The long and winding road

Search engine optimisation may not always be the quickest and easiest path to higher Google rankings, however, as one sector commentator asserts, getting results from the alternative of paid links is becoming increasingly difficult.

Writing on the online pages of e-consultancy, Patricio Robles explains that this is because Google has become more adept at identifying paid links and so penalising the websites that use them.

"Given that the logic behind Google's PageRank algorithm is that a website should be receiving inbound links because that website deserves them, Google's efforts to blunt paid links is not surprising," he said.

Mr Robles added that the large-scale, indiscriminate buying of links was "worthy of contempt", but a lack of awareness of Google guidelines could be very costly for publishers and advertisers.

Meanwhile, Search Engine Land's Jill Whalen has claimed that online reputation management among websites would become more important than ever over the next 12 months.

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