One of the things that distinguishes public relations from other disciplines, such as marketing, is the notion that coverage is earned and not purchased.
Not to say that purchased solutions are any better or worse than the earned variety. While I prefer using public relations strategies and tactics, I am not opposed to sponsorships and other solutions that are considered marketing. We often use a mix of both with our clients. It depends on what will be most useful in reaching the intended community.
However, for every legitimate use of marketing, there is a dark side. Darren Rowse is a widely popular blogger who maintains, among others, a blog about making money with blogging. He outlines a disturbing practice of people who place text links into high ranking posts. In this exchange with Darren, the link seller offers up to $400 a link.
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Thanks
you can write my paragraphs by yourself according to your page content only place my link.
I am again up my price to $250 per page per paragraph, a paragraph contain 4-5 links
If you have any question please ask
Kind regards
Shawn
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I'm not interested.
Darren
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$300 per page per paragraph
You have to right to cancel my any link if you don't like anyone.
Shawn
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No thanks – I'm not interested
Darren
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last and final price
$400 per page per paragraph
Shawn
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do you promise that this is the last one?
In that case – no – I'm not interested.
Darren
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This gives media buying a whole new spin.
Darren doesn't participate in this kind of activity and points out that it would compromise the quality of his content. Not only that, but Google can (and has) penalized blogs for these text ads. As such, the advertisers are now trying to seem like they are part of the content, and the transaction isn't even above board.
It goes without saying that I find this kind of activity unethical at best. If you want a fascinating read, click over to Darren's post.
