Link Selling - Unethical or Just Unwise?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by MuNKyonline

I think John is just using the wrong word here. His English isn't always perfect, maybe he means bribery or something like that?

Oh my God!!! I know what bravery is, and that is not what I met. Thank you so much Darren. I met bribery! What can you expect after 30+ hours without sleep and upon that my horrible English?

Ladies and Gentlemen my apologies for that. Please don't give a negative Rep for that. Pleaseeeee....

[MuNKyonline]

Originally Posted by Feydakin

Nope, you got it dead right.. Google said early on that PR could be looked at as a sign of the quality of a website since people won't link to bad websites.. Great.. They even added a 1 to 10 scale to it and made the number public so that everyone could see it.. Great..

Compare that with Motor Trend.. They review and rate cars and trucks.. Get a 5 star Motor Trend rating and things are great.. Get a 1, no so much.. When you see ads on TV for Toyota it's not uncommon to see, 2007 Motor Trend 5 star car of the year..

Motor Trend loves this. Google, not so much.. Toyota uses that 5 star rating to sell cars.. Some webmasters use the PR number to sell links.. Toyota isn't selling the 5 star rating, they are using it as a metric for the value of their car.. Motor Trend assigns that rating on it's own.. Webmasters are not selling PR, they are selling links and using the PR number as a metric for the value of that link..

Can you imagine what would happen if Motor Trend told Toyota, "Hey, we don't like you using our name, and our rating system, to sell your cars.. You are unfairly influencing car purchases by advertising the fact that we like you.. Slap this nofollow sticker on the rear deck of all of your cars from now on or we will stop rating your product.."

I cant see the link here, and I think you are missing the point. In your example if Motor Trend have rated the car as being good quality then surely its a good idea to promote their rating and influence buyers. Wouldnt that encourage companies to make better cars?

Google have indeed said that it is a value based on the quality of the web site. If someone buys a link from someone with a site that has high PR that wouldnt normally link to them, then they are improving the PR (quality rating) of their own web site. This then makes google think they are therefore more relevant and ranks them higher.

If they were linked to for being a good quality web site as they believed the content was relevant and useful then the increase in PR would be justified.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by MuNKyonline

So you dont think that people with poor quality web sites using their money to jump ahead of better quality web sites is wrong?

Morally wrong? No. Do you believe it's wrong for a company with an inferior product to buy enough TV spots to become a household name?

I believe the buyer must beware; that a number 1 position in the search engines or constant ads on Prime Time does not mean the product is right for me or that it is high quality.

I believe in a free market. Anyone may buy ads or put up a website and market it , and the market will dictate their success. If the product is poor customers will stop patronizing the company.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Morally wrong? No. Do you believe it's wrong for a company with an inferior product to buy enough TV spots to become a household name?

I believe the buyer must beware; that a number 1 position in the search engines or constant ads on Prime Time does not mean the product is right for me or that it is high quality.

I believe in a free market. Anyone may buy ads or put up a website and market it , and the market will dictate their success. If the product is poor customers will stop patronizing the company.

If that is not morally wrong, why don't you do Black Hat SEO? Or do you do already, and I have not noticed yet?

[Feydakin]

Define black hat seo.. This particular issue has always humored me.. Business is not about "morals".. It is about risk vs reward.. Is the risk I am taking by doing what I do worth the reward I be get if I am successful??

Just like you manipulating the search results by doing what you do.. You do it in a manner that has very little, if any risk.. Other people may choose to risk more by hiring a link submission company, or even paying for links and reviews.. Or even hiring someone like you to help them.. In all of those cases they are using their money to outrank someone with less money..

If someone buys a link from someone with a site that has high PR that wouldnt normally link to them, then they are improving the PR (quality rating) of their own web site.

Except, of course, Google isn't saying put nofollow on paid links to sites you wouldn't normally link to, they are saying put nofollow on every single link that is paid for regardless of how good it is.. Big difference in the two..

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

If that is not morally wrong, why don't you do Black Hat SEO? Or do you do already, and I have not noticed yet?

I am asking whether it is ethically (morally) wrong to sell links. I would like to hear where actually right or wrong is addressed here ... not about whether it's fair that someone can afford to do so. Fairness is not a moral question.

Yet, it sounds as though you are suggesting that the unfairness of one company not having the money to buy the same links makes link buying a Black Hat practice. And that would make it equally unfair and therefore unethical for the same company to buy Prime Time ads.

This is an academic discussion, not an examination of anyone's practices. And while we might have strong feelings here, I would prefer we stick to logical rather than emotional conclusions.

[incrediblehelp]

The nofollow, uggghhh I hate it. The reason it was created was for comment SPAM and now it is being used out of original context of its creation.

I ask one question, why put a link on website if you don't want the SE's to follow it? And dont give me the controlling/funneling PR crap. Google needs to get their act together and handle these issues themselves.

The whole concept stinks if you ask me. If I am linking to a website then I want the SE's to follow it.

[Feydakin]

Agreed Jaan.. At least they could have created a new tag instead of corrupting the nofollow..

Also, if selling links is so morally wrong, why are there so many "sponsored Links" on Google.Com for the phrase link selling?? If it's morally and ethically wrong to sell links, isn't it morally and ethically wrong to accept ad revenue from the people selling links??

[mjtaylor]

Now, it was not on this thread, but on "are we slave to Google" that I saw an excellent point from wige that I believe speaks to the point of ethics and fairness:

Originally Posted by wige

<snip> ... links are viewed as testimonials/endorsements. When you link to a site, you are endorsing that site to visitors. If you fail to disclose you are being paid to endorse the other site, that falls into the "deceptive advertising" category. Google's argument is that machines browse the web also, and work on the same concept of endorsement to prevent spam and gauge the quality of a web site, so failing to disclose that an endorsement is paid is an unfair business practice.

I am also impressed by what Michael Lineman says on LED Digest - the topic was the legality of buying and selling links, but his answer speaks more directly to the ethics involved, in my opinion.

Cheers, MJ

[SemAdvance]

I doubt it's unethical to sell links as plenty of people sell links to drive traffic.....why I pay Google for this service.....

What is unethical is buying links to boost PageRank.

There is a big difference between the two noted above. But then you have to determine if Google is the arbiter of all things ethical.

There are Ethical Society's.... and I do not see Google as a member there... so I think it is hard for them to determine what the ethics of other companies are.

The puppetmeister has even gone to say that buying a listing in a Paid Directory such as Yahoo is fine, since paid directories weed out spam.

The link from the Yahoo Directory, would seem to pass Page Rank and ergo do exactly what Google the greatest propaganda machine ever run, has made something forbidden....or is it???

Overheard in Google Board Meeting

"Oh my... what a tangled web we weave.... when at first we try to deceive".

Peace!

[bj]

Google has and continues to say, build your website for your visitors. Now they say, build them for "our" SE and algorithym or be "harmed".

Exactly. I think it really backward of Google for them to make webmasters write code to please Google and Google alone. This is a problem with their algorithm, not our websites. So the onus SHOULD BE on them to fix their own damn broken algorithm, not on us to code our pages so they don't have to fix it.

Having said that, I don't buy links, and I don't sell links so none of this affects me either way, though I do give better placement in terms of a featured link in the webgeek directory, which hasn't seemed to hurt it any. Maybe because I only have a very few featured links.

That being the case, it doesn't stop me being totally PO'd at Google for this "Do as I say, not as I do" attitude of theirs. They sell links all over the place and don't use the nofollow attribute on any of their own stuff. Yet they expect us to code for them and squeal to them? A$$holes.

[bruceclay]

I am generally lurking and not posting, but I seem to have missed what I think is an important distinction in the consideration of ethics.

My take on ethics includes the "do no harm" commonly accepted "rule" as applied to most ethical debates. I do not believe that buying links is evil or unethical, nor do I believe that it is my responsibility to help any search engine detect what they do not have the ability to detect themselves. But if their stated objective is to detect and punish those that deceive them into granting ranking that is not based upon relevancy and I tell my clients that (even though I know they will eventually get caught and punished) that this act is okay, then I believe I would have harmed that client and it is thus unethical for me to do that.

It is totally ethical to intentionally do it to yourself if you knowingly accept the risk with full disclosure. It is unethical to do it to someone else that does not know better.

It is always unwise to tug on Superman's cape.

Back to lurking...

[pauliii]

Selling links is no more unethical than shooting a gun. The issue is what you are pointing the weapon at.

If you are trying to deceive people, then link selling is unethical. If you are trying to attract the largest market of qualified buyers, then link selling is ethical.

Google only changes its methods when a particular technique is dominated by unethical practices. Regretably every change affects some ethical users, but its just one of those things in life that good people have to deal with.

A suggestion is all is to stop being so judgemental . . . there's nothing in the bible about link selling. In general, in a free economy, each individual should look after his own best interest . . . but remember, collapsing a good system by weight of poor practices is in non ones interest.

[Sheezwack]

I was wondering....

Is selling 'Advertising' space on your website (where a business can display a logo which links to their site for example) any different to selling/buying links?

Essentially the person buying the advertising space off you is buying a link from your site. Does google treat it differently?

I'm assuming it's more the pages of link farms that they are worried about and will detect, but is it really any different?

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by bruceclay

I am generally lurking and not posting, but I seem to have missed what I think is an important distinction in the consideration of ethics.

My take on ethics includes the "do no harm" commonly accepted "rule" as applied to most ethical debates. I do not believe that buying links is evil or unethical, nor do I believe that it is my responsibility to help any search engine detect what they do not have the ability to detect themselves. But if their stated objective is to detect and punish those that deceive them into granting ranking that is not based upon relevancy and I tell my clients that (even though I know they will eventually get caught and punished) that this act is okay, then I believe I would have harmed that client and it is thus unethical for me to do that.

It is totally ethical to intentionally do it to yourself if you knowingly accept the risk with full disclosure. It is unethical to do it to someone else that does not know better.

It is always unwise to tug on Superman's cape.

Back to lurking...

Thank you! Excellent point. It is unethical to buy links for my client without disclosing the risk we are taking when doing so.

[bj]

Cranky and Tubby you are completely correct. Google messed it all up. They should sort the mess out. But really, they provided a pretty simple solution to improve the quality of the search results using the nofollow tag. How else are they going to determine if a link is paid for or not?

By fixing their own broken algorithm, and not expecting people to jump through hoops so they don't have to. It is not "a pretty simple solution", it is an irresponsible solution, since it puts the onus where it doesn't belong.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by bruceclay

It is totally ethical to intentionally do it to yourself if you knowingly accept the risk with full disclosure. It is unethical to do it to someone else that does not know better.

Welcome Bruce. Thanx for "unlurking".

Excellent point. This is really the only place where I'll consider bringing "ethics" discussion as an issue. Not disclosing to a client the risks associated with practices that are/will be employed on their behalf is indeed unethical as far as I'm concerned. Apprising them of precisely what the risks involved are and could be and allowing them to make their own decision is not.

Originally Posted by bruceclay

Back to lurking...

Pop in any time!

Dave

[jackit_chick]

BruceClay?! BruceClay as in bruceclay.com - Internet Marketing: Search Engine Optimization, PPC, Analytics, Design, Email, Branding Services and Tools!

I totally respect you for your tools man. SERIOUSLY if no one has checked out his side you gotta check it out. AWESOME!

If you are in fact this BruceClay, can I have your autograph?

*is not worthy* /bow



P.S. If you are not this BruceClay and I have just made a fool of myself, and perhaps embarrassed you, then just go back to your lurking and how dare you get my hopes up! just playin, still nice to have you

[bj]

The one thing that hasn't been mentioned in all this is the worrying fact that Google can't tell the difference between links in advertisements of various sorts and "good" links without us "marking them" with a "nofollow" attribute. You would have thought they'd have solved that before they went publlic, especially since everything they're doing is based on the value of links.

Is there anyone else who finds that simple fact to be as disturbing as I do??? Time to sell the Google stock . . .

[suzstephens]

Ironically, Google seems to think buying links on *other* sites is bad, but buying links on Google's pages (in the form of Adwords) is good. In other words, it's OK if you buy Adwords to get your site to the top of Google's pages, but it's not OK if your money goes to some other company. Isn't buying AdWords just another method of manipulating Google's search results? Is this ethics or is it corporate greed?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

So, what I hear, Dave, is that Google created PR and passes PR and so buying and selling links to receive benefit from PR has nothing to do with ethics. It's simply a commodity that is available in the market.

My bolding.

Then the answer to this question Re: Link Selling - Unethical or Just Unwise? is simple.

Follow the producers guidelines if you want to sell or buy that commodity.

1. Or is it more complicated?
2. Doesn't that commodity exist in a market with a supply schedule crossing the demand schedule, in other words a cross clearing the market?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Not in my opinion at all. You can do what you want with your website as Google can do what they want with theirs.

And I can live with that.

[Tubby]

MuNKy said
"Cranky and Tubby you are completely correct. Google messed it all up. They should sort the mess out. But really, they provided a pretty simple solution to improve the quality of the search results using the nofollow tag. How else are they going to determine if a link is paid for or not?"

I have absolutely no problem with Google or even Google wanting 'nofollow' tags, to improve their searches.


My only objection.
SEO vigilante, searching out, convicting and labeling webmasters, using Google Guidelines and philosophy as justification. This is not a proper way to create web standards.

[Orion]

unethical no.. definitely not.. that's like saying is it unethical to sell advertising in a magazine or a newspaper lol..

unwise? depends.. if you're only goal is to have a great ranking on google then it may be unwise, however if you're goal is to make money with your website then it's smart and actually that's the business model that a HUGE number of websites follow.. design / develop / get traffic / sell advertising.. selling advertising (links) on a site is the way that you can give away your website information or services... just look at all those 'free' sites out there that we all use, they make their money via the advertising on the site.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by kgun

My bolding.

Then the answer to this question Re: Link Selling - Unethical or Just Unwise? is simple.

Follow the producers guidelines if you want to sell or buy that commodity.

1. Or is it more complicated?
2. Doesn't that commodity exist in a market with a supply schedule crossing the demand schedule, in other words a cross clearing the market?

Except that what is being sold, is "advertising" and not the the producers commodity. The fact that the producer places "value" on what is being sold (advertising links) does not make it their "commodity".

Links are not their commodity.

The automatic assumption that it is their "commodity" that is being sold is presumptuous to say the least. Especially in instances where it is clearly labeled to anyone visiting the page as to exactly what it is... "advertising".

They do not want people selling their "commodity" but happily accept advertising money, big money, from people that do.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Here some quotations taken from Wikipedia:

"nofollow" is a relation tag (rel="nofollow") which can be added to any link and is technically a request from the website to search engines to ignore the link. That's the technical meaning. What having such a tag means about your site etc. is subjective and various opinions are given below.

In response to widespread abuse of Google's PageRank formula using link spam, Google has implemented a special tag system which — for sites that automatically implement it — makes all links be counted nominally, rather than be ranked by excess propagation and proportion. This operates by changing the normal <a href="site"> tags with a "nofollow" marker (<a href="site" rel="nofollow">).

This new nofollow tag has some hidden features which are more good then bad. Webmasters, those who run a website based on content (bloggers arn't webmasters plain and simple, dont misuse webmaster), can profit from using this nofollow in strengthening their own page rank. According to notes released in the beta of page rank, (source) PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn)). In this algorithm, one way links help more than Reciprocal_link. using nofollow then creats a one way link, giving your page rank an extra boost.

Link spam takes advantage of link-based ranking algorithms, such as Google's PageRank algorithm, which gives a higher ranking to a website the more other highly ranked websites link to it. These techniques also aim at influencing other link-based ranking techniques such as the HITS algorithm.

Now my dear SEO colleagues, isn't Link Spam a Spamindexing method? Aren't Spamindexing methods also called Black Hat? Are spamindexing methods unethical? If not, why don't you do black hat SEO? Or do you do that already? ME NOT! PERIOD!

Now my next question. Now we will see who is white and who is black here:

Some guys probably heard about the Microformats, which are already a trend in Social Bookmarking Networks.
There we have the following options for voting links:

• rev="vote-for"
• rev="vote-against"
• rev="vote-abstain"

Some people here might know already that Google is moving to social bookmarking too. Right? And many people here are claiming that the "nofollow" attribute have been implemented only for blog spamming. Right?

So what is if Google replaces the "nofollow" tag with legitimate rules like using the above 100% semantical rules, and ask us to use rev="vote-against" or rev="vote-abstain" instead of the "nofollow" attribute? Would you use that for bought/sold links?

Here we go...

[jeffposaka]

Matt Cutts made a speech at Pubcon expalining that Google didn't want to have the site with the largest marketing budget to be number 1 in the organic serps. So basically if I had the most money to buy the most links then I would be number 1 in the serps. He said this would not necessarily provide the best user experieince for Google users, because the highest ranking site would not necessarily be the best in terms of content.

I also was in a site review where he reviewed one of my sites where I had bought a lot of links through a link broker. He said that a lot of links I bought (he could tell) were not counted.

I don't think is an ethical issue...just a marketing problem, do I buy text links ads that Google counts or doesn't count? Is it a good use of my marketing dollar? Will those links bring a ROI?

As for selling, it is not unethical to sell links or ads or banner ads in my opinion. It is your site to do with you want with...as long as the buyer of the link understands that it may not help with organic ranking.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by bruceclay

I am generally lurking and not posting, but I seem to have missed what I think is an important distinction in the consideration of ethics.

My take on ethics includes the "do no harm" commonly accepted "rule" as applied to most ethical debates. I do not believe that buying links is evil or unethical, nor do I believe that it is my responsibility to help any search engine detect what they do not have the ability to detect themselves. But if their stated objective is to detect and punish those that deceive them into granting ranking that is not based upon relevancy and I tell my clients that (even though I know they will eventually get caught and punished) that this act is okay, then I believe I would have harmed that client and it is thus unethical for me to do that.

It is totally ethical to intentionally do it to yourself if you knowingly accept the risk with full disclosure. It is unethical to do it to someone else that does not know better.

It is always unwise to tug on Superman's cape.

Back to lurking...

Welcome aboard Bruce. Great to have you here, and great post!

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Here some quotations taken from Wikipedia:

Now my dear SEO colleagues, isn't Link Spam a Spamindexing method? Aren't Spamindexing methods also called Black Hat? Are spamindexing methods unethical? If not, why don't you do black hat SEO? Or do you do that already? ME NOT! PERIOD!

Now my next question. Now we will see who is white and who is black here:

Some guys probably heard about the Microformats, which are already a trend in Social Bookmarking Networks.
There we have the following options for voting links:

• rev="vote-for"
• rev="vote-against"
• rev="vote-abstain"

Some people here might know already that Google is moving to social bookmarking too. Right? And many people here are claiming that the "nofollow" attribute have been implemented only for blog spamming. Right?

So what is if Google replaces the "nofollow" tag with legitimate rules like using the above 100% semantical rules, and ask us to use rev="vote-against" or rev="vote-abstain" instead of the "nofollow" attribute? Would you use that for bought/sold links?

Here we go...

Don't care.

What SE's do with the information they gather and how they interpret is their business.

Simple concept.

Here's another "what if"... What if Google fixes what they believe is broken... themselves. I kinda think they have more resources at their disposal than most.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by bj

By fixing their own broken algorithm, and not expecting people to jump through hoops so they don't have to. It is not "a pretty simple solution", it is an irresponsible solution, since it puts the onus where it doesn't belong.

Why do you use the <title> tag? Why do you use the <h1> tag? Why do you use the hyperlinks tags, etc. Then Google should build an algorithm that will not need all that. Or? How can you expect a software (i.e Googlebot) to understand what you are about? Smell its fingers?

If it is posed this way, I assume that we do not even need to code pages using markup. We only need to print a magazine and invite Googlebot to crawl it.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Don't care.

What SE's do with the information they gather and how they interpret is their business.

Simple concept.

Here's another "what if"... What if Google fixes what they believe is broken... themselves. I kinda think they have more resources at their disposal than most.

Dave

When (not if) Google adds the microformats in their algorithm, then they have fixed their nofollow attribute violation. So whats next? Will you implement those microformats on your web site to conform to those semantical and not Google techniques/standards?

[Feydakin]

Originally Posted by jeffposaka

Matt Cutts made a speech at Pubcon expalining that Google didn't want to have the site with the largest marketing budget to be number 1 in the organic serps. So basically if I had the most money to buy the most links then I would be number 1 in the serps. He said this would not necessarily provide the best user experieince for Google users, because the highest ranking site would not necessarily be the best in terms of content.

Placing ads above the natural serps and changing the color to something less obvious so that more people click on them not realizing that they are ads..

Claiming that money is the issue is ridiculous at best.. Whoever has the most money wins.. It's always been that way and always will, no matter what.. Take away paid links and money buys relevant websites and interlinks them.. Take away relevant interlinked websites and pay someone to submit your site to thousands of free web directories.. Outlaw everything that could possibly be paid for from helping a site rank well in the natural serps, but the #1 spot in adwords and be on top anyway..

@ Webnauts.. You seem to be having a serious issue with the baby and the bathwater.. A few people are abusing link purchasing / advertising so we make everyone that sells link evil.. Sound like a legitimate solution to me..

Google had an opportunity to create a rel="advert" tag and instead chose to corrupt a tag specifically created to fight blog comment spam.. A tag that was created and agreed to by quite a few groups of people.. Who wants to bet on whether those same people were consulting about corrupting a valid tag into something entirely different??

I could care less about Google and what they do with their search engine.. But to continually champion Google as all that is good and sweet in the world and anyone that decides to do other than they are commanded as unethical is pathetic..

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Why do you use the <title> tag? Why do you use the <h1> tag? Why do you use the hyperlinks tags, etc. Then Google should build an algorithm that will not need all that. Or? How can you expect a software (i.e Googlebot) to understand what you are about? Smell its fingers?

If it is posed this way, I assume that we do not even need to code pages using markup. We only need to print a magazine and invite Googlebot to crawl it.

It's what they do. It's how they make their money.

Tell me John, do you need people you don't know to your job for you so it will work the way you want it to or are you capable of doing it yourself?

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by bj

Exactly. I think it really backward of Google for them to make webmasters write code to please Google and Google alone.

That is not true!

BJ you are a highly experienced web designer, so please look at my web site and tell me what have I done to conform Googles requirements. And I am doing very well in all SE, and day by day I am getting better. Now I am just waiting to overcome the domain/site age factor.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Feydakin

I could care less about Google and what they do with their search engine.. But to continually champion Google as all that is good and sweet in the world and anyone that decides to do other than they are commanded as unethical is pathetic..

I would advise you to read my previous posts in this thread before I would need to repeat myself. I am not trying to defend Google and I will never do. I previously stated clearly that I am not a fan of anybody else than myself. And I never claimed that Google achieved perfection.

Important notice: I have misspelled several tiles in the thread: I met Bribery where I wrote Bravery.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

When (not if) Google adds the microformats in their algorithm, then they have fixed their nofollow attribute violation. So whats next? Will you implement those microformats on your web site to conform to those semantical and not Google techniques/standards?

So tell me John, how do microformats directly affect the visitor to the the page they are viewing.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Tell me John, do you need people you don't know to your job for you so it will work the way you want it to or are you capable of doing it yourself?

I thought we are talking about robots here and not humans. Or did I miss something?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Feydakin

@ Webnauts.. You seem to be having a serious issue with the baby and the bathwater.. A few people are abusing link purchasing / advertising so we make everyone that sells link evil.. Sound like a legitimate solution to me..

Google had an opportunity to create a rel="advert" tag and instead chose to corrupt a tag specifically created to fight blog comment spam.. A tag that was created and agreed to by quite a few groups of people.. Who wants to bet on whether those same people were consulting about corrupting a valid tag into something entirely different??

First rel="advert" is an attribute and not a tag.

Second, if Google decides to replace the "nofollow" attribute with the "advert" attribute, will you still have a problem with Google?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

So tell me John, how do microformats directly affect the visitor to the the page they are viewing.

Dave

See here: Microformats
There you will find out everything you want to know about them.

If you need a live example let me know.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

See here: Microformats
There you will find out everything you want to know about them.

If you need a live example let me know.

No John.

I asked you how they directly affect the visitor on a page that contains them.

Dave

[Feydakin]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

First rel="advert" is an attribute and not a tag.

Whatever, you know what I meant.. I make jewelry for a living, not build websites..

Second, if Google decides to replace the "nofollow" attribute with the "advert" attribute, will you still have a problem with Google?

I'd be more likely to do that since then I wouldn't be telling every other search engine out there that these links are SPAM.. Bu it doesn't change my original issue of Google telling us to do one thing while themselves doing something else..

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

No John.

I asked you how they directly affect the visitor on a page that contains them.

Dave

Just an example: What if you want to use hCards? See a live example on the site of my new hosting provider: (mt) Media Temple - Contact us

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Feydakin

Whatever, you know what I meant.. I make jewelry for a living, not build websites..

Ups?

Originally Posted by Feydakin

I'd be more likely to do that since then I wouldn't be telling every other search engine out there that these links are SPAM.. Bu it doesn't change my original issue of Google telling us to do one thing while themselves doing something else..

First when you label links with the nofollow attribute, does not mean that those links are leading to spammy sites.
Second, Google doesn't tell anybody what they should do on their sites. Google tells want they don't want to have on their sites.

Clear enough?

[weegillis]

Ans. Neither.

What could be unethical about following through on your offer? You tell a person that linking to your site will boost their PR, it does, nothing unethical here. Better still you tell them it will drive more traffic to their site, without discussing PR, they get more traffic & inconsequentially, a better PR: even more ethical.

You're the one selling the link. It follows that you would choose candidates based on the relevancy of the their site to yours, whether direct or indirect. You sell furniture to your customers, and a link to an upholsterer. You sell art, your advertiser sells frames. You sell travel, your advertiser sells suntan lotion. Simple and organic. It should naturally help both sites, both with added traffic and increased PR. I don't see anything unethical about this.

Seems only G. has deemed it unwise. Guess you will want to check your logs for SE referrals. If they're evenly distributed over the majors, then G. is less of a controlling factor in your final decision. If it skews toward G., and you depend on those hits for traffic and conversions, then one supposes the guidelines have a greater bearing.

Y. and M. are more concerned with spamming techniques than with where you net your revenue, or how.

Jaan mentioned earlier that the original intent of the rel="nofollow" attribute was to reduce link spam arising in the blogosphere. Somehow this got turned into an all-out attack on every website out there, blog or not, link spam or not. Why didn't Y. & M. take the same kneejerk approach to dealing with the problem? (Well, I think M. just starting dropping everyone from their index for having spammy sites.) Nothing seems to have changed at Y. except their consistently better search results in recent times, which would indicate they have dealt with it, just not in a way they wish to tell others.

All G. has effectively done is place more onus on developers to play by their rules, kind of like Homeland Security did toward stripping everyone of their rights.

The only thing unwise would be to go against the guidelines if you depend upon favorable results from G. The general guidelines applicable to all SEs ought to be enough, but given this extra elephant on our back, we must govern ourselves accordingly.

Using underhanded techniques that will hurt your client simply goes against any successful business model, and I don't see you shooting yourself in the foot any time soon, MJT. Your advice to your client will be to spread their marketing dollar over as large a base as possible, and I doubt you would advise them not to generate supplementary income from their website to offset costs, and balance their own expenditures.

If part of their marketing dollar is spent on paid links, why should it matter to anyone, including G.?

Everything above board that goes to revenue is ethical business practice. Everything black hat is not. But at this late juncture one would expect this to be all OLD HAT by now. Who in their right mind is still doing it?

Of course there is nothing saying that there isn't still a fool born every day, and we will always have culprits and their unwise, unwitting victims.

This is really a USER CHECK, and nothing more. If you can sleep at the end of the day, then one suspects YOU don't feel that you are doing anything unethical.

[Feydakin]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

First when you label links with the nofollow attribute, does not mean that those links are leading to spammy sites.

nofollow was originally meant to say "I can not verify the quality of the site this link points to, please do not count it".. Why would I nofollow a link to a site I want the search engines to follow paid or not??

Second, Google doesn't tell anybody what they do on their sites. Google tells want they don't want to have on their sites.

Clear enough?

I think you are still confused.. Google says yes, you can have paid links.. But you must ADD the nofollow tag to the or risk penalty.. Sounds like telling you what to put on your site to me..

You have yet to answer my other question that I have asked several times though.. Do you have a problem with Google allowing the rich and powerful to buy the #1 link on their search results page??

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Feydakin

nofollow was originally meant to say "I can not verify the quality of the site this link points to, please do not count it".. Why would I nofollow a link to a site I want the search engines to follow paid or not??

Google does not obey to the excellency of someones majesty, who claims that he cannot verify the quality of the site the link points to. Google decides if the linked site qualifies based on their algorithm. You can add so many nofollow attributes you want. Google does not take your consulting as an evidence. They perceive that as an indication that requires attention.

Originally Posted by Feydakin

I think you are still confused.. Google says yes, you can have paid links.. But you must ADD the nofollow tag to the or risk penalty.. Sounds like telling you what to put on your site to me..

Come on buddy. This is getting boring for me and I am surprised that I am still discussing here an issue that is already clarified.

So for the last time: Google says you can have paid links if they are for advertising/traffic generating purposes and not to manipulate their PageRank algorithm. Because Google has not came up with a better solution to identify if your links are for advertising and not for manipulating their PageRank algorithm, they hold the full rights to demand webmasters to adhere to their rules if the webmasters want their sites to be ranked in the free of charge search results. They are not a social foundation.

So you can do what you want.

In addition, if I would exchange links on my site, I would require from the sites who want a link from me that they are fully accessible and usable. Don't I have the rights to demand that?

Come buddy...

Originally Posted by Feydakin

You have yet to answer my other question that I have asked several times though.. Do you have a problem with Google allowing the rich and powerful to buy the #1 link on their search results page??

I have a problem with Google if they would allow the rich and powerful to buy the #1 position of the ORGANIC (FREE) SEARCH RESULTS! If that would happen, that would not be anymore a serious business model. It would be if they would switch to paid search with bids, which would be absolutely fine with me.

[subsystems]

Dang, I got so involved reading this thread that I missed the movie I wanted to watch and my popcorn is gone!

I think most of my feelings have been expressed so I won't chime in for that.

I do however propose a few new attributes to help the brain dead bots...
"noethics"
"nomanipulate"
"worthless paid link that I only accepted because I needed the money to put my kid through college"
"nogoodcontent"
my favorite is...
"GOOGLEBOT WANTED HERE"

Seriously, I do have an idea that might have some merit. I hate mucking up the markup with extra nonsense that doesn't do the users any good. We have the robots.txt file that the visitors don't give a hoot about. It's purpose it to communicate with the spiders include or not include pages on our site in the SERPs. What about a new links.txt file that contains a list of links on our site with words not unlike the Allow and Disallow to inform the spiders of the intent of each link. If a link is paid then state so. If a link is given freely then state that as well. I see it like a site-map.txt file except for external links. The SE algos then could weigh that info as they choose. Which is better filling up forums and other sites with "nofollow" tags or simply adding an entry link into a text file when someone makes their first post that includes a particular link.

[Kate Lennon]

There are different and opposing views being expressed here, but the one thing they all have in common is an acknowledgment of the pervasive power of Google. You're arguing the minutiae, the pros and cons, the ethics of linking this way or that; but the entire debate is taking place within the parameters defined by Google. In the final analysis, everything comes down to whether Google "approves" of what you do on your website, and whether you do anything to piss Google off enough to "penalize" (!) your site. Google has effectively taken over the web; and it certainly controls the commercial web. If you play by Google's rules, you may be able to pick up a few of the crumbs missed by Google: if you disregard or disobey the Google rules, your online business is dead in the water.
Google has waaaay too much monopoly power, and it uses that power solely in its own financial interests.

[Tubby]

webnauts wrote . (to mjtaylor)

"If that is not morally wrong, why don't you do Black Hat SEO? Or do you do already, and I have not noticed yet? "


John this is the sort of thing that bugs me . (the only thing that upsets me on this whole topic really)
Appointing yourself an SEO vigilante is not good

are you checking out mj's sites to look for where she might have not followed Google guidelines regarding links that might have been placed? . . . Who else is doing this crap? This is a very bad practice and should be killed of NOW!


Argue to our hearts content, yes, I am 100% for that . . Apointing yourself to the ranks of Vigilant police, no.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Tubby

webnauts wrote . (to mjtaylor)

"If that is not morally wrong, why don't you do Black Hat SEO? Or do you do already, and I have not noticed yet? "


John this is the sort of thing that bugs me . (the only thing that upsets me on this whole topic really)
Appointing yourself an SEO vigilante is not good

are you checking out mj's sites to look for where she might have not followed Google guidelines regarding links that might have been placed? . . . Who else is doing this crap? This is a very bad practice and should be killed of NOW!


Argue to our hearts content, yes, I am 100% for that . . Apointing yourself to the ranks of Vigilant police, no.

Tubby, slow down man. I think you did not understand what I met. I am not running after web sites investigating if they are doing anything wrong. If I had the time to do such crap, I would never have time to run my own business.
And I do not suck so bad as you probably think.