Page 2 - General Advice Needed

You won't get banned for buying links. If and when google find the bought links, those links will be devalued and no longer carry link juice meaning that you will go down in the rankings, but you will not be banned in any way shape or form. You'll just sit where you should sit without the benefit of those bought links

If google banned everybody who bought links, what is to stop me, as a competitor to you buying you lots of really obvious bought links to your website and getting you banned from google and reaping the awards of your demise

What goes arround comes around, thats why no-one would ever want to buy links for a competitor, or submit them to a link farm, its easily done, there are plenty of link farms to submit competitors to, but I guess alot of us have the sence not to.

Also Glenn yes we have done paid directory's, and bid directories but I can safely say, we have not done any such thing in 2008.

Freely acquired links from financial sites are best. (well if your site has a financial theme)

So the name of the game is to get some really good links yourself and build them up over time or buy them as a short term fix and keep your fingers crossed that google doesnt find them ?

Well I read an article not too long back about paid links and punctured tyres,
You can go on a 100 mile bike ride (buying links)

and you can ride 100 yards down to the shop and get a puncture (moved down / penalised / banned)

Bestdeal has there move down on all keywords because the put loads of "Home Insurance" / "House Insurance" on, they have just wreaked it all, (good for us two though eh? :-) )

Not saying it was good practice to buy links, just that you were wrong claiming that you would get banned from google.

Google will not ban you for anything that your competitors can do to your site...simple as, and claiming otherwise is just a little bit silly

If thats the case, then why can't we all go link buying crazy and just say...

"we didnt do it!" a competitor did it!

Which would mean BestDeal would still be top (as they had been over well over 2 years!)
and Go Compare would'nt have dropped to 50th place (+ 50 penilty) for Car Insurance until they removed all paid links.

There is too many guess's in SEO, no-one knows anything for certain about Google but Google its self.

Which is why google are looking at the sites that are selling the links and not the ones buying it.

Google find a bought link and devalue it at the source, This will have no effect on your legitimate link building and only harm your site if it has been moved up through the serps through bought links in which case it will go down to where it should naturally sit

and no such thing as a +50 penalty...it just returned to where it should sit naturally after it's bought links were devalued

Hello,

I had a look at your site, and agree with most of the advices given to you (except about paid links).

As Saigon2010 said, the only people that can be penalized by Google for paid links are those who sell them, not the buyers. You are responsible for links from your site, not for links coming to your site, just because any competitor would be able to harm you otherwise.

You will not be banned for having paid a link, but when the seller get penalized, you would have paid for nothing.

Back to your "on page" optimization: the meta description is the same on all your pages: it would be better to have a unique description for each page.

Last point: all the HTTPS links in the left column give a warning message about unsigned certificate under FireFox3, which is annoying.

Don't know if there is something you can do on your side or if it is just a Firefox3 problem.

Its a problem in neary everything but Internet Explorer.

Also, while you people on here say link buying is good, I disagree!

Google doesnt like it, Also Google AFAIK hasn't made any statement saying, if you buy links we ignore them and penalise the seller.

So Glenn you can make up your own mind.

Something from Google...
"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighbourhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

Which I read as, don't get involved in link purchasing, as that directly increases your site ranking (if the seller is unknown to Google), it makes your page rank rise. (which just read above)

And they say your ranking may be adversely affected by those links. It states in particular to avoid links to web spammers, or bad neighbourhoods.

I don't see anywhere, it says buying links is fine. Only on these forums. But hey, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Also from read on this forum you can get a penalty when raising "too many spam flags at once"

and links getting added here/there and everywhere all of a sudden is going to be suspicious.

But If you guys are right, and they just get ignored by Google, what's the point in wasting the money.

Think the key point in what you have just written is avoid links ***TO*** spammers or bad neighbourhoods.

The key word there is TO...I notice it doesn't say from. And most people who sell links are highly regarded sites anyway, not bad neighbourhoods or spammers

They can link ot you all they won't....won't make a blind bit of difference.

Fairly certain that nobody has said that link buying is a good long term strategy. I'm fairly certain that a lot of people have said that it will only give short term gains and that the links when found will be devalued by google and you will return to where you were previously.

Logically therefore, link buying could be a perfectly legitimate tactic for a site only interested in short term gains. For example, a company creating a microsite which is time limited for an event or to tie in with an advertising campaign, or even to give a website a quick boost after it's creation whilst they create other links via more ethical methods...As the paid links are found and devalued, they are replaced by other links.

Of course, the fact that the paid links gave them short term high rankings might have been enough to attract other sites to link to them as well legitimately.

read again, "In particular, avoid links to web spammers"

So while you are taking a big note of the "to" your ignoring the "In particular"

Not that it matters, ask MattC if buying links is good for you, see the reply.

Yep, fairly certain that whilst buying links, I'm particularly avoiding links to web spammers. In fact, I'm damn certain I don't "In particular" link TO any web spammers.

I do love a good arguement with someone online who refuses to admit they're wrong even when what they post themselves proves that they are wrong. but keep going, this is fun

Your saying buying links is good and right!

That is NOT Natural link building!

How am I in the wrong for saying this? :-)