Is Google stupid?

[menachemp]

Why does buying links still work?  I don't mean approaching an individual webmaster and cutting a deal, that seems to be nearly impossible to detect.  But the huge link brokers, like Text Link Ads, Build my Rank or Linkvine, Google has to be aware of them, right?  Can't they just create accounts to see the whole network, and ban the sites?  Why wouldn't they just do that?

[Horizon]

Hi Menachemp,

In a word, no. Google is not stupid. Yes, these link farms do exist, but Google is very clued up, and will penalise sites with links from known link farms. If the link comes from a site with absolutely no value/correlation to your site, it can actually have a negative effect on your SEO.

It is becoming increasingly important to get links from valuable sources, it's not just about quantity. I would say that 10 links from very valuable, reputable sources is better than 1,000 links from mediocre sources.

Cheers

Matt

[Highland]

If Google were truly stupid, they wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar company, let alone the #1 search engine worldwide.

There's two groups of behavior Google doesn't like. You have your black hat SEO (where you can spike your ratings but you're only one or two steps ahead of Google) and your grey hat (where Google doesn't like the behavior but also can't really filter it out yet).

Paid links are a problem only if they are followed links. A nofollow paid link is, AFAIK, acceptable to Google because you're not trying to game the SEO (and every legitimate network does it that way). Paid links as an SEO strategy CAN work, but Google has proven (especially with Panda) that they have become MUCH better at finding unnatural link patterns and devaluing them. And for an SEO that's your real risk: fruitless efforts (especially if you spent money on them).

[jeffreytrull1]

I think Google will eventually crack down on sites like Build My Rank, and it could be soon. Perhaps it's not so easy since these sites have hundreds or thousands of blog sites in their blog network, but I'm willing to bet that Google will do something about them.

I can't imagine anyone serious thinks relying entirely on these sites for their backlinks is a good long-term strategy (or even a short-term one). It's just a matter of time until Google cracks down.

[nbyloff]

Google is actually addressing private blog networks as we speak. I was shocked this hasn't been discussed at all (on here at least). But in the past week or two, they had an algo update to penalize this PBNs, and the people that purchase links on them. Matt Cutts even tweeted about it last week.

https://twitter.com/#!/mattcutts/status/180392083427823616

[randfish]

We've seen a pattern with this stuff - it works temporarily, then gets cut in value. TLA is the one I tested last year - rankings went way up, but as soon as we dropped the links they fell (indicating that TLA stock did work). However, when we observed and talked to folks who'd turned it on and kept it on, they reported that rankings, then dropped (within ~90 days with TLA).

Recently, we've seen Google start banning many private blog networks (warning, links below contain a LOT of black hat stuff and some none-too-friendly posters as well, unfortunately):

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-ppc-seo-discussion-forum/559454-google-banning-paid-blog-networks-afraid-3.html

http://www.internetmarketingtoolsupdate.com/internet-marketing-tips/seo-link-monster-warning/

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/black-hat-seo/418104-panda-isnt-killing-blog-networks-scrapebox.html

Those are all in just the past week.

Google's not stupid, but I do think their webspam team has been swamped. Recently though, it feels like they're making a bit more progress, and I wouldn't be surprised if they continue kicking some tail in the link spam/black hat world.