5 Domains You Really Don’t Want to See in Your Backlink Profile

As a public service, here are 5 sites that make it very obvious you are buying paid links. So obvious, that I don’t even need to go look at the site in question to know you’re buying links. It’s one thing to buy links, it’s another thing to be incredibly obvious about it. As an added bonus, I’m saving you money, because most of the sites below have been on Google’s radar for a long time and don’t pass any link juice, as far as I know (if I’m wrong, feel free to correct me).

1. Forbes - Any outbound direct link that’s not in an article, but rather originates in a section of Forbes, is a paid link. When I see http://www.forbes.com/NameOfSectionHere in Site Explorer, I know you’re dropping coin on paid links.
2. Any Newspaper that is part of the Media News Group. A natural link is going to be in an article. Those links all the way at the bottom of the page in the footer of the home page and index sections? So 2006.
3. The Christian Science Monitor – Again with the Big Sponsored Link box on the home page.
4. Most Newspapers run by the McClatchy Group. I guess with advertising dollars declining all these media companies are leveraging pagerank for pennies ?
5. The Arizona Wildcat - selling links like it’s going out of style for some time, if someone can find the link for me where they were first outed a few years back, drop me a line.

So I imagine some people will be upset by this PSA – before you get all huffy please read my outing policy.