Is paid content a good or bad thing

[ClaireH-184886]

Hi, over the past couple of years we have turned down thousands of request from companies to have paid editorial on our sites, I have always turned this down but i have seen some sites accept this and would like to know your stance on this.

In newspapers and magazines which i have worked in both, they have paid editorial all the time, so i am just wondering what google thinks of paid editorial.

look forward to hearing your thoughts

[Jeepster]

If it's just paid editorial with no links (or links that are no-followed), that's straightforward advertising and you're on safe ground.

However, I'm guessing they want a followed link. Do so at your peril. And don't just take my word for it:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/why-did-my-pagerank-go-down/

[donford]

Content -> user experience. If you need to hire help for content that is okay. Just make sure they are "your" industry savvy.

Don

[ClaireH-184886]

very interesting. I have always turned down paid content, but what has got me thinking is, we have just started to accept some guest bloggers as long as the content is informative and well written and we have allowed a maximum of two links in the article, so i am just wondering what the difference is from here to paid editorial. Just wondering how google would know the difference.

[mememax]

I think that you need to be wise. You don't have to turn everything down nor everything up. I think that being paid for an editorial post may be good but always be sure that what you're writing is useufl for your visitors.

You don't want that your users think that you've sold your content. I've never been paid to publish content on my sites just because when I found something useful I will write about it and link to it even for free. HOwever if someone's contacting you offering money and you think that it is a good product why not accepting an extra money?

[ClaireH-184886]

I think the reason is down to principle. I have worked in newspapers and magazines and never agreed with it then, when the advertising department were like, we need you to write about this company and we were like why, and they would say because they have paid for it.

[Jeepster]

Just wondering how google would know the difference.

I honestly don't know. Many sites already sell editorial space with links. Not all get caught. But some clearly do: http://tinyurl.com/csxu84l

Behemoth sites like Forbes can recover from getting whacked. I've seen smaller sites that never did. Like I said, you go down this road at your peril.

[EGOL]

so i am just wondering what the difference is from here to paid editorial. Just wondering how google would know the difference.

Yes, you might have even paid these authors and simply give a link to their website and blog so interested people can find them easily.

[loopyal]

Be vewy careful !

Obviously, it has to fit your theme or your general area of coverage.

ditto your style. It has to fit with your standards and ethics.

If it is paid advertising, you should say so - check to see how other sites do it.

Here is an Australian story: Crikey where they talk about how standards have changed over time.

BTW: I sent you a private message too.

[ClaireH-184886]

cheers loopyal, just replied.

[mememax]

I know that this may be off topic but I would like to spend two more words on this

Just wondering how google would know the difference.

Try to move your focus away on humanizing Google. Google doesn't mind if you've REALLY paid or not for a content, don't think that if someone stops you in the street and ask you for a link for 5$ google may be aware of that, because it doesn't and I think that it also doesn't care about the REAL truth.

Google only cares about what IT thinks. Even if your link is natural and free, if it comes from a link network which sold links but in your case not, then you've paid that link too. Google is a private entity, which plays on its own rules, not bad nor good but just its own rules

Bear in mind that Google is not human, it's not under the human law of being truth when evaluating links, condemning the paid ones after demonstrating that they've been paid showing an invoice as a proof.

So when you analyze your backlinks (or trying to achieve new ones), try to understand if those links may be paid or not under google eyes not yours.

About being paid for a review you can create good content even being paid, just say to the one who's paying you that you will be writing a review but not publishing their content. You'll use their services and then write a review, so you're compelling and writing soemthing really useful for both users and google.

[loopyal]

Hello mememax

You are only seeing a small picture, but you must remember that search engines see a much larger picture.

If it was easy, most of us would not be here, trying to work out how to stop being destroyed.

You suggest that you can buy or sell a link on the street and search engines will not know.

That is not true. If the person who paid you for a link has hundreds or thousands of paid links from other places, you just accepted $5 and what you did was place a massive target on yourself. It may have been your first link, but the other party is unknown to you, so you just damaged yourself unknowingly, because you didn't understand how the system works. My guess is that hundreds of thousands of people have been damaged because of things like this.

You can't control who links to you, but you can control who you link to.

Yesterday, I was asked for a link from a good-looking website. It was in my niche. I told them all of my advertising links are NOFOLLOW. They said that might be OK if the price was right. I checked their site, and I saw they had FOLLOW links to about 10 other sites, and some of them were outside the niche.

RED FLAG.

I don't even want to sell them an advertising link.

What would you do?

[mememax]

Hi loopyal, sorry for my bad english maybe I got you confused.

I'm exactly saying what you state above, even if someone pays you in the street, google may know it's been a paid link, but not because they got a radar on all of us but just because you've replicated a process which get your content recognizedas a paid link.

You're doing great on studying about who're you're linking because bad neighbours which are linking you may create or not issues but surely if you're linking to a low quality site this will give you problems.

About the site you're speaking, what I recommend is to create a valuable post for your users. If that site is in your nihce and you think they may give a valuable service to your users why not writing about them? And if you get paid is better. But beware I'm not encouraging on having content from them and publish it, but evaluate their product, ask for free accesses, make a REAL review. In that sense this review will be helpful focusing on your users and their interests. They're your "clients" and you have to always think about them, sorry if I got misunderstood I'm not saying it's easy, but just that sometimes we complicate the picture asking on how google can recognize a paid link, because they don't; they just recognize the apparel of that link which is following the same structure of paid ones, so even if it's not paid you may be penalized too.

In short. If the site writing you is a good site, with a good product, offers you to use their product, write a content about them and link to them if you find their product useful, I don't think it would be a bad thing linking to them. Just try to have the possibility of writing about their service in the most free way.

[loopyal]

Thanks mememax,

I see what you mean, now.

The site I was talking about was a nice-looking news site, and a few years ago, I would have written about them, and I still may, but I'm not going to link to them, because that might suck me into a bad-link vortex, and I've got enough troubles of my own, so I don't want to add to them. (not that I've ever paid for any incoming links, but "something" else is wrong, that nobody seems to be able to diagnose.)