Text Link Ad's

[neroma]

Hello There,

I have just come across a site recommended by a webpage I was trying to get a link placed with its called 'TextlinkAd's' (Im not putting the link in as im not being accused of spamming!).

Has anyone heard of it?. It says search engine friendly..

Should I do it or should i still look for organic links.

Kind regards
Neil

[pittfall]

Text Link Ads are paid links...

This would not be considered an Organic Link. There is a lot of speculation as to whether these are valuable. But my opinion is that I would not risk buying the link unless you feel that you will get the targeted traffic from that link on that particular page, but not for improving organic placement.

[cryptblade]

There's a lot of information out there on paid links and how Google is handling them. Matt Cutts (of Google) has a post on SEW here:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070514-153234

Talks about paid links, clarification, etc. Check it out and do a search for "matt cutts paid links" to get more information.

This link is interesting to read too: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/

If you don't have to get paid links, don't. If it makes sense for you - as Pit already pointed out - and you are paying for the link for direct traffic, then that would be a calculated risk.

[pittfall]

I absolutely agree with cryptblade, this would be a calculated risk!

[mooreseo]

Any link (be it a text link or an image) that is marked in an area labeled "sponsored links" or "sponsored by" or "advertisements" or anything along those lines, will not be counted towards your link popularity by the search engines. They may drive some nice traffic, but in the grand scheme of things, if the purpose of the link is to build your visibility in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) or to build your link popularity, this is the not the way to go.

It all comes down to the purpose of the link. For traffic or advertisements, this is a perfect fit. Having said that, I know that some companies offer text link ads within a specific network that are not labeled as any of the above types. I've looked into a couple of these myself and while they are not labeled as an advertisement, Google and the other search engines are finding these types of networks pretty quickly and devaluing the links. I've seen 2 or 3 companies like this disappear off the face of the earth in the last 6 months. They are also going after the sites that run / offer / implement these types of services. While I don't think it will hurt your site, it certainly won't help you in the long run.