How not to sell links

While a lot of SEO’s are working on ways how to sell links secretly I’ll give you a example how not to sell links. As you might know Google is coming down hard on sites they catch buying or selling links that transfer PageRank (PR). You want to avoid getting caught doing it.

Check out code-sucks.com. They state they are selling links right on the homepage and they don’t even try to hide it as selling traffic, no they clearly state “Need to boost your Search Engine Rankings?”.

The link is just a image replacement on a H1 so that should be safe, but stating you sell links for the PR (PR5 to be exact) where everyone can see it isn’t smart.

Then there’s the directory, I expected quite some links in there, it being PR5 and all. Well… not a lot of links and not a lot of PR either. Granted, the Google PageRank in SearchStatus (my Firefox plug in) isn’t 100% trustworthy but it says ‘PageRank: unranked” here in my toolbar.

Then there’s some other things that bother me. The design for one, or the lack there off. And look at those headers “Site Name” and “Site Description”. Not very inviting or professional.

I’m thinking of reasons why someone would do something like this… It would be that the directory isn’t finished, but I can’t imagine that being true with the big link on the homepage.

Even if you are trying to sell links try to keep the following things in mind:

• Don’t blatantly state it on your homepage (or anywhere else if you can)
• If you sell PR5 links, be sure that you have PR5 (or PR at all)
• Try to make your link directory look like the rest of your site

Even if it’s not exactly allowed, selling links is not easy money. You should put some effort and thought into it.

Afterthought: It just came to me that this link selling directory might have already been penalized by Google. That would explain the lack of PR. It is indexed though.