Inbound link building by sponsorship is a link buying technique not yet discounted by Google.
Sponsored Links in Google's Eyes
Link Buying is generally frowned upon by Google and other search engines as a 'black hat' SEO technique. Google considers inbound links as 'votes' for the quality of the website being linked to. However, if someone is able to buy these links then its really only an indication of the size of their bank account rather than the quality of their website and content.
Google often penalises websites that buy or sell links that pass PageRank but sponsorship link building seems to have remained largely untouched. Many of the websites that have sponsors are for non profit events, clubs and community groups so it would be pretty bad PR for Google if they were to penalise these websites or their sponsors. If they were to take action they would probably just discount the links so they carry less or no weight.
Sponsored Links to Help Your Business
There are many organisations and groups out there looking for sponsors. The websites of these groups usually have a page thanking their sponsors. These are the pages you can try and get links from. Buying links this way is relatively low risk, can have great benefits for your website and can make you feel good about supporting those who need the money. Here are some guidelines for who to sponsor:
- Local or Topical- The most beneficial links are those from webpages that are related to your subject, your location or both. If you are targeting the local market then links from other local websites are important. Websites related to your subject (topic or industry) are also very important.
- Keywords- Related to the point above, ideally the 'sponsors' page will have keywords relating to your topic or location so the search engines know that the page is relevant to you which makes the links more beneficial.
- Followed Links- You want links that are 'followed' meaning the website is telling the search engines that we trust, endorse and 'vote' for this website.
- Anchor Text- The link will be more beneficial if the link text is one of your keywords rather than just your company name or your logo.
- PageRank- This is a measure of how valuable the page is. You want links from pages that have a higher PageRank.
- Number of links on the page- The fewer outgoing links on the page, the better.
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