Why Bother

I came across this UK trading regulation which was quoted by Matt Cutts about selling and buying links, I am not sure how you can put it in context, but it seems Google are trying to back up their position on link buying and selling with a government law.

Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer (advertorial).

The above quote was taken from the UK Office of Public Sector Government website, you can read the full statement here.

The reaction came from Google’s, Matt Cutts because of a new way to buy and sell in content links from Inlink.com, they offer a widget for bloggers that will search your website for an anchor text word and match it up with an advertiser. Inlinks.com which was only launched 2 days ago is getting the attention from a lot of big bloggers (TechCrunch, ShoeMoney), as with the reaction from Matt Cutts, this could be the way to buy and sell links almost naturally.

But how can you tie in buying and selling links with the quoted government rule? This could stretch out into a lot of other areas us affiliates have to deal with, if we need to make clear that a product we advertise and promote is clearly identifiable to the consumer that we are being paid or have been paid for it.

Does this mean if you have a banner on your website, you need the text above it saying “Advertisement”? Or if you place a link to a merchant in content you need to have (paid advertisement) next to it?

It seems a bit far fetched to me to comply with this rule, but I will think about it from now on.

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