Is a scholarship seen as buying links?
-
We work in the student loan debt industry, so providing a scholarship for our viewers makes total sense for our business. Would links to this page be seen by Google as buying links? Does this fall anywhere into gray-hat tactics?
My gut tells me no because helping people with student debt is what we do. The scholarship really synergizes with our business model, but who knows..?
-
Am I missing something? From the why you described it, I really don't see how this can be considered "buying a link" at all. If you told University X, we will do a scholarship specifically for your students, onliy if you link to it, then, sure, that makes sense. However, if the scholarship isn't directly tied to a particular school, then I don't see the problem.
If this is considered buying links and can be penalized, then wouldn't that mean any contests, give-a-ways or sponsorships that a site creates, and then that someone else links to would be violating google's guidelines?
- Ruben
-
Thanks Chris for the response. I agree with you as well, I think the links are coming only because its a legitimate scholarship opportunity from a business that focuses on helping people with their student debt issues. If Google see this as spammy, it seems to me they would be making a mistake on how our particular business should promote itself. I dont know what can be said about our commitment to the student loan disaster than "We really do want to help our users, to show that here's $2,000 to help pay for school".
A couple larger universities shared our scholarship on FB and Twitter and got us a lot of traffic and new links as well, seems pretty authentic to me and I believe google should look at this way as well.
-
Thanks for these links. Lots of useful info I should have searched first i guess. I agree with your take home message.
-
As I see it DemiGR, if you have an event such as the giveaway of a scholorship and you promote that event as any legitimate event might be promoted--via social media, via press release, via your website, via press--and others recognize the value in promoting it themselves and they link to it (or not) as they see fit, it seems it would build brand awareness and awareness for the event and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Promote the event, not the link and if the right event is promoted in the right way, links may happen.
-
I agree with Andy. Google is probably aware of this tactic. Although the links aren't completely "editorial" in the purest sense, if you are chasing links from universities or colleges, many of them won't link to your scholarship page unless the award you are providing is relevant and valuable to their students - eg faculty of medicine linking to an award for med students. Many of the bigger schools don't even list awards below a certain amount.
This issue has come up for discussion in the Q&A before:
http://moz.com/community/q/creating-a-scholarship-for-seo
http://moz.com/community/q/link-building-with-a-scholarship
and on YouMoz (promoted to main page):http://moz.com/blog/5-link-building-tactics-to-improve-your-local-rankings
**Take home message: **Scholarships can be a part of your link building activities but make them legit and make sure that it isn't the only thing that you are doing.
-
There is no telling if Google are going to see this as a problem or not - until it's too late.
If you are doing this only for the fact you want to offer a scholarship and not expecting links, then the safe thing is to ask for the links to be no-followed. It's hardly a drastic step and it keeps you safe.
Remember, Google aren't going to have a conversation with you about what you are doing - it will either happen or it wont.
-Andy
-
The organization revolves around helping people with their student loans. We offer resources on how to avoid student debt, how to take action on student debt, and other tips for college kids. The scholarship is something we would have done whether we got 5000 links to it or zero, so we arent doing it for the purpose of getting links. That being said, its a really nice side benefit because we are getting some good links from it.
The scholarship helps promote our business and out commitment to helping address the student loan crisis in the USA. We could request the links be no-followed, but that seems to be drastic unless its clear Google penalizes this, no? Its not as if we are an auto repair shop offering a scholarship.
-
Thank you Andy - you've struck a chord with me here. Good point, well made!
-
"My gut tells me no because helping people with student debt is what we do"
Well, is it being done for links? This is something that is quite a common link building tactic, so Google are probably already on to it. That said, you can always request any links to be nofollowed - that should stop Google seeing it as a link tactic.
It does fall within the darker side of link building as it isn't really an editorially gained link - other sites have been penalised for 'buying-links-in-a-not-really-buying-links' manner before.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Social Links through Link Shortners. Does it count?
We use link shortner services like Bitly, Goo.gl, etc. Does the post used while making use of such link shortner services counts as a social signal. Or should we post the complete website url pointing to each page while posting on social sites. Secondly, should we write a new description while posting on Social sites or just copy paste a few lines of original posts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Will an inbound follow link on a site be devalued by an inbound affiliate link on the same site?
Hey guys, quick question I didn't find an answer to online. Scenario: 1. Site A links to Site B. It's a natural, regular, follow-link 2. Site A joins Site B's affiliate program, and adds an affiliate link Question: Does the first, regular follow link get devalued by the second affiliate link? Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ipancake0 -
Linking Across Subdomains - Any Concerns?
I use two subdomains on my website (news.webhostinghero.com and www.webhostinghero.com) - I know www.webhostinghero.com is not really a subdomain... That said, both subdomains are linking to each other through menus and sometimes articles. Can this cause any problem? Does Google perceive this as links from different domains / websites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrault740 -
Subdomain Metrics Links??
I have been analysing my companies website against our competitors and we beat them hands down on everything apart from the total links in the subdomain metrics. Our competitor jumped above us a couple of months ago to grab the number one spot for our industries most valuable keyword. They have had a new website designed and after looking at the source code and running it through SEO MOZ in comparison to our site I can't see how they have manged to do it. We beat them hands down on all factors apart from subdomain metrics > Total links where they have twice as many. When it comes to Page Specific Metrics and Root Domain Metrics we easily beat them on all factors. Does anyone have any ideas what I need to do to improve the subdomain metrics? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Detectamet0 -
How much link juice could be passed?
When evaluating a site to decide whether or not to peruse a link, how do you decide if it is passing enough link juice to peruse the matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | runnerkik0 -
Are Links from Homepage safe?
I have the option of getting a link from 2 websites home pages. My site is a financial service website. I want to know if it is safe to do so. The first site is a hotel site, so their content has no relation to my site And the second is a Google News website about finances They have offered me a section in the sidebar to have a sentence or 2 about my site with a link. Can you tell me would these be safe to get? I don't want to be hit by any penalty
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
Google is not Indicating any Links to my site
We built a new store on another ccTLD and linked to it from some of our other domains in a few locations. I am noticing that with the Google operator command "links:" we are seeing nothing linking to our site anywhere. Some things to clarify: These are not no-follow links These pages linking to our new domain are indexed The pages being linked to on our new domain are indexed This is not a flash site or heavy in JavaScript The links existed the day the site was launched so when the new pages were crawled they existed. "Site:" command in Google shows me that my new site is indexed. What could potentially be causing this? I am trying to get these newer ccTLD's to begin ranking and I understand that I need to get links going to these pages since they are fairly new (2.5 months) so I can outrank the .com in the SE's in those locales. (Like Google.co.uk)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DRSearchEngOpt0 -
Competitors and Directory Links
Hi guys, wanted to get some input and thoughts here. I'm analyzing many competitor links for a specific client (even other clients actually as well) and come across a pretty heavy directory backlink profiles. has anyone here had success with directory listings? Seem many of the competitors backlinks are coming from directories. What say you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulDylan1