Hey Barry,

No one is saying that link building is a black hat SEO technique. We're saying that Google has made it pretty clear that they'll take action against sites that buy links and as a result we won’t be buying links for clients anymore. We don’t want to jeopardize their rankings or our ability to survive as a company.

And make no mistake, We Build Pages is still a link building company. As Jim said himself in his post, link building is still the cornerstone of our business. We’re very skilled at building links for clients, we simply won’t be paying for them. That is the only thing that has changed in that respect (but we think it’s a pretty big change).

I don’t think it’s “sad” to see this evolution take place. I give Jim a lot of credit for giving up a model that has been VERY successful for him because he wants to protect his clients and those that work at We Build Pages.

A final note, we are NOT letting go of our link ninjas! Now that we are expanding our services, there is plenty of opportunity for everyone. Some link ninjas will remain link ninjas focusing on building quality links for our clients, while others will move into new positions, as we see fit. No one is losing their job, so let’s nix that misconception right now. It’s disrespectful to the folks that work here to assume otherwise. Our link ninjas are valued parts of our team and they remain valued parts of our team!

Hope that helps to clear some stuff up!

Barry, you could have easily placed a phone call, email, tweet, whatever to Jim and/or Lisa to clear up the whole "letting employees go" angle in your story.

Bad form.

Hi Barry,
First off I would like to say that, as Lisa noted, there will be no reduction in our staff. We have 46 employees and plan to grow.
Secondly, if you have any questions, as you know, I am easy to contact.
Please consider speaking to me prior to putting in question the future of my employees (who read SE Roundtable).
I agree with you about the perception thing btw.

Good thing this is a blog and you guys can comment and I can ask questions and have them answered.

I asked, will WBP be letting go employees. Two WBP said no. There you go.

When did link building become black hat is less about WBP and more about my personal thoughts on where the industry has moved over the years.

I didn't get any vibe from the story that suggested Barry thought (or heard, or figured, or anything related) that We Build Pages was considering letting employees go.

In fact, I took the paragraph that refers to WBP hiring top names and having NOT heard of them letting anyone go as more of a complement to the job that WBP has done in what has to have been a tough change to their working model.

Barry,

Didn't mean to come off harshly the first time. If I did, I apologize.

You're right; we all have blogs and you can pose a question and we can come and comment. If you have a question about people's jobs, though, I think everyone would appreciate it if you did that offline, as it's a sensitive subject.

Nothing but respect for you, as you know. Just don't want people to start worrying about their futures at WBP, especially as the holiday's approach. Our ninjas aren't going anywhere.

Thanks again,

Lisa

Also, didn't want to call you at 6:30am when I wrote this. ;-)

Thanks!

Since we are primarily a link building company, I read this with great interest. I am certain there are some link building companies that Google and others might consider blackhat, but there are still some out there (like ours) that do link building the old fashioned way.

We write and create lots of content for our clients. Articles of all types, press releases, videos, etc. We also set-up and participate in social media for our clients.

Businesses (and many SEO agencies) outsource their link building & website marketing to us because they don't have the time, expertise or desire to take it on themselves. We then conduct link building just the way our clients would if they were doing it themselves.

Does money or other forms of barter exchange hands once in a while -- you bet. That is what makes the business world go 'round. But it isn't for "paid links" like monthly rentals or blog reviews, it is for sponsorships, labor, promotion, etc. In fact, Rand posted a list of methods to obtain links on SEOmoz.org. Most of them required some form of payment, yet seem to be pretty whitehat to me.

If promoting your site via these methods is considered "blackhat", then no one should be marketing or promoting their site at all.... according to Google that is :-)

I've been following this for a while and everyone from WBP and SEO Roundtable brought up a lot of good points. There are so many unique and great ways to build links without paying for them, and the folks at WBP simply don't need to pay for links.

I'm actually quite impressed with the way Jim brought up the topic and made it public. It allows us to think it out more and bring on discussions like this one here.

Makes me wonder if this is simply another scheme to divert Google's attention away from their companies. If it is, it's a smart move. Although, I have not seen any shortage of new link building companies, just a shift in the way they sell good links.