I cringe every time I hear "violating Google's terms of service." What service? The one where they index your site at your cost so they have something to serve their users?<p>This is starting to sound more like the RIAA complaining about a new business model undercutting its revenue. Google is not keeping up with people or technology in this case. People have figured out how to exploit (to a great enough degree) Google's ability to tell a spam site from an authority, and their response is to declare that people are in violation.
When you have things of value that can be sold or exchanged you will allways have a market. If some authority tries to ban the exchange then it will be a 'black' market. The harder Google tries to enforce their policies the more it will drive the selling or exchange of links underground. Maybe this would be a good thing but there is certainly no way they can stamp it out.<p>I personally think that the problem lies in the rules of Google's system. A more robust system should be able to account for and adjust for the market realities created by it's own rules. Maybe it is technically impossible but I doubt it. I'm sure the clever people at google have thought of this as well but perhaps they are starting to face 'legacy' system issues themselves.
I'm often wary of those complaining about Google's policies because they're based on the idea that being listed on Google is a right and not a privilege. This, to me, is faulty logic. Unless they're deliberately taking part in anticompetitive behaviour by blocking competition, I think it's perfectly within their rights to delist or demote you for pretty much any reason they can think of.<p>I think Google have made it pretty clear that as far as they're concerned they don't want people selling links to other sites in a way designed to manipulate search-engine rankings, and if you do so you may be delisted or have a lowered ranking on their site in the future. I think that's specific enough, personally, and think that anyone wanting a more specific policy either wants to work around them to violate the intended spirit and complain if and when Google punishes them for doing so.
I used to be a bigger Google fan than I am now, and it's all because of this pagerank/link business.<p>It's fine to have an algorithm to prioritize sites. And it's fine for sites to manipulate that algorithm to their own ends. Both of these things are completely natural.<p>Trying to keep this list of who's cool or not -- secretly updated by god knows who -- and forcing the rest of the world to do as you say or suffer economic punishment by de-listing from your engine? Not fine, although Google is certainly in their rights to do so.<p>A better strategy is for Google to adapt, not dictate. As it is, they've created this entire system where everybody games the system but nobody talks about it, and that's counterproductive for the net as a whole.
With apologies to Sigmund Freud:<p>Google forbids us to sell links not because it wishes to do away with linkselling, but because it wishes to monopolize it.
This issue has been resolved years ago. Google even has a report paid links form in the Webmasters Tools. High profile sites get their PageRank and authority diminished whenever paid links get discovered.<p>Most reputable SEO firms refrain from paid links nowadays and rather focus on "killer content" creation to get links naturally.