Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Bjorn: Google treats product review backlinks as paid links requiring nofollow

Nick Bjorn · EP 520: Agency Hits $6M 2016 Revenue Helping 60 Clients with SEO with PowerDigitalMarketing CEO Nick Bjorn · Dec 26, 2016 · at 10:50

Nick Bjorn, co-founder of Power Digital Marketing, explains how Google's link-building enforcement affects e-commerce product seeding strategies.

0:00 / 0:14exact quote · 14.1s

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“You have to have no follows right now. If you're doing product reviews, you know, Google considers that if you send out a pair of soccer cleats in this instance, and you get a link back for it, you're basically paying for links and Google webmaster guidelines, you cannot pay for any kind of links.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Google's webmaster guidelines classify receiving a backlink in exchange for sending free product reviews as paid links, requiring nofollow attributes.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Official Google Webmaster Guidelines on Link Schemes and Google's March 11, 2016 Webmaster Central guidance explicitly defined sending 'free' products in exchange for reviews/links as a paid link scheme that violates guidelines unless the backlinks use the rel="nofollow" attribute.

Google's Webmaster Guidelines on Link Schemes explicitly listed 'sending someone a "free" product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link' under buying or selling links that violate guidelines.
On March 11, 2016, the Google Webmaster Central Blog confirmed that links passing PageRank in exchange for goods or services violate link scheme guidelines and instructed bloggers to use the nofollow attribute on all such links.

Checked against

[1] clickthrough-marketing.com [2] dragonflydm.com [3] forbes.com [4] clickthrough-marketing.com [5] google.com [6] goup.co.uk [7] cartmell.co.za [8] googleblog.com

"Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links" "sending someone a free product" Google Webmaster Guidelines link schemes sending free products in exchange for reviews nofollow 2016 "sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link" "Link schemes" Google Webmaster Central blog March 2016 best practices for bloggers reviewing products nofollow

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Google Google Webmaster Guidelines

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“Berkshire Hathaway is a client of ours.”

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Bjorn: Google treats product review backlinks as paid links requiring nofollow

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