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Were you aware that you could arrange to have Google tell you every time one of your competitors received a new link from other sources? Well you can and it can give you some amazing background information about your competitors.

If you want to try it just head over to Google Alerts and set up an email alert for link:domainname.com and then every time Google finds a new link to the site you're interested in you'll get an email alert.

We get alerts for links to the domains of some of our clients' competitors and it's interesting to see how desperate some people are for links. But then I guess they would be if they subscribe to the notion that good ranking is all about links.

We often find mainstream businesses that are almost prepared to sell the soul to get a link. I don't mean that they're prepared to pay a lot of money for the links; they're just prepared to get any link they possibly can. They've either never heard of Matt Cutts warnings about links that have absolutely no positive value ... or they're just so desperate that they don't care.

One of the latest ideas that has begun to appear around the Net are sites that sell links for as little as 50 cents. I suppose that they're a great little earner for whoever is running the site, a lifetime text link sells for 50 cents, a lifetime banner sells for $12.95 and the script to run the site only costs $12.95 - and at that price you can even resell the script - so it would be hard not to make some money out of a site like that but is there any value for the person or business that buys a link?

From a search engine point of view there's probably none and from a traffic point of view it's quite possible that the link will have a negative effect. If you happened to stumble onto one of these link sites while looking for a reputable business would you follow a link that looked promising if it were surrounded by links to porn sites, links offering Myspace passwords and gambling sites?

If you're going to buy links then you really need to start looking at links that provide genuine value for money. Every genuine Webmaster should know by now that Google does not like the idea of paid links and Matt Cutts has warned that most sites that are caught selling links will prevented from passing any link love on those links so where is the value in buying links from those sites?

Well there is some ... but first let's think for a moment about some paid links that Google is quite happy to accept. Yes, there are paid links that Google accepts but let's be realistic here ... anyone who offers a link for 50 cents is never going to be one of those link sellers that Google has no problem with.

If Google is going to accept some paid links then Google wants to see some quality in those links and 50 cents a link is just never going to cut it. Even a few bucks is not going to be enough to get Google to smile benignly on your paid link. No, if you want Google to love your paid link then you are going to have to part with real money. The Yahoo Directory is one that has Google's seal of approval and that is definitely going to cost you real money but it gives value for that money.

There are other directories out there too that charge a reasonable amount and give value. Joe Ant is another that I would suggest passes link value and is worth paying for. However don't be fooled; just because a directory charges a heap of money for a listing doesn't mean than it's going to pass anything. It's up to you to spend a little time in research and you'll soon see the signs to look for - and you won't see all of the signs just by looking at the directory.

Earlier I mentioned that sometimes there was value in paid links even though it might not come from Google. The value in those links doesn't come in the form of link love but it comes in the form of traffic.

There are plenty of places out there that offer paid links and the value to your site is the amount of traffic that they can send you. How much value there might be in that traffic is something that only you can judge but it is definitely worth considering. In fact you may find that there is more value in paying for traffic links than there is in paying for any search engine value that a directory might give you.

Once again, that's something that is really up to you to decide as you develop your sites and your linking strategy. However let me just make two points to wrap up today's column.

The first is that there is value in paying for links and the second is that you very definitely get what you pay for.