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Is Selling Links a Good Idea?

UserPost

6:59 pm
April 1, 2011


Wojo

SW Florida

Member

posts 57

I know this is an old debate, but it's recently on my mind again. I'm seeing a lot of bloggers making a ton of money lately, and a lot of it seems to be from selling links. Some people's sidebars look like giant rolling link ads.

(If you're unfamiliar with the concept, someone pays you to put a link with text of their choosing on your home page. This would be a "dofollow" type of link, which if you are a high-PR website gives them some Google juice and helps them rank higher in search engines.)

As you can imagine, this can be very profitable for bloggers. Most of these companies pay up front for 6 or 12-month periods.

So here's my big problem with paid links: Google has repeatedly said that they look down on it and look for/penalize websites that sell them. Not to mention they make my site look like doo-doo and most of the sites they link to are questionable (think payday loans, investments, etc…).

So for the bloggers that use them–I'm curious as to why you've decided to put them up, and how you feel about the trade-offs (design, turn-off to potential subscribers, Google risk, etc.). In other words, is it worth it for the money alone?

Your thoughts on this are appreciated! Cool

"Wojo" Kulicki

Fiscal Fizzle (site/twitter/facebook)

7:53 pm
April 1, 2011


Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Member

posts 3048

Short-answer:  Yes.

Long answer:  I don't think they make my site look like doo-doo.  ;-)  They blend into the background just like the Red Cross banner or all of my fellow blogger banners.  And the most of my readers don't care at all – I asked.  You can even check out the comments from the readers who do care.  Since this post, my readership has increased 4-6 times and I kept selling ads.  Here's the link:  http://www.budgetinginthefunst…..tisements/

My only question is why people are so against them on other sites?  That is why Romeo got to me.

Crystal

Yakezie Member Site: 

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8:17 pm
April 1, 2011


financialstudent

Member

posts 86

Why? - Honestly, the money is too good to pass up. When advertisers email you and offer whatever respectable amount, it's hard to say no. I'm writing the blog anyway and someone then offers to pay me for a small link? Sold.

Design? - I don't feel like most text link ads take away too much from the design. I'd actually like to know if people think mine make my site look bad. What do you think? I think Adsense is more intrusive than TLAs. On your site, I don't think a few links at the bottom of one of your sidebars would look like doo doo lol.

Turn off?  - This is just my opinion, but I don't think most readers care. If the content is good, people will stick around. Actual subscribers never see 'em unless they click through. On my site, you can usually read the first post (unless it's a longer one) without ever seeing a TLA.

Google risk? - This is where I'm most concerned. I don't want blacklisted, obviously, but I also want money. I sold my first link back in May of 2010. For most of 2010, I maintained a PR of 4. Now it's 3, but I'm not convinced if the 2 are connected. (I haven't guest posted in forever.)

With All That Said…

One Adsense picks up, which I'm optimistic it will, I'll probably abandon TLAs. The Google risk will no longer be worth it. Plus, it seems few TLAdvertisers are willing to pay the significant sums I would require if I had increased traffic/PR of around 5 or 6. Then again, maybe the right advertisers haven't contacted me. :)

From an extremely long term view, it makes sense for me to earn more money right now before I get a big kid job. I'm a freshman in college with a part time retail job. The first $8,000 or so I (or anyone really) make is income tax free aside from payroll. I can make another $8,000 and only pay around $800. Basically what I'm saying that my income now is taxed extremely low – lower than it ever will be later in my life. An extra $2,000 on top of my out-of-school salary won't have the same utility it does now since I'll pay probably 25% or 28% (I hope. ;) in taxes.

Hope this helps and gets a discussion going!

9:33 am
April 2, 2011


Wojo

SW Florida

Member

posts 57

Side question: How do you keep the design clean and have text link ads? Sounds like most of you are doing a good job of it.

"Wojo" Kulicki

Fiscal Fizzle (site/twitter/facebook)

11:00 am
April 2, 2011


JT_McGee

Member

posts 723

I'm not a big fan of them, mostly because no one can possibly predict future algorithm changes.  The trend with Google has been anti-paid links, and they keep getting better at detecting them.  

 

So, in a lot of ways you get compensated for extra risk, but in a lot of ways you can't quantify the risk you take on. 

 

When I can't quantify something, I just pass it up.  Might be too conservative, but it might not.  Again, who knows?

JT McGee – MoneyMamba

URL: MoneyMamba.com 

Twitter: @JT_McGee

Recent Post: Are We Halfway Through Our Lost Decade? (4 Charts Inside)

12:25 pm
April 2, 2011


moneysmarts

Member

posts 240

I've been on both sides of this whole debate.  When I first started my other site, biblemoneymatters.com, I acceped paid text links for quite some time – for the first year or so.    I was making enough from the text links to make over $1000/month from them, but at the same time I was concerned about them because all I ever heard was that Google frowned on them, and you were risking being penalized in search and page rank by having them. 

 

By that time i had a page rank of 4, but after I continued adding links i dropped to a PR3.  Not sure if they were related, but i"m pretty sure they were.      After that I started to slowly phase the text links out because my Adsense income had quickly eclipsed that of text links, and the risk of losing that due to an algorithm change or something along those lines was too much. I just didn't want to risk it.

 

Now a couple of years later I'm glad I dropped them. My search traffic and income has continued to grow – even more so after I dropped the text links, and I still dont' want to tempt fate in case google ever decides to penalize people in search rankings (if they aren't already).

 

My second site – the one here in the challenge – i never sold text links, and never will. It's now at a PR4, and I'm hoping it stays there since i don't sell links. 

 

So i think text links are a temporary income solution, but not a long term answer. :)

2:39 pm
April 2, 2011


Khaleef @ KNS Financial

Fat Guy, Skinny Wallet

Member

posts 3149

When you guys talk about Google detecting text links, are you just referring to those that are in your sidebar or footer, or also those in a paid guest post? I'm wondering if a link fits perfectly inside of a post – a post about saving money on car insurance, with a link to Progressive.com or something – is it still a problem with Google?

Khaleef "Fat Guy" Crumbley

My Battle to Lose 100lbs and Pay off $100k in Debt:

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3:47 pm
April 2, 2011


moneysmarts

Member

posts 240

Truth is, i don't think any of us really know how google figures it out, or how they use the information.  It's all proprietary stuff – but my guess is that they may be able to figure out what sites are paying for links, and by extension, look at what sites they have links on to see if they have a pattern of having links to other sites who are known for paying for links. Whether it matters if it is in content or sidebar – i don't know.

3:52 pm
April 2, 2011


financialstudent

Member

posts 86

Putting it in a post probably helps mask it a bit. But I'm sure Google has dozens of different algorithms to determine stuff like this.

8:44 pm
April 2, 2011


JT_McGee

Member

posts 723

@KNS

 

As moneysmarts said, no one can know.  However, we can observe the trends.

 

2005-2007 – Google cracks down HARD on PR sellers

2008-2009 – Social media starts playing big in Google Algorithms

2010-Now  - "Mayday" update kills a lot of non-editorially driven links, "Panda" update from a month ago starts looking into language, site design, ad:content ratio, and other qualitative factors.

 

tl;dr: Google's slowly diluting the value of links, removing the value of some links, and starting to look into qualitative factors.

 

Sidebar and footer links started getting discounted seriously when Google first targeted link sellers.  I'm led to believe that even in-content links will be sniffed out once they perfect this recent update.  Google has enough data, I'm sure, to be able to tell which sites see irregular link building models, and which sites have a backlink "footprint" that doesn't look natural. 

JT McGee – MoneyMamba

URL: MoneyMamba.com 

Twitter: @JT_McGee

Recent Post: Are We Halfway Through Our Lost Decade? (4 Charts Inside)

11:14 pm
April 2, 2011


Khaleef @ KNS Financial

Fat Guy, Skinny Wallet

Member

posts 3149

Thanks for the explanation, guys! Now I have to be careful when considering sponsored posts.

Khaleef "Fat Guy" Crumbley

My Battle to Lose 100lbs and Pay off $100k in Debt:

http://fatguyskinnywallet.com

http://twitter.com/FGSW

http://www.facebook.com/fatguy…..innywallet

Personal Finance From A Biblical Perspective:

http://knsfinancial.com

http://www.facebook.com/knsfinancial

http://twitter.com/knsfinancial

8:11 am
April 3, 2011


Glen Craig

Member

posts 1087

Post edited 5:37 am – April 4, 2011 by Glen Craig – Free From Broke


I had similar experiences as moneysmarts.  I can tell you I went from around a pr4 at one time to pr0.  Big Drop!  I probably lost a lot of potential income during the time I had a PR 0.

 

As far as in posts is concerned, the big G talks about "bad neighborhood."  Is where you are linking a bad neighborhood?  I don't think it takes much for G to find a bad site that is ranking and follow the links back to where they come from.

 

I'd love to know about what happened with the sites that linked to JC Penny?

 

You can never know what will happen.  At the same time the money can be good.  You have to be careful and weigh the short-term money against long-term growth.

9:52 am
April 3, 2011


Sustainable PF

Member

posts 2759

Glen Craig – Free From Broke said:

I had similar experiences at moneysmarts.  I can tell you I went from around a pr4 at one time to pr0.  Big Drop!  I probably lost a lot of potential income during the time I had a PR 0.

~~

Therein is the kicker.  G updated PR once a year (outwardly) so people w/ PR 0 think, why not sell those links if G won't give me any respect.  Then when the random PR update happens link sellers are squashed.  As a new blog we were skipped in the PR update a few months back but when I look for our keywords we're usually page 1 of results, worst case, page 2.

Like everything in life this practice is probably about moderation.  Some sites have widget after widget of text links that just look outta place.  Other sites have posts on a topic and there is a link or two in the post.  Not all posts, or even close to all posts, but some.  A lot of sites are PF sites so talking about things like payday loans or debt consolidation could come up.  If you post about these things weekly the balance is off and G surely figures that out.

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2:31 pm
April 4, 2011


MyJourneytoMillions

Member

posts 1012

Here is my problem with the people that care about what google thinks (not the BibleMoney and FreeFromBrokes obviously) but you don't make shit from google! 92% (Read: made up stat) make $2 a day in adsense so why the hell do you care about what google thinks of your site?

 

I make a couple hundred from Adsense a month, and am I likely to get spanked, eventually, yup but until then I will continue…What is the saying? a bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush? 

 

Maybe it is because I have no dreams of becoming a pro-blogger, but I just get so annoyed (not that anyone did it here) when someone is worried about their page rank but google is earning them $27 a month. 

 

/rant lol

 

2:57 pm
April 4, 2011


martin

Member

posts 199

MJTM is right, I barely make the $100 from Google. I need to have some sort of income coming in to justify staying up until 4am working on blog posts. It's difficult to turn down $60 a month for a link or a 6month offer of hundreds of dollars.

 

As for PR… I sold more text links than ever last year and my Pr went up to a 5. I read a whole book on SEO and how Google works. The conclusion was that nobody knows!

3:16 pm
April 4, 2011


Wojo

SW Florida

Member

posts 57

@mjtm: My 2 cents: The AdSense component of this discussion is, honestly, irrelevant to me. I could be earning $0 from Google, and the fact remains that nearly 2/3 of my traffic is from search engines. Traffic leads to page views, which leads to my ability to sell ad space to anyone, AdSense included, in the future. Same goes for PR–if my PR tanks because I sell links, that affects my ability to sell links in the future. Talk about a Catch-22.

 

I hear what you and MD are saying, though–the fact is no one really knows how or what they're thinking in Google and who they may or may not penalize for doing something they don't like. I guess I'd just like to stay on the safe side for the long haul.

"Wojo" Kulicki

Fiscal Fizzle (site/twitter/facebook)

3:44 pm
April 4, 2011


Suba @ Wealth Informatics

Moderator

posts 1876

I don't get why people get all worked up when they see others selling text links. I don't remember his name, but there was a poster who fought tooth and nail with Crystal about why "she" is wrong lol. It is her website, she can put what she wants. Text links is the way some people choose to monetize, as long as they are not forcing me to buy something, I honestly don't care. I dislike text links that are displayed as a category links or disguised as a genuine navigation link. But with all the yakezie site, I have seen them clearly marked as sponsors or ads or something of that sort. So why do people care what others do.

I am not talking about anyone who posted in this post, FFB or Bible money. They didn't attack anyone using a text link, but some other folks (like that poster whose name I just can't remember).

 

With that said, I totally agree with FFB & BibleMoney. That is precisely the reason why "I" didn't choose to go the text link route. I felt text links are not scalable. I plan to do this for a long time. So I decided I will take the longer, slower route. Yes, right now, $600 upfront money is tooo good. But I don't wank to risk Google kicking me out. It was a calculated decision and I feel for long term this is right for "me". There are different style of monetization, as long as you have a back plan for the income if something out of your control happens… then go for it. These are some of the things I  considered before I made my decision -

Text links 

Advantages : Can make good money. Easy money, as long as you have good PR, even if you write once a week people will pay. And upfront money.

Risks : You can't have 100 text links in the home page, there is a limit on how much you can put. And main thing-google can penalize you. Why should I care if google penalizes me? Because if your PR goes to 0, text link offers will disappear too. As all the advertisers want is PR juice.

Affiliate marketing

I didn't see anything too risky with this, except it can generate $0 and it is too hit/miss. As long as they are incorporated gracefully and I am not stuffing ads on the face of the readers, I don't mind including affiliate marketing.

Adsense

Advantages : Easy to put up, no negotiations. Monthly checks, no dealing with paypal or invoicing anyone.

Risks : Need decent traffic before it generates any meaning income. Most people earn <$50 (at least) during their early years. Traffic needs to be consistent/high, if you don't write for a month, traffic goes down so does the revenue. If google kicks you out for some unknown reason, you have to move to other adsense equivalent (YPN or adbrite or whatever).

Based on accessing my risk, I decided on Adsense/affliate combination over text link/affliate. To each their own…

 

 

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4:58 pm
April 4, 2011


MyJourneytoMillions

Member

posts 1012

I am sorry if I came off aggressive, I didn't feel attacked…I literally just can't understand it so I tend to rant which doesn't have any inflection in tone. 

 

We will take Wojo for example who runs a FANTASTIC blog.  What does that 66% of traffic bring you? Do you make money with affiliates from that traffic (a la my blogging buddy FreeFromBroke)? If so then you know your answer…and why even start this thread? 

 

However, if you are making $0 from affiliates (I make next to nothing from affiliate marketing) and if you are making $0 from adsense (you didn't indicate either way) then what does your 66% bring you? Maybe income isn't your thing and that is cool…I didn't start my blog with the intention of making cash

5:28 pm
April 4, 2011


Suba @ Wealth Informatics

Moderator

posts 1876

Evan, I didn't feel that you were aggressive… I totally understand your point, as I said, I seriously considered text links. And for each decision I gave myself a trial period. My goal was to make enough by the end of the first year to double the money I put in. I got back multiple times, if I had not earned anything, of course I would have changed. Some blogs work well for affiliate and some adsense… I didn't start my blog to earn money as well and I could never go full time blogging. It just can't replace my full time job income. But anything extra is a welcome addition.. so whatever works for each blog stays :)

 

I hope I didn't make anyone feel attacked that was not my intention.Smile

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5:56 pm
April 4, 2011


JT_McGee

Member

posts 723

Post edited 5:56 pm – April 4, 2011 by JT_McGee


The reason people get so worked up about them on other sites is 1) either they're just ticked they don't make as much as X person or 2) they work in legitimate SEO/brand building on the web, and are tired of the trend towards poor content with 349058340950342 ads.

Looking at it as you make X% or $X from Google Adsense is the wrong way to look at it; the question shouldn't be dependent on Google Adsense alone. Saying you make X% or $X from display advertising (that which is not based on influencing Google's search results) is a better way to look at it.  

Even still, most members can't possibly know "what could have happened if I hadn't…" since most proponents of the process mostly have sold links themselves.   

 

The biggest risk anyone runs is that someone goes and tattles on you.  Will a Yakezie member go run and tell on you?  I doubt it.  Will someone else?   Uh, yeah–some treat the internet as if it were supposed to be the cleanest place in the world.  As far as I'm concerned, I'm not Google's police, and I would prefer to spend the time tattling developing my own sites.  Other webmasters don't have the same view.  That's just a waste of time, energy, etc., and if you aren't outranking them already, then maybe you should be working on your own site. Besides, I was in that link sales boat once, so I know what it's like to have revenues that aren't dependent on visitors/clicks (flippin' awesome as far as not worrying about traffic!) Cool

JT McGee – MoneyMamba

URL: MoneyMamba.com 

Twitter: @JT_McGee

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