This was always on cards. Google is now keeping an eye on blogs that sell links which pass pagerank. I gave my readers few points which they should keep in mind when buying blog reviews. With more than 250+ comments on Matt Cutts’ article on selling links that pass page rank it has been a hot topic, since the very beginning.
Matt also wants bloggers to disclose that they are doing a paid review of the site (which is something scary) or use a nofollow tag to the links which are outside of the actual domain. Will people do this? I think, they won’t!
Matt says this as:
In the same way that a regular surfer would want disclosure to know if a post were paid, all the major search engines also want to make sure that paid posts are adequately disclosed to search engines as well.
Why would people disclose that they sell paid reviews? This would be like confessing to the police that I’m the culprit. What I can’t understand is, how in a world Google or Mr. Matt Cutts know that money has exchanged hands if you don’t tell about it! Here are the points I’m putting for you all to strictly keep in mind so that you don’t face thier penalty.
1. Don’t put ads that you sell reviews. Remove those big, fancy PayPerPost, ReviewMe or SponsoredAds banners from your blogs. Seeing those banners will put you on their penalty list.
2. Review the sites that are closely related to your niche. Be very picky, with reviews. Well if you have a blog about SEO/Internet Marketing and you do a review on shoes, this won’t look natural. So, write original reviews about your niche, not some crappy posts. See the website, look what they offer and what you could write in your review, and then just go ahead and write an original, honest review!
3. Don’t just write review posts. Mix them up with your own articles. Make it a habit to write a review, and then a useful article. It should look natural. Well Google looks for natural stuffs so give them natural reviews.
Manish Pandey is an internet marketing strategist and likes to write about tech, search engines and social media. To stay updated you can subscribe to the RSS Feed or follow him on twitter.
nice and informative post…
Thanks Manish!
It was a good article. I submitted and voted for it as well at Sphinn. I have to admit like I said that I don’t like the whole kowtowing to Google movement. But everyone has an opinion.
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I agree, you should make it look natural. However, I think writing a review is still fine and Google should not be the total authority on what you can do on your own blog.
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