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Business SEO Basics Better SEO Through Code Noindex and Nofollow

Claudine Bananal
Claudine Bananal
1,756 Points
Posted by Claudine Bananal
Claudine Bananal
1,756 Points

On Paid Links

Is my understanding correct that paid links are considered as black hat SEO? So what if I had a blog that became popular and attracted traffic then a company comes up to me with the intention of having their banner on the side of my blog? Is that considered a paid link or a black hat SEO on their part? Is that what paid link is? <br> As well, I've seen personal blog posts left with comments by other bloggers, with their URL posted after their comment and name. Does that mean that it is not a good practice? Thank you!

Ary de Oliveira
Ary de Oliveira
28,298 Points

I LIKE YOUR COMMENT

1 Answer

Daniel Marlin
Daniel Marlin
8,128 Points

Paid links are difficult to define because they can take many forms, some more "Black Hat" or unscrupulous than others.

EXAMPLE:

A blogger has approached and paid you to include a URL on your blog that links back to their website.

There are a few factors that will determine whether or not this paid link can be considered Black Hat or not, but the most obvious one would be the similarity of the content between your two sites. If the content of your website is similar to that of the website of the person paying you then the paid link is not necessarily engaging in dirty tactics.

SCENARIO ONE ("NOT BLACKHAT")

You have to put yourself in the position of a user on your website. If they follow the link to the other website with the expectation of being greeted with similar content to your own, then they should be satisfied. Nobody has done anything wrong in this scenario. A person has paid you to marginally boost their SEO while also fulfilling their end of the bargain, ensuring that the content still remains relevant to the user.

SCENARIO TWO ("BLACK HAT")

If however the content on the other persons site has absolutely nothing to do with your own, you can imagine that this would be both confusing and unsatisfying for the user of your website. In this scenario somebody has paid you to exploit the advantages of back linking in SEO. They are engaging in dirty tactics to increase their standing on the search engines, a clear example of Black Hat tactics.

LINKING IN BLOG COMMENTS:

People leaving links in the comment section of your blog can be extremely dangerous to the health of your own blog. As was mentioned before, people do engage in Black Hat SEO tactics. More often than not these people are heavily penalised and often times removed from search engine results all together. Where this becomes dangerous for you is when these people link back to these blacklisted sites from within your blog comments. Google could see this as an association between you and a blacklisted site and as a result could punish you for it. BE CAREFUL! Often people link to blacklisted sites in a deliberate attempt to lower your SEO ranking.