Okay, so here is a question that I asked Mr Cutts over on his blog. He is quite a busy guy so I doubt will respond but if he does I will post it here.
Hi Mr Cutts,
Your example is a good one, however, how can you with anything above 70% of accuracy decide what blogs are writing paid for reviews and what blogs are genuinely writing an article about something which the author finds interesting?
First port of call of course is relevancy. My concern is that some authors may wish to write about something a bit off-peast as it were, and they may wish to drop a link not because they have been paid, but because it interests them or perhaps because they want to "spread the wordâ€. Take Mr Naylor’s post on the Leaked Oscar winners list as mentioned, this is off peast a bit as its not really about seo, well it is sort of, but lets me fair it’s a bit tenuous (no offense Dave). No link in this post, but assume for a moment there was a link, would this be considered unorthodox?
My point is, there doesn't seem to be any accuracy in this process and there fore as a blogger my self this comes as a deep concern that actually STOP's me and potentially other bloggers from writing what we want to write about, linking to what we want to link to, in fear that we will be labelled as spammers or money making tyrants capitalising on Spammers attempts to pollute the blogosphere.
Can you please confirm or deny whether the blogging community should indeed be filled with fear?
"If you build it, they will come! If you piss them off with irrelvant crap they will leave"
Blogs should reflect the authors just as much as the subject and if that means going "off-peast" once in awhile then fair play.
And lets not forget that we are here to make money, how much money depends on how much of a SEO whore you are.