Am I buying links according to Google?

[dhidalgo1]

I have the opportunity to sponsor a variety of sections in a variety of .edu sites. Really appealing since they will both provide high quality traffic as well as to help our rankings... (maybe )... Anyway this opportunity involves a monetary exchange, no different than advertising in Adwords and/or buying a display ad with the NYT. The links will be both text and banner... With follow links. My questions to you guys are: Is this practice penalize? And will display ads pass link juice also? Thanks for the help...

[inhouseseo]

If they are followed links then it violates GWG.

[TakeshiYoung]

It's a grey area-- we've sponsored various students clubs before, and saw some great .edu links.  The way to frame it is not so much you are paying them for links, so much as you are making a charitable donation to their organization, and they mention (and link to you) in order to recognize their sponsor.  You can do the same thing with sponsoring scholarships, or making donations to non-profits like charities, libraries, and museums.

[dohertyjf]

Good question, Daniel. It depends on what you mean by "sponsor". Is it like people sponsor sections on SearchEngineLand (which are really affiliate links)? Or is it an image that shows that you are a sponsor?

I agree that it's a grey area. Wil Reynolds always points out that if Google was going to penalize something like sponsoring a hospital and having a followed link back, then something has gone way wrong. I tend to agree with him.

Think about if it's adding value to the user and the organization. If it's like what Wil talks about, then I think it's fine. If it's labeled as a sponsored link in line w/ FTC guidelines, it should technically be no-followed. If it's an image that is followed, it will pass link juice (Matt Cutts said so last month in a Webmaster Video). I personally say that a sponsorship where your image is displayed is fine and it does not have to be nofollowed.

[jim_cetin]

1. It depends on how many links you are going to get for your sponsorship/s

2. yes it will pass, if followed

If there are not hundreds of links, then it should be safe for you, but see at google's official view:

Paid links

Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.

However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a>tag</a>
  <a>* Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file</a>

<a></a>

<a>Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such as excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank. If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank,</a> let us know. We'll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links.

[believe]

"Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a>tag</a>
  <a>* Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file"</a>

<a>I do hate the implication there that any link received that doesn't meet the two criteria above is done for the purposes of manipulation...

At the end of the day hyperlinks existed before Google, and without rel="nofollow" attributes.  If someone wants to link to someone else's site (for love, for money or for 'favours' ;-P) then they ought to be able to link in whatever way they choose.

Google themselves are the ones that created the whole 'paid linking' debacle by putting such apparent emphasis on the importance of inbound links - it shouldn't be for other people to adjust their behaviour to keep them happy, and this question is a classic example.</a>

[dhidalgo1]

Thank you for the input... and that is my conundrum. We would never purchase links in a manner that Google will raise any flags, I guess at the end of the day is all going to depend on Volume and how many other links are pointing out from the sites that we all go after...

[dhidalgo1]

John, Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

I tend not to fall in these kind of practices, but when an opportunity like this presents itself you have to agree with me that it is tempting... and Google should know that... We are sponsoring a section of the site, and not a multitude of pages so I guess that might help.

On the other hand I couldn't agree with you more! There is something wrong with Google if they penalize a site for 'Advertising' and trying to better your business...

[dhidalgo1]

Thanks Jim