Yes. It appears the Pay Per Post and Google may very well agree about something! They may end up using different words, but when it appears they both think that posts written in order to gain a chance at winning a valuable prize are not freely given links.
In the case of Google: The blogger who offers the prize could get a severe Google penalty.
In the case of PPP: A blogger will not be paid for any PPP post flanked by the “contests” post.
So, yep, PPP and Google agree! These posts are kinda-sorta “paid”, “sponsored” or “not freely given” and will be treated as such. Now, for some details!
Pay Per Post’s Reaction to Contest Posts
Recently, PayPerPost rejected a post written by Joanna, of Nanashi-inc.net. The reason? Her PPP sponsored posts was placed next to a post that contained a link to a contest for an IPOD; the link served in place of an entry fee.
The problem? The PPP TOS prohibit posting a PPP post next to any sponsored post and PPP considers these “contests entrace fee” posts sponsored.
Google’s Reaction to Contest Posts
A short while back, Dave Airey decided to run a blog contest. He offered a prize; the entrance fee for the contest was a blog post that linked to Dave’s blog.
Soon after, Dave noticed he’d suffered a severe Google penalty; Matt Cutt’s mentioned the contest when explaining the penalty.
Luckily for Dave, he was able to ask his readers to delete the links. After they did, he regained his Google rank!
Similarities!
Notice the IPOD contest run by It’s Write Now Dave Airey’s contesnt. To enter the contest, both require a blog post with a link back to the contests’ blogs.
So, it would appear that both Google and PPP consider these sorts of “contest entry” blog posts with their links to be motivated by some sort of reward, bribe, or what have you. Of course, each business responds differently.
PPP accepts sponsored posts as an entirely valid option for blogs. However, they prohibit bloggers from placing these sorts of contest posts adjacent to PPP’s clients’ posts. So, PPP’s response is to not pay the blogger for the invalid post.
In contast, Google doesn’t like sponsored posts at all. If they detect the contest, they will apply a Google penalty to the blogger who runs the contest. We don’t entirely know whether they will penalize the bloggers who enter the contest. But since Google seems to see these links as unnatural, it seems there is some risk Google might do so.
The irony
If you read the IPOD contest rules carefully, you’ll notice I just wrote a post that qualifies me to enter the contest! Would PPP consider this post sponsored? Would Google? Hmmmm….
I was wondering if contests post were considered sponsored by PPP. I was careful not to place my PPP posts next to contest posts just in case. Thanks for the info.
I think the contests are fun and a good way to get the word out about a new blog. When I first started my blog I got some exposure and a couple of prizes from winning a contest.
I wasn’t aware that Google penalized blogs who run a contest. I’m still learning about all the intricacies of SEO.
The irony is you actually didn’t qualify to enter the ipod contest post, because it requires a link to the site, a link to the contest post, and a comment on the contest post with the url of your post.
But I liked your article, and I’ll definitely look into the Google penalty issue.
Emma, from It’s Write Now!
Makes sense to me!