In light of the Google PageRank correction to what is thought to be paid postings — and in the recent past, paid links — its ironic that Google might be selling links of their own.
That’s right — although Google has created the perception that it is actively punishing those blogs which are doing things to pollute organic listings, Google itself may also be an unwitting participant in said “pollution” by selling links … at almost $2k a pop.
How is this?
Well, Google sells some enterprise hardware, known as Google Mini. This combination hardware/software solution allows companies to search their own intranets, starting at $1995 for 50,000 documents.
How does selling links come into play? Well, according to one source, if you purchase a Google Mini, you can submit a testimonial to Google which Google will happily put up. Or, perhaps not. There are a lot of “testimonials” which are nothing more than names and links.
Links, specifically, that are very real and do not have the ‘nofollow’ attribute.
So, how much would you pay for an inbound link from Google (specifically, a PR7 site as the testimonial site is PR7)? If your answer is somewhere in the range of $2000USD, you might just be in luck.
