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You are here: Home / Google / Google Ignores Paid Links from Major Publications

Google Ignores Paid Links from Major Publications

June 19, 2017 at 4:23 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

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It has been a well known secret that some major publications, such as Forbes and Huffington Post, have authors who are using their status as a regular contributor to make money on the side by adding paid links within their articles published on those sites.  And those authors make pretty good money from them, as links can range from a few hundred dollars on a smaller site to thousands of dollars on major publications.  But do the links actually work?

At SMX Advanced last week, Gary Illyes from Google commented on the issue, naming Forbes specifically, and said that those links are worthless.

Many of those big article sites people are selling links on? Those links are worthless. Ie Forbes / "high DA sites" @methode #smx

— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) June 13, 2017

He also commented on the fact they devalue or ignore bad links, which reflects the changes we saw in Penguin, where Google devalues those links rather than penalizing for them.

We can ignore links, we are doing a great job at ignoring links, but we are sending out link manual actions but not as harsh. @methode #smx

— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) June 13, 2017

He also added that those sites buying links are throwing their money away.

If you are buying links, you are literally throwing money away. @methode #smx

— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) June 13, 2017

That said, sometimes those types of links can bring exposure, and links from other sites who saw the reference in the original article, which can be worth the money spent.  But if bought for the exposure alone, then the links should be nofollowed to not run the risk of a link based manual action from Google.

But if you are tempted to buy a link from a major publication for the SEO link value alone, there is a good chance Google wouldn’t be counting it as contributing value to your site.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
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Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)

  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met - October 16, 2020
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters - October 6, 2020
  • Analyzing “How Google Search Works” Changes from Google - July 8, 2020
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations - December 6, 2019
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites - September 13, 2019

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