Hello everyone and welcome to my first SEOMoz blog post!

I wanted to talk about a subject which I feel is getting very little coverage at the moment and bring it to the forefront of your attention.

Drum roll…

Google’s stance on paid links!

Okay, well maybe one or two others have covered it, but I thought I’d wade into the discussion anyway.

As a relative newcomer to the SEO world, (practicing on my own sites for a few years, offering commercial services for around 12 - 18 months), I am always interested in new ways to learn and develop my craft.

One major aspect of SEO which I sometimes struggle with is amassing links (don’t we all?). After much reading and research I have occasionally dipped my toe in the link baiting pool with varying amounts of success.

Now let’s pretend I am working with a new client who is in the van brokerage business, the website has been re-jigged to be more ‘SEO friendly’ and I have increased their backlinks quite some way. The site ranks well for mediocre search terms, (which has already increased their business), however some key high traffic terms are still eluding us.

The client approaches me with an envelope stuffed with cash (I wish!) and tells me to get him more visitors.

What to do???

My initial thought is to spend the money approaching complimentary websites in our or a similar sector, and purchase some high quality related links. Not only would these links really benefit our search rankings, they may also generate referrals between the sites, a winning situation for us. The links may even be useful to the other websites visitors.

But wait a minute, Google tells me it’s wrong to do this and we will be found out and penalised. :-(

Being a bit of a chicken, and not wanting to get a clients site penalised, I decide against the high quality relevant links…

Back to square one.

Maybe using AdWords will be the right route to go down. Yeah, I could set up some ads, set the budget, and watch the visitors poor in; easy! That’s until the budget runs out, then the ads stop, instantly followed by the extra visitors.

AdWords might be a viable way to get the visitors in, but that would require setting a regular budget up, and is not really what the client is after at this time.

Hmmm…

I’ve got it! I’ll do some link baiting, this way I will attract the links I want (hopefully) and it’s all legit as far as Google is concerned.

Right, what great linkbait ideas do I have? Well, we sell vans which are vehicles, and I just went to the cinema last night and saw this great new film about vehicles turning into robots… (You can see where I’m going here)

So two wasted hours in front of Photoshop later, I decide that I better get some professional help, maybe a 20 second CGI clip of a Ford Transit turning into a robot would do the trick? Well a few quotes with rather too many 0’s on the end later and here’s another idea shot down.

Now for the last resort, I start Googling for linkbait services.

A pretty respected guy who I have definitely ‘heard of’ in the SEO world has a linkbaiting service which would leave little change out of $6000: expensive, but the results which could be achieved look good.

Okay, let me sum up the situation: I have a well constructed website with good unique content and some cash. I’m not allowed to purchase any high quality relevant links to boost my search rankings without offending Mr Google. I am allowed to give my money to Mr Google in exchange for some limited time adverts but this is not a long term solution. I’m also allowed to pay large sums of money for some content which may or may not be related to my website content, and may or may not attract links. If we do attract links in this fashion the link giver will almost certainly be linking to the special content rather than any of the existing website, and will have no intention of purchasing a van, or even recommending our van brokerage service.

The client is real, the specifics have been altered slightly, but the discussion is very genuine.

Is it just me, or is there a problem with this?