Giving to Charities in exchange for a backlink is a Paid Link. What about links from real charitable donations?

[ChristianEDavis]

What if my client already donates to charities? They've been donating for years before I thought to conduct linking outreach to their charities... can Google distinguish between honest charitable giving and charity link schemes?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-charity-links-a-paid-link-23094.html

[RayflexGroup]

We have connections to Barnardo's as a 'Professional Fundraising Group', meaning we support Barnardos monthly by donating/fundraising via just giving or simply sharing the name. We have had a link on their website for quite a while now, but we do ensure we post blogs updating on our achievements with the charity to make it as relevant as possible.

[NicoleDeLeon]

I've never heard of anyone being penalized for sponsorship links.  I mean if you think about it everything would be a paid link.  If an organization pays an employee to run white hat link building, then are those paid links because the person receives a salary? I think you are fine.  Sponsorship links are an excellent way to engage in the local community and receive a link for your efforts.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Christian,

Good advice from EGOL. Your question raises an issue the Local SEO community, in particular, needs to look into further, as we tend to look at sponsorships as good sources of links. That being said, you'll see discussion like this in the general SEO industry:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-chrome-bought-a-paid-link-for-350-000-21690.html

So, this is an area I believe needs further research to define exactly how Google views links from sponsorships.

[EGOL]

I'll take domain mentions any day.

Here's an article on Moz...

https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/panda-patent-brand-mentions

Lots of people make gifts to get their biz name on a brick, get their biz name on a plaque, get their biz name on a race car, get their biz name on the outfield wall, get their biz name on a huge sports arena - or a building or a law school.    So there is nothing wrong with giving a gift to the library and having your domain - the name of your biz - listed on a webpage.  If they charge you more to link it then its a paid link, if they don't charge you for the link its not paid.  You should make the gift for the purpose of doing good, not for the link.

[ChristianEDavis]

But I wouldn't want to be penalized for getting a "paid link".

Without the link, is there actually value in having them reference your domain in plain text? A domain mention, as you called it.

[EGOL]

Ask if the gift can be acknowledged on the website as "The staff at YourDomain.com"

Who knows, they might link it for you.

[ChristianEDavis]

I've never heard of that. What would I have to do to make that happen? Thank you.

[EGOL]

You can give to charities and use your domain name as the donor.  That will get you a domain mention, which some people believe to have value, but is safer than a link.