Over the past few months, Google has taken a firm stand against Webmasters using paid links to increase their page rankings - going so far as to require site owners to report exactly which links
they've paid for and which are more "natural." If the search giant finds paid links that haven't been tagged as such, then both the site owner and the site that provided the links could be penalized.
Meanwhile, a huge debate in the search community over whether this is good or bad for business has ensued.
This StraightUpSearch blog post details both sides of the argument, from
Webmasters who say that Google's algorithm should be smart enough to identify paid links on its own, to supporters who say that paid links need to be identified (much like paid vs. organic search
results) to preserve the integrity of the user experience.
Read the whole story at StraightUpSearch »
