Links in the Classifieds

[Caru]

We rent apartments. One way we use to find clients is to advertize these apartments in Classifieds. Generally, we use free ads. Sometimes, for very popular sites ( like Kijiji), we pay so our ads can be seen first. Could this be a problem with Google?

Some sites send us clients, many of them never do. We keep putting ads there because of their PR. What is the worth of this kind of links?

Thanks for your answers.

[mrdavidingram]

Hi Caru,

Firstly, paying for advertising space isn't a problem with Google, it's what funds most web businesses, including theirs. The issue they have is with people purchasing links with the sole purpose of passing PageRank to manipulate the search results.

So in your scenario; paying for a premium classified ad to be seen first is just good business, and most sites will make these links 'no follow' anyway to give a clear indication to Google that it is an advertisement. Even if they don't no-follow, it will be pretty clear on any kind of manual inspection that you are paying for advertising rather than PageRank.

That's the gauge you need to use really, as without seeing each site you are talking about it's difficult to say. Have a look at each site subjectively, and ask yourself if you'd be comfortable in having a member of the Google Webspam team manually inspecting your link there.

If, like you say, it's purely for PageRank, then you might be setting yourself up for trouble.

It's a similar situation to directories. It's far too simplistic to say all web directories are dangerous, as some of them are genuinely great links from hand curated niche enthusiasts. It is the same with classifieds, there will be some great ones to be on for both marketing and SEO purposes, but there will be a great deal that exist solely for SEO manipulation and these are the ones you want to avoid.

In a way, I think you answered your own question when you said 'some sites send us clients, many of them never do. We keep putting ads there because of their PR'

So when you ask what is the worth of these links, I would say very little. They are unlikely to pass any PR, and they could potentially land you in hot water in the future. How could you explain in a reconsideration request to Google that you advertised on a platform that you knew no one visited?

Another quick thing to remember is that there's diminishing returns on links from any single domain. So once you have got a link or two from a domain, whether great or spammy, there is very little value from a purely SEO point of view from achieving future links.

Thanks

David