When Andy Greenberg at Forbes writes an article called “Google Purges The Payola”, it is bound to make search engine marketers take notice. It is a well-balanced article that uses the recent penalty that Google apparently applied to certain directories as catalyst to explore the whole question of paid links. The usual experts were consulted; Matt Cutts, Rand Fishkin, Michael Gray, Danny Sullivan and others are quoted. Anyone who reads Sphinn or follows search marketing closely won’t find jaw dropping revelations. I’d still encourage you to read the article, however. If you’re working at an SEO firm, there is a good chance your clients will ask you about it. Forewarned is forearmed.

Setting the questions raised in the article aside, I had to chuckle at one coincidence. A portion of the article addresses links appearing at websites that appear to have no relevance to the topic at hand.

To most users, the difference between sponsored links and advertisements is a blur. Take, for instance, the online site for the British magazine, New Scientist. Near the bottom of the New Scientist homepage are “sponsored links” that launch the curious to odd destinations including teeth whitening sites or German language sites that sell women’s shoes–places that are probably only marginally interesting to most New Scientist readers.

When I read the article, there were obviously labeled paid advertisements right next to the paragraph. All perfectly legit by anyone’s estimation, but the call to action to get you to buy one of these ads was “Buy a link here.” You could make an argument that the ads directly above it were of marginal interest to Forbes readers.

Turns out the ads are served through JavaScript, so no natural or condensed link juice was flowing. Remember, buying links doesn’t have to be about the PageRank, people.