A US-based company has launched a product which it believes will boost search engine rankings - but Google has condemned it as "very high-risk behaviour".

The site in question is called InLinks, from MediaWhiz, and helps online marketing people with their search engine optimisation, according to Michael Arrington from TechCrunch.

"It's fairly straightforward - advertisers who want their sites associated with specific keywords simply buy ads," he said.

"Links to those sites are then added to publishers' sites whenever those words pop up in content."

Mr Arrington contacted Google about the site and found that the company's Matt Cutts was none too happy about the search engine optimisation method being used.

"Google has been very clear that selling such links that pass PageRank is a violation of our quality guidelines. Other search engines have said similar things," he wrote.

He then provided websites where you could find information from the US authorities which showed they didn't like it either.

But don't think non-USA residents are getting off lightly: "Oh, but you say your blog isn't in the US? Maybe it's in the UK? Then you'll be interested in [this]"

The same went for European bloggers.

While Mr Cutts provided evidence from the authorities that showed they were unhappy with the practice, could it be said that Google is beginning to think that what it says should go on the internet?

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