We are already aware of the fact that Google tries its best to rule our lives. Whether we want it or not but Google has the ability to dominate our virtual personalities i.e. our online personalities. Especially being a webmaster it is very much important to follow Google guide lines if you want your blog/site to remain on the safe-side.

Google Can now Catch Those Paid Links

It was a topic of big debate among webmasters, and still is, that whether Google allows paid links or not? and even if it does not, then how is it supposed to catch the people who buy/sell links on their websites/blogs? Most webmasters were of the opinion that its virtually impossible for Google to catch paid links on a site as there is a no clear distinction between a simple link and a paid link but Google has now built a trap for those people who violate Google’s terms of services.

Google Webmaster Tools Get Updated

If you have not recently signed in to your Google Webmasters Tools Dashboard then I would ask you to do so immediately because Google has a new reporting tool called “Report Paid Links” through which webmasters can report paid links to Google. It is clearly stated their that buying PageRank or in other words buying links on a site to improve PageRank violates Google’s Quality Guidelines.

Here is what Google says about the new reporting tool feature:

Google uses a number of methods to detect paid links, including algorithmic techniques. We also welcome information from our users. If you know of a site that buys or sells links, please tell us by filling out the fields below. We’ll investigate your submissions, and we’ll use your data to improve our algorithmic detection of paid links.

Keep Your Blog/Site on The Safe-Side

AlThough it is a bad news for most of the webmasters and bloggers that selling/buying links is no longer safe for them if they want to remain in Google’s good books but I would be astonished if webmasters give up on this so early. Here are some guidelines to keep yourself on the safe-side:

• Even if you sell links on your blog/site do not highlight them with headings such as “Paid Links” etc
• Don’t sell links in some public forum/website because someone can easily report you to Google that way
• Prefer not discussing anything related to the paid links on your blog/site as that way there is a chance you will leak some info

The biggest question on my mind right now is that how will Google treat the links sold/bought by publishers and advertisers on Text-Link-ads and other similar site. Google will surely have some plans for such sites too.

[tags]Google,Google_paid_link, google_webmaster, google_webmaster_tools, google_tools, google_catch_paid_links, buy_pagerank[/tags]