Matt Cutts vs. V7N Links : Matt Wins

By Loren Baker, Editor | January 25, 2007

Over the past day some jabs and nudges were traded back and forth (all in good fun I believe) between Matt Cutts and John Scott over some claims John’s company made about their new link advertising service.

Seems that Uncle Matt got the better of John, and intimidated him into submission, Royce Gracie style.

Here’s a rundown:

First V7N launched their Contextual Links link advertising service which purchases links from inside blog posts.

V7N boasted that

“Contextual Links @ V7N are undetectable to search engines. Whether it be by human or algorithmic filtering, our links are impossible to detect. Additionally, an enforced non-disclosure agreement prevents both publishers and advertisers from revealing participating publishers and advertisers.”

This drew the attention of Google’s Anti-Search Spam Crusader, Matt Cutts:

… if “undetectable to search engines” is listed as one of the major selling points of a particular link scheme, it probably violates our quality guidelines and the guidelines of other major search engines.

John Scott of V7N responded to Matt’s post with some more details on the program, which should have been done in the first place:

We do not have a script that randomly places links on web sites. Human bloggers review links before placing them on web sites. We review websites before accepting them into the program. We have rejected websites and refunded payments when they have failed to meet quality standards.

The Google standard of editorial review of links is met not once, but twice.

And now, to possibly bury the ‘controversy’ V7N has pulled their “Undetectable to Search Engines” claim : “Why? Because I do not think it is expedient for us, our blog publishers or our advertisers to antagonize the search engine.”