People also ask
In practice
The distinction matters because the two carry different risk, different durability and different credibility — and because the industry’s habit of blurring them is the source of most buyer confusion. The earned link: the editor’s decision, the link’s context guaranteed by genuine merit, the durability that comes from a page kept for its own sake — and the acquisition cost paid in assets and time rather than fees. The paid placement: presence at known cost and timeline, negotiated context and position, the guarantee structure — carrying the devaluation risk the guidelines name, the disclosure question, and the dependency on the publisher’s continued existence.
The honest programme’s position: the placements it sells are paid, the fees are disclosed, the risk is stated, and the craft standard is that the placement would pass for earned — because context, uniqueness and usefulness are what make either kind of link work. What the distinction refuses: the label-swapping that runs both ways — vendors selling paid placements as “editorial” (a description of aspiration, not mechanism), and purists dismissing all paid placement as illegitimate (a description of a market that doesn’t exist for most commercial categories).
The buyer’s checklist: know which placements involve fees, know what marks they carry, know the risk and who carries it — and judge every placement, paid or earned, by the same quality test: would this link exist if it couldn’t be bought, and would a reader respect it?
See also: Editorial links, Publisher fee transparency, Digital PR.
Related service: Link insertions.
