WebProNews

Matt Cutts Answers Questions About Directories and Ranking

As you may know, Google's Matt Cutts frequently answers questions from Google users on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel. There are a couple recent ones in which he addresses questions about directories and how they contribute to a site's rankings. The first question is: Will Google consider Yahoo! Directory and BOTW (Best of the Web) as sources of paid links? If no, why is this different from another site that sells links?

The Ups and Downs of Paid Tweeting

Will advertising kill Twitter? Probably not, but it might kill the popularity of the Twitterers tweeting the ads if some consideration isn't put into it. The concept is nothing new. Don't like the ads you are getting in an email subscription? You'll probably unsubscribe. Don't like paid posts on a blog you read? You'll probably stop reading. I don't see why the same principal wouldn't apply to Twitter.

Are SEOs the 'Bad Guys'?

There have been a couple of pretty interesting articles written this week that ask a legitimate (if not somewhat sensationalized) question:  Does Google consider SEOs to be criminals?

Google Talks About the Links-for-Money Spectrum

In a Q&A session at SMX Advanced in Seattle, Google's Matt Cutts talked at length about paid links. He was asked several questions about this. Google recently announced it is now reading javascript and acting upon it. In the past, the advice given out has been if you have paid links, you should either nofollow those paid links or use javascript because Google didn't read it.

Google's Cutts Apologizes For Paid Post Snafu

Jaws dropped last week upon the news Google penalized its own Japanese site in Google search results after discovering Google Japan participated in a pay-per-post blogging scheme. WebProNews Video caught up with Google’s anti-spam-team captain, Matt Cutts, who offers his apologies.

Google Penalizes Itself

Go ahead and laugh, because it is funny. Google Japan’s probably too embarrassed to laugh, though, and someone somewhere is likely to resemble the spittle-drenched apologist from the movie Gung Ho. Google Japan, according to its apology, was apparently unaware of the company’s own terms of service. Paying a Japanese pay-per-post promotion company to pimp its new Hot Keywords blog widget caused the website to be busted down from PR 9 to PR 5.

New Paid Links Service Sparks More Debate

Quite a storm of debate has erupted over a new service called InLinks - essentially a paid text link service that allegedly makes it hard for Google (and other search engines) to detect them. And mouths of  Internet marketers begin to salivate.

Paid Links Go Underground

For every abolition an underground emerges. Google’s not exactly the law, and bootleggers during Prohibition didn’t exactly offer seminars about avoiding the revenuers. Todd Mailcoat, Rand Fishkin, John Lessnau, with six middle fingers between them, offer no such discretion and invited PubCon attendees under the table in a session titled Linkfluence: How to Buy Links With Maximum Juice and Minimum Risk.

Paid Link Reporting Spurs Furious Debate

Matt Cutts posted a note about Google being in position to handle paid link report submissions from the Internet community; Michael Gray complained about the fairness of the request.

Google Grateful For Your Webspam And Paid Links Reports

Give yourselves a hand, folks.  In Google's fight against webspam and paid links, you've apparently played an important role, and in the future, the company's hoping you'll participate even more.