1. Paid Links Matt Cutts Google Software Engineer SES San Jose, August 21, 2007

2. Are paid links evil? That's the wrong question. The right question: Do paid links that pass PageRank violate search engines’ quality guidelines? The answer to that question is yes.

3. Disclosing payments Washington Post, Dec. 12, 2006: “FTC Moves to Unmask Word-of-Mouth Marketing Endorser Must Disclose Link to Seller” "We wanted to make clear... if you're being paid, you should disclose that.“ -- Mary Engle, FTC associate director for advertising practices

4. Disclosure on the web The web is used by both people (surfers) and machines (search engines, etc.) What is adequate disclosure on the web? Understandable by people Understandable by machines

5. Clear disclosure to machines Clear disclosure: won’t pass PageRank redirect through url blocked by robots.txt redirect through url that does 302 JavaScript rel=“nofollow” on individual links on entire page

6. Practical considerations You can buy links within search engine guidelines –AdBrite –Quigo –IndustryBrains –adCenter, YPN –any site that doesn’t pass PageRank in links Buying paid links that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines –Paid PageRank-Passing (PPP) links

7. Types of paid links (These are fine) (These are against our guidelines)

8. Examples of PPP links

9. Link-buying obstacles It can be difficult to buy PPP links Buy for a limited time? Buy “run-of-site” links? Buying links from “sloppy sellers”? Checking if a link seller cloaks? Can a competitor spot your paid links?

10. Google’s approach Both algorithmic and human detection Recent Rand Fishkin post about paid links –Detected all but one link algorithmically Google is willing to take strong action against PPP links This is an area Google is focusing on

11. Further reading https://google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks?hl=en http://mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101389.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101389.html http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC- 272304A1.pdfhttp://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC- 272304A1.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2007/FCC-07-42A4.html