Can Google find out about a Sponsored Post ?

Hi,
So recently I started an outreach Campaign for one of my niche site.
It was very time consuming but I managed to get a few good links.
Toward the end, I wanted to get a more efficient approach, so I started offering money in exchange of a post with a link it.

Although it was expensive, I manage to get more good link that ways, but I was wondering if Google can find out that is the case ?

Also one of the webmaster that I dealt with, decided to write in the post that it was sponsored. Finally he removed the mention, but now I Wonder how Google will interpret this.

Is that a serious threat for my site or I should not bother so much ?

PS : This is my first post on the forum

I am trying to find out the same. The majority of blogs out there seem to accept sponsored posts.
I did a couple of outreach on some blogs and they accepted my guest post, but I noticed they also accept sponsored posts.

I think unless most of their content are sponsored and linking to what not sites, there shouldn't be any problems.

Nowadays there are too many sponsored posts on different websites. I think that there will be no problems if they're unique and you don't post the same thing on 10+ websites. Anyway, sponsored posts are much more better than just posting your link in all the comments yourself

How does Google find out about manipulation? Own algorithms that alert the webspam team about obvious anomalies (e.g. high money anchor ratios, links from sites know as link sellers in significant numbers compared to the overall links, links from obvious PBNs etc.) and webspam reports by competitors. At the end, a human looks at the links and decides if a manual action is applied or not. Now, that's the tough part, it's someone seeing paid links all day long. It's someone knowing all dirty tricks, someone who can easily see if it's a real article or just some fluffer content.

So, having a few do-follow links from sites marking the content as "sponsored", "ad" or similar certainly don't hurt, it's the overall impression. Google knows some webmasters simply forget nofollow or don't pay attention to it, so there is a threshold to make sure noone is penalized without being "guilty".

Most people buying links make the same mistake: Because they want to get the maximum out of those expensive links, they use all money anchors and try to dilute this with a bunch of weak URL and brand links from crappy sites. Easy to spot. Next, do-follow to nofollow. Natural links profiles often have nofollow links from strong, popular sites. Many webmasters don't buy nofollow links for hundreds of dollars because they think it's wasted money, so all links from strong sites are do-follow.

Bottom line: Analyze a few reputable sites in your niche, sites that are a real brand, have a look at their links, anchors, anchor ratios, deeplinks vs. homepage, etc. Create an excel sheet, compare, try to find a common common denominator that obviously works well. Most of them probably pay for links, too, but if they are around on the top for several years for loads of terms, they are probably doing something right. Stay away from general advice like "You have to use X% money key, Y% brands, etc." Best link building doesn't look like link building, it mimics a "natural" profile.