Contests For Link Building?

[ConversionChamp]

I have been seeing a trend that a lot of people are hosting contests with prices in the high end XXX  $ or low end XXXX $ as the first price.

Usually it's arranged via a number of sponsors and you'd have to link to all the sponsors using the keywords given. Some people provide a text file with everything pre formatted to make it easy.

I have seen several sites paying 50$ to be part of a contest so that they can get some link juice from participating sites. Since the prize money is huge, many people will participate and will get lot of links.

There was a person who built an entire business out of this (Not naming him. He's still doing the same thing but with a small twist).

What's your take on such strategies? Don't you think it's high time Google caught these sort of "link schemes"?

[MicahMMG]

I'm probably not adding a lot to the discussion, but this just seems like an all-around terrible idea.

[donford]

Really its just another link ring scheme. Why a reputable company would want to get caught up in something like this is beyond me.

It sounds like the person making money on this is in the same grey area as the companies who would sign up for such a thing.

If you build unique, clean, informative, user-friendly content and do a little leg work yourself you'll never be tempted to even think about a scheme such as that.

[webfeatseo]

Can you provide a link to one of these contest? I am curious to see what exactly you mean. There are some legitimate contests that can build links and others that are probably gray or black hat.

[ConversionChamp]

I really don't think I should be pointing fingers here.