We’ve reported before on the confusing mixed messages Google is sending out regarding paid links. Their Webspam department headed by their own representative to the SEO/SEM/blogging community, Matt Cutts has repeatedly issued pronouncements against the evil (there’s that word again) practice of link selling. He even has a post about how to report paid links.
However, any cursory look at any given day at the main page of an extremely popular webmaster/affiliate marketing forum routinely shows adsense ads for link sellers. Okay, keep in mind the difference between people that submit your site to get free one way backlinks and actual brokers of links. What is the difference? Submitters just submit your link and there’s no guarantee that the directory sites, blog owners, or third party sites will accept your link. Actual brokers of links outright sell PAGERANK for cash. There’s even trading platform for blog owners selling links to advertisers. Google has swung it’s PAGERANK PENALTY HAMMER more than once. The most dramatic being its PR beatdown of bloggers for Izea/Payperpost. But apparently, its okay if similar link sellers advertise on Adwords?
Truly a WTF moment. Specially if you consider the fact that Google uses the same pay to link type of shenanigans when trying to compete in Japan. Just shows you how inconvenient business reality can sometimes get, right? Right… Are we still in “Don’t be evil” territory?
Definitely a confusing situation. Be careful of public networks that outright list your site with links to sell and your url appears in a database. It’s not that hard to join such networks and spider a database.
If you can, don’t sell links on your own sites at all. But if you can’t avoid it, definitely study the situation more closely. The stakes are quite high in this game… and getting higher.
Despite its fairly obvious vulnerabilities to 
One of the older and still effective methods used in building backlinks to a central site is to build a network of sites hosted off free sites and free blog networks. The effectiveness of this method revolves around the following:
There’s tons of “explode your traffic” or “become an SEO god” craptastic tools and craptacular “services” out there. Don’t believe the hype. Spamming the same garbage text will get you to the top alright–the top of 
Here’s a great assortment of tools you can use to help increase your linkbuilding and social media marketing daily tasks. Making money online is not a sprint–it is a marathon. These tools help you in your daily efforts by helping you do more with less. Less time and effort but yielding better results. If you have any helpful tool suggestions, send it to us via the comment link below.![](http://i49.tinypic.com/ilwt4j.gif")
Does it ever make sense to comment on NO FOLLOW blogs?
Commenting for backlink volume versue commenting for authority/conversation
There are two main reasons for commenting on blogs. The most common reason is that people comment for backlinks. The comment “name” is hyperlinked to a url. Accordingly, many commenters use their keywords as names. Some sites allow this, other blogs (such as ours) request that you put your real name and a – or | followed by your keyword. This naming convention makes the comments seem less spamariffic.
If you’re just commenting for backlink volume, as mentioned in our earlier critique of traffic building techniques, commenting on NO FOLLOW blogs will be a waste of time. Commenting for backlink volume involves posting once or twice on as many related do follow blogs you can find. Volume and efficiency are the keys to this linkbuilding method.
The other reason people comment on blogs is to build a long-term relationship with the blog they are commenting on. This creates familiarity and rapport between the blog publisher and the commenter. This relationship is also augmented by the commenter posting longer and more detailed critiques/impressions of the blog and posting it on his/her own blog. Where does this lead to? Building a relationship with a high PR or high traffic/high value blog leads to credibility/legitimacy with that blog’s publisher. This could lead to them posting about your site or sending you shoutouts. These posts aren’t NO FOLLOWED and yield some nice link juice. Even if the target blog has little backlink value (in the case of John Chow‘s site due to his issues with Google), the direct traffic he can bring your way based on a recommendation or shoutout has tremendous value. Moreover, it establishes credibility with the blog’s other readers which you can leverage in linkexchange solicitations with their sites.
The downside to blogging for conversations/authority is that it takes time and the payoff–getting an ‘in post’ mention is not guaranteed. It also takes some valuable time from your other daily linkbuilding tasks. Here’s some tips that might make your authority commenting more efficient:
Commenting for authority is not a slam dunk but the payoffs can be very nice. Keep on keeping on! The surest way to lose in any venture is to give up.
Photo credits: Lumaxart