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I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 12 years 6 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.

At SearchFest, one of the speakers (Rand Fishkin) said this in his morning session “…it’s not a paid link. It’s just a link that you get when you pay money.”

I’m paraphrasing here, but it drew a laugh from the crowd because it’s completely true. We all know that Google does not like “paid links”, but they do draw a definite distinction and just because money changes hands does not necessarily make it “bad”.

When someone makes a contribution or donation to a charity, and then gets listed on a donor page, and that can be a very good link.

I have coached a boys baseball team each summer for nearly 10 years, and have recently become the webmaster for the league that my kids play for.

Just like every other year, I am struggling to find a team sponsor(s) to help cover the costs, get some additional equipment, and tournaments are $400+ a pop!

Anyway, last night at I attended a league board meeting, and I suggested that we incentivize our sponsorships a little further – i.e. – Not only put sponsor logos on the physical banner signage at the park, but that we also list them on the website for a full year and give them a link too.

That suggestion went over well, so it’s now in “full swing” – heh 😉

Google says there is nothing wrong with this.

Remember, you’re not “buying a link”.  You’re making a tax deductible donation to a 501(c)3, which helps kids in the community, and the fact that you happen to be acknowledged with a link is just a byproduct of your generous donation.

If you’d like to buy a link  donate to a worthy cause, where you just happen to get a link too,  then follow the link below to arrange your desired anchor text contribution.

The payment  by check will be made to their 501(c)3

So…

Who wants to buy a link donate help a kids baseball league as a sponsor?

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There are some amazing link research tools now available that can do a lot of work to find these types of links,  and the process has been talked about for years.

There’s also a great post at SEER interactive about finding other opportunities like this and another Point Blank SEO with some great query combos that are sure to get your imagination going with ideas.

What do you think? Evil paid link or not?
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