MediaWhiz has launched a new ad network called InLinks that aims to sell advertisers text links within the content of bloggers’ posts… without being detected as paid-for links by Google.

InLinks will look and behave exactly like words with embedded links. They will not look like - or carry any indication - of being paid for and, since they will not have nofollow tags, they will pass on Google PageRank (the main objective).

Basically, an advertiser will be able to choose the keywords it wants to target and then buy text links for those keywords. Such links will then appear whenever the given keyword appears in the content of the blogs participating in the program. Bloggers will be paid a flat rate per month per text link sold.

Sound good so far?

Think again. Paid links are against Google’s quality guidelines and the search engine will penalize blogs caught selling such links. Not disclosing paid-for links is also a rather dubious practice for bloggers to engage in. In some jurisdictions, such as here in Australia, it may well be illegal.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger advises bloggers to proceed with caution. He recommends against participating in InLinks if you have a highly ranking blog, or if you are concerned about disclosure and transparency with your readers. He suggests that InLinks it could be something to look into if you don’t care about having your blog indexed by Google or aren’t concerned about being transparent with readers. For his part, he doesn’t sell text ads.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch concurs:

“The reality is that accepting money to link to/promote/market for a product without disclosing that fact is a very high-risk behavior, in my opinion.”

Meanwhile, Google’s Matt Cutts has emailed TechCrunch to reiterate that selling links to pass PageRank violates Google’s quality guidelines and that bloggers who fail to disclose that they have been paid to engage in word-of-mouth marketing also potentially violate laws in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.

It will be interesting to see if and how InLinks works… and who participates. Not that anyone is supposed to know!

FYI, here at Kikabink News, we do not sell text links. We openly promote affiliate products, our own products, and sell advertising.

Source: Darren Rowse, “InLinks - TextLinkAds 2.0 Advertising,” ProBlogger, November 20, 2008, Michael Arrington, “Insidious New SEO Ad Product Will Be Hard For Google To Detect (Updated With Google Response)”, TechCrunch, November 19, 2008

Here’s a heads up for search engine optimizers and others who care about Google PageRank - that imperfect measure of webpage popularity that everyone cares enough about to say they don’t care about…

According to Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, new toolbar PageRank values will become visible over the next few days. Some webmasters will be relieved to hear that Google also plans to expire some older penalties on websites. Although others will probably find themselves newly penalized!

Source: Matt Cutts, “New Toolbar PageRanks Coming,” Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO, July 24, 2008