Paid Links and nofollow

[SarahG]

What with all the current chatter of Google penalising sites who sell text links, anyone thought about modifying the code supplied by their text link broker to add in the rel="nofollow" attribute? Or anyone already done this?

Does anyone know Text Link Ads's stance on modifying their code. I've done that to remove all the naff inline styles they put out in the list, but not changing the link.

Trouble is, to add to all this, how can Google honestly work out who is selling links and who is simply linking to their own or friend's sites? Just because the link is external doesn't mean it's paid for!

Thoughts anyone?

[Jeremy]

Well, if you turn your text links to nofollow, that will mean nomoney. Almost nobody buys a text ad for getting clicks, so a nofollow link for them is worthless.

And I'm pretty sure that modifying the TLA links to nofollow is against the rules.

I have no idea what to make of all this google and paid links stuff, so I'm still on the fence and haven't done much either way as of yet.

[ses5909]

I have seen where TLA has removed people for editing their code and I would imagine other companies will do the same.

The reason TLA is using TinyURL is so it's not so easy for search engines to find out who is selling links and who is just linking. The only way for Google to really prove people are selling links is to have an "in" with Google. But I know from experience that Google doesn't have to PROVE anything and will make decisions based on what they believe even if you didn't do anything (related to adsense). So all you can do is really tell your side of the story and hope for the best.

I personally don't think people who buy or sell links should be penalized and I know I'm opening a can of works with that. Are people who put flashy ads on their sites penalized? No. But because Google (and plenty of people) says it skews the organic search results, then i guess people who are trying to make a buck will suffer. Google apparently is the only one who is allowed to do so.

All that said, it is Google's search engine and if we want to do well in Google, I guess we need to play by the rules.

[SarahG]

All that said, it is Google's search engine and if we want to do well in Google, I guess we need to play by the rules.

But regardless of if you play by the rules, Google will just make their decision based on assumption and despite doing nothing wrong you could still be penalised!

I only mention I sell Text Link Ads on a site that doesn't have any advertising. On the sites I actually sell TLA I just reply on the marketplace to sell links.

I'd imagine that Google determines (or should that be guesses) who is selling links by the relevancy of the link to the site it's on.

Well the PR update is now meant to be finally underway and text link sellers may start to notice a drop in their PR so it'll be interesting to see whether Google can spot the right sites or includes the wrong sites in there.

[ses5909]

You're definitely right which really makes things tough. It will be interesting to see how things play out definitely!

[samwoodfin]

All that said, it is Google's search engine and if we want to do well in Google, I guess we need to play by the rules.

It IS Google's search engine, but Google only has as much power as it does because, regardless of Google's policies, people keep right on using it for search. You want them to have less control? Start using a different search engine. Or don't capitulate. You get enough people doing either of those, and Google HAS to change its game.

[SarahG]

I've used Yahoo for well I think forever really. Better results ;) I only go to Google if I can't find what I want on Yahoo simply because Google has more results, but most of those are spam.

But as far as PR goes, I wouldn't personally use it as a metric (nor any other statistic provided out there, even server stats are skewed), however with other sites and people using it as a metric you still need to pay attention to it.

[Dan Grossman]

This new policy of Google's to actually penalize the rankings of the site selling text links makes no sense. Google's never removed good pages from their search results before. Nothing about selling text links, with or without the "please ignore me Google" nofollow attribute, changes the value of a page to a specific search... yet they're treating it as if it does.

[thetafferboy]

It IS Google's search engine, but Google only has as much power as it does because, regardless of Google's policies, people keep right on using it for search. You want them to have less control? Start using a different search engine. Or don't capitulate. You get enough people doing either of those, and Google HAS to change its game.

People use Google because it does actually give the most relevant search results.. Yahoo/MSN been giving me proper nasty results lately. The SEOers will always follow where the traffic is. Basically, it's not gonna happen.

[Michael Martin]

Trouble is, to add to all this, how can Google honestly work out who is selling links and who is simply linking to their own or friend's sites?

There are a few obvious ones ("Sponsored Links" headings or "Purchase a Link" being the last link in the list), but for the rest, why can't Google just do it manually?

It wouldn't even be hard. Just get a few of their employees to sign up to TLA and spend a few days building up a list of the more popular ad sellers, and penalize them all for 30 days. If they did that just once, and got loads of sites at the same time, that would be pretty much the end of TLA as a major advertiser (Most people would be too scared to use them again).



As for which side of the fence I'm on, I'm not really sure. I think I'm on Google's side for the most part, but not all the time. Their monopoly is starting to get scary though... :(

[deronsizemore]

I've not heard much on the subject, but, does this pretty much put TLA business down the toilet?

[ses5909]

TLA requires you to follow and if you alter their code they will kick you out I believe, so this has to really hurt the TLA folks.

[reviewer]

It IS Google's search engine, but Google only has as much power as it does because, regardless of Google's policies, people keep right on using it for search. You want them to have less control? Start using a different search engine. Or don't capitulate. You get enough people doing either of those, and Google HAS to change its game.It's an uphill battle, but frankly I think Google is making these decisions to put in quality content. Overmonetized sites are less valuable to searchers, certainly.

[SarahG]

There are a few obvious ones ("Sponsored Links" headings or "Purchase a Link" being the last link in the list), but for the rest, why can't Google just do it manually?

It wouldn't even be hard. Just get a few of their employees to sign up to TLA and spend a few days building up a list of the more popular ad sellers, and penalize them all for 30 days.

On the front page of my blog I have a list of links (headed by 'Links'). They're actually all mine but they're not tech sites. I also had a friend's link for Airport Parking too, a site of his that's fairly new so I said I'd drop a link in for him. None of these have been paid for of course. However from a stranger's perspective, they could be paid links. That's my concern over Google assuming. Sure, I could remove these links but I shouldn't have to.

As for signing up to TLA. I don't think you get to know the actual site URL of a publisher's site even as an advertiser. I've taken a look through the listings before whilst signed in and I can't see any specific URLs, just a small screenshot. If you can get info off that you can probably find the site but it's not as easy as just grabbing a few URLs (well not that I can see anyway!!).

I've not heard much on the subject, but, does this pretty much put TLA business down the toilet?

I reckon TLA will have to act if it becomes a major issue. Search Engine Land reported a few drops by suspected link sellers, it depends how many are affected and who pulls out of TLA. If they start to lose the major publishers then they'll have to do something.

It's an uphill battle, but frankly I think Google is making these decisions to put in quality content. Overmonetized sites are less valuable to searchers, certainly.

Not necessarily. Sure some are but I see plenty of sites with what I assume to be paid links, and the sites are putting out just as good content as a non monetised site. I doubt Google is going to penalise you for just using all 3 adblocks on each page, which is more over monetised from a visual aspect. Personally I'd rather a page with a handful of paid links than 3 adblocks, especially the animated ones.

[SageMother]

I have seen where TLA has removed people for editing their code and I would imagine other companies will do the same.

The reason TLA is using TinyURL is so it's not so easy for search engines to find out who is selling links and who is just linking. The only way for Google to really prove people are selling links is to have an "in" with Google. But I know from experience that Google doesn't have to PROVE anything and will make decisions based on what they believe even if you didn't do anything (related to adsense). So all you can do is really tell your side of the story and hope for the best.

I personally don't think people who buy or sell links should be penalized and I know I'm opening a can of works with that. Are people who put flashy ads on their sites penalized? No. But because Google (and plenty of people) says it skews the organic search results, then i guess people who are trying to make a buck will suffer. Google apparently is the only one who is allowed to do so.

All that said, it is Google's search engine and if we want to do well in Google, I guess we need to play by the rules.

It would be easier to make a second blog for those ads that Google doesn't allow. It's safer to rework posts than it is to rework a link's code.