Screw PR: Webmasters should be in Stealth Mode

Earlier today I was chatting about the can of whoopass Google just opened. So basically, the situation is as follows:

  • A few popular blogs get spanked for selling links or heavy network interlinking.
  • and Andy Beard weigh in with their thoughts and lists.
  • The interweb explodes in a fury of canceled PayPal subscriptions.

Is it just me or are we not getting sucked into the Google FUD machine? As of posting, what has Aaron Wall said? Nothing, cares more about YouTube subscribers. Did Andy Hagans have much to say on the matter? No, he can’t care less. What about senor Naylor? In true style he decides to remove nofollow tags from all links on his blog. Graywolf doesn’t really say much either, other than linking to a good but slightly irate post over at . I think the reason these guys and many others haven’t got swept up in all this is the fact that they’ve been through Florida and Jagger. They’ve seen it all before, which is pretty much my thinking on this.

However.

There is something really ironic about this whole thing:

  1. Google are the one’s pushing the issue of paid links into the wider mainstream of marketers.
  2. By acting in this manner, there will be the inevitable backlash.
  3. You can bet your last penny that the top guys buying links are not going to go after these easy links any more (and many had already stopped or scaled back considerably), because
  4. Smart SEOs are in stealth mode.

By stealth mode I mean a shift away from reliance on obvious TLA links, reviews marked as sponsored and sitewide links in the sidebar. Smart buyers will be doing a lot more emailing, a lot more networking and getting content hosted on sites that offer the publisher value (good content = more traffic) and the advertiser power (links from within relevant content that is so under the radar that it isn’t possible to detect).

So in effect, what I’m suggesting here is that Google have shot themselves in the foot.

One more thing. TLA just stopped showing images and URLs, which is the way it should always have been anyway.

This entry was posted in on by Andy.

One thought on “Screw PR: Webmasters should be in Stealth Mode”

  1. Irish gift

    How exactly do you mean Google has shot itself in the foot?

    Surely if Google has been more ruthless with clamping down on TLA/sponsors etc… which in turn has made SEOs more sophisticated in terms of getting personal with other webmasters and only going after/being part of good content.

    Perhaps what we consider stealth SEO Google actually considers good, content creating SEO which is what they want.

    What you think?

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