yes.

He adds that the FTC has said that word of mouth marketing is like any other kind of marketing, and if you’re being paid to say something you should disclose that. Adequate disclosure means it is understood by both people and the machines.

How do you disclose a paid link to the search engines?

* Redirect through URL locked by robots.txt
* Redirect through URL t hat does a 302
* JavaScript
* Nofollow the link

Google says you can buy links within search engine guidelines – meaning they can’t pass PR. Google doesn’t care about those links. However, you cannot buy links that pass PageRank.

Examples of PPP links – fundraisers, donate cars, online, credit, super slots, providers, junk yards, online casino, bypass pill, dating advice, USA online poker, etc.

Both people and machines have to be able to understand the disclosure?
Also why does Lisa use the PPP acronym and not that of paid links rather than paid reviews?

Lets Take A Look at… YouTube

There is no requirement for disclosure
Views and ratings are counted whether a video is commercial or not, and commercial content can make it to the top of YouTube rankings.

Lets Take A Look At… Referral Units

Seven months ago I first published an article about how Google’s guidelines for their referral units don’t tally with FTC and WOMM.
3 Months ago I highlighted that specific questions regarding WOMM with referral units in response to articles on the Google Adsense blog were going totally unanswered.

So Many Different Compensated Links

Just the other day I wrote about the need for a level playing field for paid links.

Based upon current logic the WOMMA should be kicked out of the SERPs for having paid links on their site, along with all their members.
Hey guys, it only costs $1000 per year to join WOMMA, but you could probably barter a little SEO help and get them to pay you, with all those member pages being counted as duplicate content and supplemental.

WordPress

Matt is known to be a supporter of WordPress, and Google are going to make a lot of money displaying advertising on their high ranking blogs.

Surely Google should also have had a word with them about their linkfarm – I have also written about their linking structure in the past.

Matt Cutts still retains a link to WordPress.org on his blog.

From the WordPress default theme (hidden in a comment)

If you’d like to support WordPress, having the “powered by” link somewhere on your blog is the best way, it’s our only promotion or advertising.

So you are paying for use of WordPress by giving them a link – it is advertising without a nofollow on millions of blogs, not to mention the default blogroll and half the WordPress developers selling text links – yes Matt Cutts is using blogging software funded in part by text links.

Web2.0 Sites

At least one of the following sites is sponsoring a very popular WordPress plugin that gives them links, lots of them, quite certainly from millions of pages.

Digg, Del.icio.us, Netvouz, Dzone, ThisNext, MisterWong, Wists

The Sneaky Javascript Advertising

Javascript advertising and widgets is never totally innocent

If you want to be standards compliant as well as using script tags, you also use noscript, and include a link.

1000s of top search terms are dominated by people using links hidden in noscript that most users never see, and copy and paste without even realising it.

Some also take a standard link, and then modify it using javascript and CSS to look like an image link.

Do these huge corporations using these tactics have to now include nofollow on the noscript links?

For a light-hearted look, I have to post this video

Rentvine created this video, which isn’t their niche – they are a home rental site.

Ultimately it is Google’s search engine, and they want to provide better search results and encourage ethical SEO practice.

When I write a compensated review of a service, I almost always spend hours on them, far more than your average Yahoo intern working for the directory, and I earn far less.
The reviews are always relevant to my audience, and I am selective having turned down the last 3 offers I was made to review sites, over $400 I could have earned but didn’t because I respect my audience, or didn’t feel qualified. I only review a service when I can offer insight, opinion and feedback.

As I have mentioned in the past, this topic is of specific interest because of my future startup plans, where the links will be as “whitehat” as Matt Cutts linking to Google, or Robert Scoble to Podtech

If 100,000 shareholders, employees and companies for whom I provide a very specific service for link to my site, is it going to be webspam if they are linking through to authoritative and highly relevant content? I have no plans to ask them to nofollow the links.

Update: I just read Rand’s writeup at SEOmoz on this paid links session at SES San Jose and it offers insight into the tone of the session, further clarification and there were also revelations from the Q & A afterwards.

#
To Matt Cutts – can Google remove the ability of individual pages to pass linkjuice
_
Matt says that not only can they remove single page’s ability to pass PR, they can also remove the ability of only certain links on a page from passing PR, and do.
_
#
To Matt Cutts – would Google ever ban a large brand for an extended period of time for engaging in manipulative link practices?
_
Matt says that Google had removed a very big site in the past for 43 days in total from the index, and this was noticed by Ben Edelman (sadly, I haven’t ID’d the site or post and Matt did not mention it)

The Ben Edelman reference seems to be in relation to WhenU 3 years ago and it seems that was mainly to do with cloaking.

Andy Beal sums up this SES session

I encourage you to read the notes and digest the information. Like me, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that buying select links from highly relevant pages isn’t going to get you into trouble with Google. Buying tons of spammy, non-relevant, run of site links, probably will.

On a subject like this I will quite happily link through to Fantomaster who sells cloaking software

Will it work? Will the Google monster, the paragon of Web Apartheid, finally relent?

Dana on the Online Marketing Blog likens this to a Transformers battle between Optimus Prime (Matt Cutts) & Megatron (Michael Gray)
I am sure the Toprank team recommend buying links on Yahoo, why is a paid review worse?

Update 2

Yesterday Duncan Riley on Techcrunch attacked the general WordPress attitude to paid links.
It would be interesting to look at how many WordPress developers, theme designers and plugin developers are heavily funded by the sale of text links.

Duncan also attacked Akismet, and he is quite right to do so. Spam Karma, with or without the addition of AKisment is actually equally or more effective at handling spam, and can be integrated with Akismet as an additional check.
It should also be noted that the Akismet “spam count” widget doesn’t use javascript, but is one of the widgets that produced a search engine followable link back to an Automattic owned domain.

As I mentioned recently, WordPress Sponsored themes still exist in large numbers on the theme database. In the comments on Techcrunch, Matt Mullenweg seems to be claiming that they have been all cleared out, but that is far from the case.

Duncan mentions the oft used phrase “people in glass houses” which does ring home my earlier article – A List Bloggers in Crystal Palaces Shouldn’t Throw Stones

Update 3

Michael Gray has now published his powerpoint presentation on Google Paid links.

I am not a user of Text Link Ads, but it seems emails have gone out about some code changes, and that they will now be using TinyURL for the links
TinyURL in itself is a 301 redirect, which could however then link to a further redirect or tracking script. I am not sure a chain of 301 redirects would be a good idea, and using TinyURL on its own is still passing juice.

Aaron Wall is also binging out the big guns, arguing why linkbaiting (which Google supports) is not suitable for all businesses.
Some of Aaron’s bullet points against linkbaiting include:-

• it is expensive
• it is time consuming
• the results are hard to predict
• it requires social connections
• it provides off topic low value traffic
• it typically creates content of limited commercial value (other than the ability to pull in links to rank other pages for stuff they did not have enough relevancy or authority to merit ranking for)

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?

TwitterAdder

• Automatically create Twitter sales channels
• Joins other sales channels in the same network
• Follows Other Users automatically
• Feeds affiliate links to sales channels
• Ability to take other people’s Twitter feeds and remix them
• Built in vocabulary from existing feeds “oh yum… pizza”
• Name Dropping
• Ability to randomly source stories from Techmeme plus associated blog posts

Software concept as per all my work is licensed under GPL

I have just read over on 10e20 a post by Tamar discussing how Twitter can be used for direct marketing, by creating a product feed of special offers.

Why is it OK on Twitter but not OK on a blog platform?

• Twitter is indexed by search engines
• Twitter content is syndicated as RSS
• Twitter is indexed by Technorati

The WOOT Twitter feed is effectively a splog by most definitions.

Why do it on Twitter? You could just subscribe to their RSS feed

There is a huge difference between this, and possibly commercial use of Twitter by their newly announced web services and command line, where you can request specific information, and have it sent directly back to you.

Lots of people are using Twitter commercially, pointing people in the direction of content on their blogs, or those of others. Twitter needs a way to handle disclosure.

Twitter is already ranking well in search engines, it would be so easy to create a linkfarm of Twitter Splogs.