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Advertorials Gut, Paid Reviews Nicht So Gut
This weekend’s blogstorm comes from the paid end of the Internet. Ted Murphy from Izea has a article stating that Google is going after the "everyday blogger". While I have defended ppp in the past a couple times, sorry Ted, ya got this one wrong. Ted notes that many of the paid review bloggers had their Google pagerank lowered or removed all together.
Ted notes, "I find it laughable that high profile bloggers like TechCrunch aren’t being penalized in the same way. Perhaps it’s the fact that they use AdSense. Perhaps it’s the fact that they are silicon valley insiders and are invited to special Google events. Either way I don’t see the difference between a sponsored post in our system or this sponsored post. Both are paid for, neither use no-follow."
I have these type of "thank you sponsor" posts on CN as well. These are not reviews. These are simple links thanking the sponsors of a site. And I have reviewed hundreds of products and books over the last 10 years on HTMLCenter.
I am all for paid advertorials for blogs. I pushed ReviewMe to look at this and they have added it as an option. If Izea moved from paid reviews to advertorials, it would be fine as well. And I will put all my chips in that it would actually increase Izea’s business. Check out an example advertorial on Silicon Alley Insider. With RSS so prevalent, advertorials are a great way to hit the RSS base. If advertorials worked, there would be no need for paid reviews.
There has been a lot of talk about paid links and now paid reviews and Google’s stand on them. Is it because Google wants to be the only one selling links? At the size and power Google is at, can they still operate as a "normal going concern? Mathew and Andy have some additional differing insights.
I personally have zero problem with PPP. I don’t think a true shill can create a good blog, period. A person getting paid to say what they already believe? No effect on me. So nature does already what Google thinks it has to do by penalizing PPP.
What I’m curious about is how does Google know which are PPP articles? I thought the beef was that they did not disclose their status? And if they are identifiable as paid, what is Google’s problem? I thought you would likely know more than I on the subject.
Allen it is nothing to do with disclosure or ethics. It is pure and simple, PageRank passing links.
Anything in your sidebar without nofollow, you can lose your pagerank. Linking to a sponsor… the same
The only reason the Tech blogs haven’t been singled out, and The Washington Post and others had their PageRank restored is because it made Google look stupid.
Google have actually dropped the PageRank of sites that have never written a sponsored review, or sold links purely because they mentioned PayPerPost, or tested out the interface for a review, and just happened to be in their directory.
Even your press releases… it is smart, but people are not buying them just for exposure, just like many paid press release services.
I could sell a nofollow advertising spot in my sidebar, and thank the sponsor in a post every day, with a short writeup.
Would that make it legitimate? That they had a nofollow link for a day in my sidebar?
The saddest thing of all from this is that so many Tech bloggers will think that this is PPP are Evil, and carry on their own practice which is actually influencing search results more.