Comment by
Christopher

Cheers, Jon

I was initially intrigued by the title, but further reading would suggest that in fact no secrets are revealed at all and Google only tell us what we know already. The interesting point that article makes is that it says:

“What has confused things lately is all the “link buying” which Google greatly discourages and has shown its displeasure by de-ranking many paid directories”

If this is the case, then perhaps this would support the idea that they are coy about links because if they make it clear and do state explicitly what you should and should not do, then people may well not bother with AdWords, as many may well consider this to be “link buying”, or at the very least, it would make Google appear hypocritical.

On the one hand, they could tell you that you shouldn’t concentrate on paid linking services and go for natural links, but this would contradict their adwords/adsense services.

On the other hand they could encourage the use of paid services to gain more exposure for your website, but in doing so, may open people’s eyes to services other than the ones they offer, which would not be in their interests.

Perhaps in Google’s ideal world, the big players will dominate the natural rankings and the rest of us will use adwords to get visitors to our site. Or perhaps that’s just a cynical view on things.

Thank you Google…for showing me the error of my ways!!

Getting links should, in a natural world, be a bi-product of being worthy?

This natural by-product would be impossible without actual hyperlinks. Unless of course it’s just a textual unlinked mention. But Google is also factoring mentions in content as well as links, isn’t it? Just look at how quick Google Alerts spots your phrase!