Blog reviews have been a time honored way to get a little free advertising and some links back to your site. While paying outright for links is black hat, and paying for blog reviews is considered grey, giving out a gift to bloggers was deemed all right until this past week. A large online company known to give out beanbag chairs in return for a blog post and the resultant back-link has apparently been penalized by Google with a PageRank hit.
Many people figured out that paying for links was a big Google no-no when the crackdowns started up again earlier this year. Now it seems that the blogs are going to have to police themselves a little more, and websites need to religiously no-follow links back from blogs that have given them a favorable review.
Links from other places that might have been influenced by the blog should still be fine, as they are organic – but that too can change at any time so be careful accepting any links back from places that could be construed as selling links to you or being bribed to make them.
It comes back to the way Google looks at things. Steering clear of the ‘appearance of evil’ is what you need to do to stay afloat. In the past, Google has come down hard on sites that appear to be buying links, and now ones that give away free gifts may be added to the penalties.
The best practice is to no-follow for all you are worth, and not to count on links from only one method as any sign of a pattern triggers the beast to attack. Once you have gotten a reputation for unsavory reports, it is hard to erase the stigma. Only do things you wouldn’t mind having well known should be passed around the web!
Tags: back links, blog reviews, Google penalty