• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Recommended resources (including the chance to win an iPod!)
• Previous articles

What are paid links?

A paid link is a link from one web site to another for which a webmaster has paid. Paid links have nothing to do with the sponsored search results on Google, Overture and other pay per click (PPC) search engines. If a webmaster pays another web site to place a permanent text link to his site, this is considered a paid link.

What does Google think about paid links?

Google engineer Matt Cutts confirmed that links are important to Google in his blog post: "Google (and pretty much every other major search engine) uses hyperlinks to help determine reputation. Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and link-based analysis has greatly improved the quality of web search."

However, he also stated that "Google does consider buying text links for PageRank purposes to be outside our quality guidelines" and that he "wouldn't be surprised if search engines began to take stronger action against link buying in the near future".

He also revealed further information about what can happen to web sites that sell links: "Reputable sites that sell links won't have their search engine rankings or PageRank penalized–a search for [daily cal] would still return dailycal.org. However, link-selling sites can lose their ability to give reputation".

What does this mean to your web site?

If possible, you should avoid purchasing links from other sites. As Matt Cutts puts it: "The best links are not paid". Search engines want to find web sites to which other web sites link naturally.

Natural links are links from other web sites that makes sense from a web surfer's point of view. If a link to another web site leads to further information about a topic and if the link is useful for the web surfer then it is a good link.

For that reason, it is important that your web site gets these natural links.

How can you get natural links for your site?

The best way to get natural links is to build a web site with great content. The better the content of your web site, the more web sites will link to your site without asking.

Our software program ARELIS can also help you to build natural links to your web site. ARELIS helps you to find out which web sites link to your competitors. Sites that link to your competitors could link to your web site as well.

In addition, ARELIS finds web sites that offer content that is related to your web site. For example, if a web page contains an article about the topic of your site, it would make sense if that page links to you. ARELIS helps you to locate these web pages and to contact the webmasters.

Apparent quick-fix solutions such as buying links or participating in link farms don't lead to long-term results. Sometimes they can actually harm your web site rankings. You have to find the right web sites that link to your site.

ARELIS makes the hard way of building links as easy as possible for you (further information in the recommended resources below).

"Australian researchers have patented a method of exploring the web which they claim could revolutionise existing search engines. [...]

Orion is designed to find pages where the content is about a topic strongly related to the keyword. It then returns a section of the page, and lists other topics related to the keyword so that the user can pick the most relevant."

"We've launched two new search features designed specifically for finding information about the hurricane's aftermath more quickly. With the ongoing help of the American Red Cross, Microsoft, Yahoo and many other organizations, we've indexed a large number of public Katrina databases, including KatrinaSafe.com."

"Google, the internet search engine, is facing a renewed threat of legal action from a company that claims to own the intellectual property rights to its GMail e-mail service."

"Ask Jeeves is preparing an assault on the global search engine industry in a bid to achieve double digit market share by stealing users from the current leaders Google, MSN and Yahoo."

• SearchWebMedia is a new multimedia search engine.
• Oodle is a search engine for local classifieds.
• Google is only third in Russia.
• Google uses pizza to find new employees.
• Google is now 7 years old.
• The Google founders have bought a Boing 767.
• A Japanese comedian visits the headquarters of Yahoo Japan
(video)
• Google to buy Reuters? Probably not.

"I sat down with Debbie Jaffe, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Google to talk about Froogle. Here’s what she had to say."

"Yahoo will make modifications continuously, bit by bit, so as not to spook users who rely on Yahoo for news, e-mail services, or finding a date."

"Google has removed a direct competitor, Thunderstone Software, from its index. Thunderstone markets an enterprise search appliance that competes directly with Google's own appliance. Neither Yahoo! nor MSN have blacklisted the company."

Editor's note: Google also seems to have blacklisted the popular UK PPC search engine Mirago.

Screw size! I dare Google and Yahoo! to report on relevancy

"I can't believe we're going through this again. This is Search Engine Size Wars VI, by my count. It's absurd. It's annoying. It's a friggin' waste of time. Instead of advancing to a commonly accepted relevancy figure, the search engines keep us mired in the mud of who's biggest."

Get natural links to your web site with ARELIS

Getting natural links is important if you want to get high search engine rankings for your web site. ARELIS makes it as easy as possible for you to get natural links to your web site:

• ARELIS finds web pages that link to your competitors. Web pages that contain a link to your competitors could as well link to your site.
  
  
• ARELIS finds web pages whose content is related to your site. Web pages that have related content should have links to your site.
  
  
• ARELIS helps you to contact the webmasters of related sites.
  
  
• ARELIS helps you to create link pages in your web pages design with a few mouse clicks.
  
  
• You have total control about the quality of links, the HTML code, the design and all other aspects of your link pages.

If you haven't done it yet, take a look at ARELIS now. Read the comments below to find out what ARELIS users have recently said about ARELIS.

"My links are clear, concise, and relevant."

"Emails that offer me tools to improve my ranking are just about as common as the Nigerian bank account offers and are usually deleted immediately. My experience with ARELIS link management software, though, has proven completely different.

I run the pet related website at www.HandicappedPets.com. We provide products, services, and support for elderly, injured, and disabled pets. As pet supplies is a pretty widespread market, search engine rankings are critical. Originally, I took notice of ARELIS from their excellent newsletter. Using some of their free tips, I made some dramatic improvements in my site. By the time I purchased ARELIS, I feel like Axandra had already paid for itself.

Since then, I have used ARELIS on an ongoing basis to improve the quality of the content of my website. My links are clear, concise, and relevant.

But what prompted me to write this letter was the technical support. I have needed to get help four times since I purchased the program. Each time my request has been answered quickly, thoroughly, and by someone who not only read, but understood my problem. Now that’s reason for celebration. Thanks guys!"
Mark Robinson, www.HandicappedPets.com

"My positive experience with ARELIS"

"When I started using ARELIS, I had a link popularity of 800 [...]. Today, my link popularity is around 200,000! ARELIS really works!"
Aaron Cooper, www.ultimatenurse.com

Win an iPod: just answer four simple questions

Just answer four simple questions and win an iPod Shuffle.

Click here for further information.

 

 

• Can grammar and spelling mistakes influence your Google rankings?
• An open SEO analysis
• Search engine insiders talk about links
• Is the KEI (keyword effectiveness index) really a good indicator for useful keywords?
• Keywords and search engine optimization
• The most important search engines for search engine optimization (SEO)
• View all past issues...