As we prepare for the introduction of The Bribery Act 2010, agencies and companies that pursue a paid linking strategy could end up in deep water.

Paid linking has always been a somewhat dubious technique and one that Google specifically singles out as being against their guidelines. The recent action taken by Google against major US retailer JC Penney is a good example of why the use of paid links isn’t a good idea. Following the discovery of a paid linking strategy, Google imposed a harsh penalty on the retailer, seeing their site drop significantly in the rankings.

The new Bribery Act could bring more than just a Google penalty. The bribery law states that an offence is committed by a company when:

• A person "associated" with the commercial organisation (i.e. performs services for it) bribes another person;

• The bribe is intended to obtain or retain business for the commercial organisation or retain an advantage in the conduct of the organisation's business.

In short, it will become an offense for a company to knowingly themselves, or through a third party agency, make payments to a company or individual in order to gain competitive advantage; which is exactly what paid linking is. You are paying someone to link to your site thereby gaining competitive advantage in the search results.

It is important to note that The Bribery Act 2010 was not created specifically to counter paid linking and therefore those using this strategy will no doubt find a way to skirt the wording of the law. Any links promoted as advertising are difficult to pin down as bribery, but greater consideration will now be placed on the wording of link requests. Those posing as expenses may slip through whereas blatant payments for links will stick out like a sore thumb.

Bottom line: if you want to avoid a Google penalty and avoid the long arm of the law then it’s best you stick to links that don’t require payment.