SEO PanelSEO PanelPaid Links and PenaltiesPaid Links and Penalties

Branko RihtmanBranko RihtmanTens Technology Ltd.Tens Technology Ltd.

SEO-Scientist.comSEO-Scientist.com

Outline

•Importance of links in Google Algo

•Paid Link Penalties

•The Controversy

•Linking in 2008

Links in Google’s eyes

Academic roots (citations)

One link – one vote

Page Rank Algorithm

“The citation (link) graph of the web is an important resource that has largely gone unused in existing web search engines. We have created maps containing as many as 518 million of these hyperlinks, a significant sample of the total....Academic citation literature has been applied to the web, largely by counting citations or back links to a given page. This gives some approximation

of a page's importance or quality.”

From “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine”, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Pagehttp://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Matt doesn’t like paid links

Google penalizes paid linking schemes

•SERP penalties (-30, -90, -950, - everything)•Toolbar PR reduction•Link juice passing termination (INVISIBLE)

Majority of Penalties – Manual (sponsored links report form)

Fear Uncertainty Doubt

Gamma Knife isnot somethingMatt would like tosee in the[radiosurgery]SERP

Oh… Wait a second. Isn’t that…. ?

Oh those [radiosurgery]SERPs are contaminated.Let’s look for something else. How about [brain tumor treatment] ?

And who is here ?

Linking in 2008

Create valuable content•Good blog posts + Social Media submission

(Digg/StumbleUpon/Sphinn effect)•Interviews with industry leaders•“How To” and “7 best” lists•Press releases•Link out to authority blogs to get the pings•“Sculpt” your internal linking with “nofollow”

Utilize “unconventional” link properties

• Relevant text surrounding• Relative position in document• Fresh link value

Linking in 2008

Experiment !

Experiment !

Experiment !

Linking in 2008

Link purchasing (because it works!)

• Mediator services (TLA) research – finding relevant sites (AdWords keyword tool, Yahoo/Ask related searches, Google sets)

• Manual purchases:•Finding industry authority sites (SEOElite backlink analysis report)•Data-mining Contextual Advertising Networks

Linking in 2008

Offline link acquirement•Be active in your industry•Sponsor events (SphinnCon Israel)•Give lectures at local colleges, universities (.edu links)•Organize workshops, events. Invite bloggers.

And if everything else fails…You can always buy a link from Google

Google Checkout – PR 8

Google Mini & Appliances PR 5

Thank You !