Aaron Wall, the author of SEO Book, first broke the news after discovering it in one of his forums. In short, Google apparently violated its own Webmaster Guidelines for paid links as part of a marketing campaign for Google Chrome.

“It was obviously paid exposure,” said Wall.

Shortly after this interview was conducted, Google responded to the incident and devalued its Chrome landing page for “at least 60 days,” according to the company’s Webspam Head Matt Cutts.

In a statement to WebProNews, a Google spokesperson said:

“Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.”

Wall did tell us that he hoped that, going forward, Google would be more “lenient” when dealing with others since mistakes can happen to anyone, even search giants.

Google doesn’t approve of a cash exchange type of purchase, but an indirect approach is accepted. Buying indirectly helps you to get a good link but with a low risk. Your link campaign should strive for a variety of links.

Look for directory links, industry-specific links, and links from people you have done business with in the past. In the above WPN video, Aaron Wall of SEO Book says to stay away from obvious (direct) links since they are high risk.

A few examples of how to obtain indirect links are: testimonials, conferences, and charity events. Testimonials help to build credibility. If a very respected company writes a testimonial for you, it will draw positive attention to you and even business.

Conferences are another good resource for gaining links. There are unbelievable networking opportunities at these events. Having a booth at these events with your business cards readily available can also lead to indirect links.

Being involved in charity events reflect very well on your brand image. It’s also nearly impossible to bring into disrepute a link that was obtained by supporting charity.

To learn more about purchasing indirect links, check out this post from Aaron Wall.

For you’re your convenience, here are some of the links to items/pages/sites referenced in this week’s video:

WebProNews on Quattrone/Google/Yahoo

ZDNet Summary of Yahoo/MSN dealings

Google Analytics Graphing

Google Talk Enhancements

Google App Engine:
On WebProNews
On Matt Cutts Blog

Yahoo Ad Sales

USA Today Alerts

SEO Book Search Engine Rank Tool

Hope you find the links/articles useful. See you next time!

Helpful Programs Include:
* Google Analytics
* Mint Site Tracking Software
* Digital Point Forums
* SEO for Firefox
* Compete.com
* SEO Digger