Slow and Steady Wins the Optimization Race
If you have ever been approached by a company that offers a search engine optimization service, it is common to hear them talk about the number of in-bound links that your website has. It is no secret that this is one of the key factors that the search engines are looking to in determining a website’s value and resulting position on search results. In-bound links indicate to the search engines that your site is a good resource of information and therefore worthy high rankings.
So the natural conclusion is to look for as many linking opportunities as possible. In a recent announcement regarding links, Google’s anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts, reminds us to proceed with caution especially when it comes to paid links. The official Google policy on paid links is as follows:
“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”
It now appears that Google has been working on new algorithms and tools to be able to detect paid links. So although these types of instant rankings boosters may be temporarily beneficial, ultimately they could result in devastating consequences for your website. Once paid links are found going to your website, Google will completely remove your website from search results as soon as they are discovered. Google also allows for the reporting of link violations, something that your competitors may also be on the watch for. So between the algorithm itself and vengeful competitors, it’s not about if but more like when you will be discovered.
The better alternative is to build credible in-bound links from websites that do not engage in any link selling. Although this takes more time, you avoid the risk of having your website disappear all together. This type of consistent, gradual increasing of the value of your website will show the search engines that your website’s position is warranted and not stolen.
