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- mike - Dec 11 2007 | search, google, advertising, pagerank
Google wants all paid links to have rel="nofollow" so that the link does not affect their rankings.
This seems a rather narrow view of the web. Think about all the reasons that someone would be motivated to link to another site. Are all of those motivations "pure"? Who's to say that a paid link is any less validating of quality than an un-paid link (at least for a paid link, someone has been willing to make an investment to ensure that people would learn about their site).
What if I post a link to a friend's site, or a family member's site. Should I have to disclose my "conflict of interest"?
This would be humorous if Google weren't so powerful. If Google doesn't think your site is "worthy" - then you are not going to get any traffic since they are far and away the largest search engine.
Google even has a tattle-tale page for people to rat-out what they expect are paid links on another user's web site!
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This is easy for me. I have absolutely no idea what they mean by "links that pass PageRank". Isn't this their problem?
Any link that does not have "nofollow" could potentially pass PageRank.
Here's what the page says, boiled down:
1) Links affect PageRank. All links might pass PageRank. Only Google knows which ones.
2) Some people buy and sell links.
3) Any or all of these links might pass PageRank (see item 1). Only Google knows which ones.
4) Google's webmaster guidelines say you can't buy and sell links which pass PageRank.
5) Not all paid links violate their guidelines. Guess what? Only Google knows which ones.
6) Google will punish you if you have paid links which violate their guidelines that are not marked appropriately.
Net: Only Google knows which links need a nofollow tag and the only way you can guarantee to not be punished is to put a nofollow tag on every link.
I *think* I understand what they're really trying to say: "Link farms will be punished." But, this is just gobbledygook. And love that phrase "pass PageRank" -- I'm not passing or not passing PageRank -- I just have a link. What does "pass" really mean?
I think it's something like passing gas.