Before any materials are verified okay to be uploaded on the BBC website, the producers in charge of that particular media production must inspect and validate all contents before they are certified okay to be uploaded. Before they are added to the BBC page, the contents are examined, as well as the usage of external links. For a successful outcome, the editor and the producer work together to handle this responsibility.
With this in mind, it becomes much easier to spot and locate inappropriate and broken external connections on the BBC that should never have been there in the first place. The BBC is not responsible for selling paid links to people or businesses, and such links can be denounced and permanently removed if discovered.
External links may be added to the BBC’s published content for some reasons, which can be for further information on the subject, for comments, or other editorial justification. The BBC charges its fee through a television license, which is paid by every household in the UK with a television. Therefore, these external links must never be added for cash or service returns of any kind, as this is a violation of the rules of the company. All links which are included on the BBC website are said to be free without receiving any form of payment for advertisement purposes.
In March 2013, the BBC was flagged down by Google for violation of unnatural links; some of its articles had links that were redirecting readers to inappropriate sites like online gambling sites, irrelevant advertisements, and so on. Although a disclaimer was released afterward by the BBC, that the company holds no responsibility for the contents of external sites and does not involve itself in the sale of paid links.
After the flag went down, the BBC amended its guidelines and lectured its workers on the effects of bad publicity. This move is why I think there is now a follow-up that must be conducted by the producer and editor of the particular product before any content or links are uploaded on the website.
With the increase of scam sites on the internet, which trick people into false services by placing their links on unsuspecting websites to generate traffic, Google now enforces its search result quality by making use of algorithms to remove abusive and inappropriate content. In this way, more sites are more conscious of their content and pages and ensure they stay clear of irrelevant links. With this now done, there would be a limit to the use of fake links that can be used to access people’s information wrongly.
In conclusion
The BBC does not provide paid links for websites or other external sources. All its links and contents are very well vetted by the appropriate authorities before they are uploaded, with no payment of cash or kind received by the company. Any paid link out there on the website is should be reported immediately to the necessary authorities.
