Is providing a paid scholarship to schools and receiving a back link, classed as a paid link scheme?

[ResumeGenius]

I've always wondered if it is classed as paid links in Google's eyes?

[KeriMorgret]

There has been talk about scholarships on the Q&A before, you might want to do a quick search. While I don't know about the paid link aspect, I do know that one of the concerns brought up before is making sure the scholarship is legal for both the school(s) its being offered for, and in the states its being offered to, that there isn't any discrimination and the like.

[anthonydnelson]

Scholarships, product reviews, etc are all in a fuzzy area.

Best advice: use them all, don't abuse or rely too much on them

[webmethod]

Reading Google's link guidelines here, I would say that it could not be classed as a paid link scheme with some caveats: If it's a legitimate scholarship and not a façade or fraud being run by the school or manufactured by the link purchaser then the link is product of the scholarship and not a direct "purchase".

I would have thought that launching a decent scholarship would also generate additional, positive PR and links to the scholarship provider as a result.

Regards,

George

[Charlessipe]

I don't think Google would want the negative PR from penalizing people for creating legitimate scholarships.

An alternative to creating a scholarship is to curate a list of relevant scholarships in your niche. There are scholarships for almost anything you can think of. Then go to sites that link to scholarships and let them know that you curated a comprehensive list of X scholarships.