“It’s complicated.”

I’m sure you’ve heard that a few times, particularly since Facebook launched.

I’ve heard it a few times in the context of agencies and consultants having difficulties detailing the quality of a site’s reputation and the impact of link-building strategies.

But if the vast majority of top natural (earned) positions are highly dependent on the quality and diversity of inbound links and social signals then surely it’s a difficulty worth overcoming?

And, thinking about it, surely it can’t really be that complicated?

Perhaps it’s made complicated because that serves certain interests.

I wonder what many clients would think if they were provided with coverage books detailing links secured, the context of those links, the domain authority of the referring sites etc.

I wonder what many of those coverage books would look like.

I wonder how confident those same clients would be if it was really clear where they were getting links from and how many of them were paid for (even if the client didn’t know they were paid for because the agency hadn’t told them).

I do a lot of wondering.

When Google demoted JC Penney’s site for a number of valuable keywords (after it discovered paid links) I seem to remember that JC Penney said it wasn’t aware of the offending links. I’m guessing someone, somewhere was.

Isn’t it time that people stopped making it complicated?

Isn’t it time we found a way to simply visualise the quality and diversity of links? And flagged those ones that have been paid for? (An increasingly risky investment these days.)

Surely there’s nothing to hide?

We’re advocating openness. Join us if you’re interested.