So last week or so, I blogged about how ReviewMe’s real benefit wasn’t in creating buzz for advertisers; rather, it could be used for SEO purposes, in that ReviewMe creates a marketplace for purchasing inbound links from your pick of high PR sites.
Want to know what Google thinks? Matt Cutts, Google software engineering guru, was interviewed at the recent PubCon in Las Vegas — and its quite revealing. Check out the inteview over here, and fast forward to around the -7:30m point. At that point he starts talking about how Google recognizes social media optimization, and how some marketers might want to use ReviewMe, PayPerPost, or even Text-Link-Ads, and its other brethren to create backlinks to their sites.
The money is in this phrase: “… I’ll put it to you this way — I’m not a fan when people don’t provide total disclosure … if you want to pay for links to generate traffic — totally OK, just make sure it doesn’t affect search engines”.
So basically what he’s saying is that using these sites to create traffic is a legitimate reason for using these services; but to use them to boost your search engine placement is a bad idea. Instead, he suggests using the “rel = Nofollow” attribute to those links, so that Google won’t be fooled.
Matt Cutts doesn’t explicitly say that sites who use these methods in an effort to improve their Google rankings will be penalized in any fashion; however, his language suggests that he is keenly aware of their usage for this purupose, and that it definitely seems a no-no in his book.
And there you have it.
Now, whether or not they have the technology to tell that an advertiser has paid for that link or not — particularly through PayPerPost — is up in the air. But, iIf Google is a god to you, then you’ve just heard it from the lips of one of their high priests — paying for links for the purpose of improving your SERPs is known to Google … and you should use it at your own risk.
tip: Amit Agarwal [through Facebook!]
7 Comments
Seriously I thought that Jason Calacanis and Netscape had something to do with my traffic drop. Now after pouring over a lot of my data over the last couple days. Either google did something to their algo or reviewing ReviewMe caused my traffic fall. That I still can not be sure of. On Nov 9, my traffic began to fall, so I wish I knew what the real cause of my traffic falling was.
Thanks for the article Tony!
Its all good Shane … did you do a review of ReviewMe for them? Or did you do another review for another site? Or did you act as an advertiser and pay someone to review one of your sites?
It would be interesting — if you got penalized — which side of the fence your “offence” would be on.
PS Good luck in trying to figure it out whatever it is.
I did a review for ReviewMe itself. To be honest I think it is a combination of everything that I mentioned above. I am trying to fix all of it right now to get my site back to its “glory” days :)
Good luck! ;)
Shane, it are holidays in the US. Many people are less online, even not at work. That could justify a drop in your traffic.
A review of RM surely doesn’t justify any punishment by Google’s algo, and knowing Matt he would surely clearly have stated it, if they were to punish those 2 services particularly.
But quoted sentence explains a lot. Yes Google knows the advantage of mentioned services to improve your PR. But also Google (Matt) do believe in disclosure. Disclosure which is compulsary for ReviewMe reviews. And the disclosure mention at the top of the entry surely makes it easy for Google’s algo to punish not only RM, but also the advertiser.
No, Google/Matt rather advice you to use rel=”NoFollow”, which seems very appropriate in most cases, unless of course the service/company you review your blog topic matches.
I think Matt’s calling is a call to ethics. Nothing more, nothing less.
Franky — holiday time is totally correct.
However, Shane’s problem started on November 9th; well before the thanksgiving slowdown — it sounds like he has more than holiday woes to deal with.
Shane –if you ever figure out what happened, let us know.
shane: Google did a major change to their algorithm since last weekend. Seo Blackhat (some people might find the link offensive) talks about it.
http://seoblackhat.com/2006/11/21/free-porn/
One Trackback
[...] Dr. Tony Hung writes of having to possibly use the “rel = Nofollow” tag in his second reviewME post, Using ReviewMe to Boost Your Google Juice? Matt Cutts Says “Think Again”. Ok, so I ask you Tony what is and how do I implement this “rel = Nofollow” tag and what exactly, does this mean in human non-programmatic english words. [...]