UPDATE 2013: The post below no longer reflects my thinking or position on the topic of paid links. Please read Our Stance on Paid Links & Link Ads for more. I’m leaving the post below for posterity, and as a reminder that opinions and realities change 🙂
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I’ve been friendly with two of our industry’s biggest purveyors of text link ads – TextLinkBrokers’ Jarrod Hunt and Text-Link-Ads’ Patrick Gavin – for the last couple years. With the relaunch of Jarrod’s site and a relative lull in the antagonism towards paid link services, I thought it would be valuable to open up the blog for discussion on the subject.
The Ethics of Buying & Selling Links
Let me first say that I empathize with the frustration of search engineers when it comes to paid links. The fundamental problem is that advertising in old-media (in print, television or radio) is easy to spot – ads are labeled in print, run during commercials on TV and generally are mentioned as sponsors, if not explicitly conveyed as ads over the radio. Thus, users of these mediums know that they’re getting paid content that is only passively endorsed by the media operator.
In the world of search engines, where links are counted as votes and translate into rankings at the engines, the concern is that advertising dollars could be influencing the positions and traffic of competing sites. Thus, the search engines want to have websites add “nofollow” to links that aren’t editorial endorsements of the quality of a site, thus keeping the link ecosphere free of the pollution that paid links could introduce.
Rand’s Position on Text Link Purchasing & Nofollow
While I can certainly see the position of the engines, I have to strongly disagree with their methodology. For me, the primary issue here is one of trust – there’s some questions that I think are important to ask:
- Can we trust all link buyers and sellers to comply with the terms set out by the search engines?
- Once a search engine issues guidelines like “use nofollow on paid links or risk losing the ability to pass link juice,” is it reasonable to expect that sites worldwide will have knowledge of this edict and immediately begin implementing solutions?
- Is there an efficient, editorial, non-algorithmic way to ensure compliance with these rules?
I believe that the clear answer to all of these is “No.” Thus, webmasters and search engines both have a clear path before them. It’s up to search engines to find algorithmic ways to combat spam or manipulation, including identification of paid links. Webmasters have a responsibility to themselves, their users and their content – in that order. I’d suggest that tagging paid links with “nofollow” is, in most circumstances, against the financial interests of a site operator. The risk of being singled out by an editorial review at the search engines (and thus, losing the ability to pass linkjuice) is so low when compared to the financial gains that are afforded to link sellers who refuse to use nofollow that it makes little sense to comply. Those who do comply will be at a competitive disadvantage in revenue flow and may find that their traffic and positions are eventually eroded by competitors who use their revenue to build content, links and marketing campaigns.
When it comes to deciding on the purchase of a text link (or a package), I’d think about it from an ROI perspective. If you can break even on monetizing the traffic that comes directly through the link (referral traffic), any “linkjuice” you might get to help your rankings is strictly bonus, thus the purchase decision becomes clear. If, however, you’re getting very little traffic, but may achieve great rankings from the boost, be cautious – if a search engine ever does pull the plug on the ranking value of those links, you might have a costly expense that’s bringing in little to no income. At this point, my philosophy becomes – if your boosted rankings at MSN are bringing you enough revenue to sustain the link spend, keep it running. 
The decision to sell text links can sometimes be more difficult – particularly if you have real concerns that the engines might demote you for it. My recommendation is to do what the search engines always say when it comes to content and link building – imagine a world without search engines, then make your decision. If the ads are relevant and your visitors will find them worthwhile, that’s the best of all worlds. As you start to slide down the slope into utter irrelevance and low quality, be very careful. Search engines do look at who you link to, and the algorithms are increasingly good at identifying (and penalizing) sites that link to spammy/manipulative players.
This is where a good text link broker (like Jarrod or Patrick) can come in handy – it’s their job to protect you from being identified by the search engines for running paid ads (by not writing idiotically simple software) and to protect buyers from being ID’d as clients of link sellers. Link brokers also have the burden of finding the links that will provide the highest value for their clients and selling the most relevant real estate (so users of a site won’t be turned off by the links they see).
How good are these guys? I’d say that as of today, they’re both in the “pretty darn good” column – the great majority of their clients are receiving great value from the services, whether they buy or sell. Occasionally, there’ll be folks who get poor value from running a campaign, but to date, I’ve never received a complaint when I’ve recommended either of them.
TextLinkBrokers
Textlinkbrokers’ brand spanking new site
Worth reading – their blog and their very well-done LinkBuilding Wiki.
Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Ads’ Shiny Website
Worth reading – their blog (frequently brilliant) and the link buying guide (warning – PDF).
I obviously can’t talk much about our clients, and we’re actually very rarely clients of either Jarrod’s or Patrick’s. We have a few clients who’ve used them and a couple who do to this day, with great success (on both the buying and selling sides of the equation). It really boils down to usefulness and application. AdSense is a paid link model that only operates when you get clickthroughs. Banner ads are monetizing the pageviews based on branding (much like traditional media). Text link ads rely on a small combination of both (branding & click-throughs) with an additional value component from the “vote” passed to the search engines. In a capitalist-based economy, it’s very hard to argue that text link advertising is unethical.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the debate, the use of nofollow, your experiences buying and selling ads and what else you’d like to see from Patrick & Jarrod. I have little doubt they’ll probably give this thread a look, so feel free to make outrageous demands 
.
