no follow?

[mif]

...Clearly it is paid, but its not recognisably 'affiliate'.

Actually, thinking about this, would it be useful to define what we are discussing in terms of 'paid links'?

How about:

'Paid Text Link' - I'll give you 50 quid to post some crap text and link to me

'Direct Banner' - Alps M/C Tours sponsor a site article on motorcycle touring in return for their banner above the fold

'Affiliate Manager' - myaffil.com / this myaffil.com / that - all within the site's theme

'Affiliate Manager - Generic' - whatever seller is offering decent CPA / cookie that day, peppering your site with mobile phones, life insurance, ...

'Google Ads' - well, that's 'paid links' too!

Is that a useful taxonomy? And are they all bad??

--
Mike

 

[Blossom]

Well, given that G understands that it is quite reasonable that we make some money from our sites, why would it be bad? If I run, say, a motorcycle-specific site, why would linking to an affiliate manager's link through to something like Bennett's Motorcycle Insurance be a bad thing?

It's the quality of the site. If you have a site like moneysavingexpert.com or kenrockwell.com, which provides a ton of value beyond aff links, you're fine. The problem is most sites with aff links are tiny. They're primarily created to make money rather than provide value, which stereotypically means they're full of filler rather than useful content. If the site didn't exist, would it be a loss of valuable content for the internet? Can the information be found elsewhere?

And if I have a direct banner or even text link relationship with 'Alps Motorcycle Tours' (perhaps www.amt.com?foo=mif) - is that a paid-link in G's eyes. Clearly it is paid, but its not recognisably 'affiliate'.

Google recommends those kinds of links be nofollow. The idea is that the site is paying for you to refer your traffic to them, not paying you to improve their search rankings.

(I'm not disagreeing with you, Blossom, just trying to understand) (And all my own affiliate links are currently nofollow)

It's fine to disagree, this is the internet after all

Actually, thinking about this, would it be useful to define what we are discussing in terms of 'paid links'?

How about:

'Paid Text Link' - I'll give you 50 quid to post some crap text and link to me

'Direct Banner' - Alps M/C Tours sponsor a site article on motorcycle touring in return for their banner above the fold

'Affiliate Manager' - myaffil.com / this myaffil.com / that - all within the site's theme

'Affiliate Manager - Generic' - whatever seller is offering decent CPA / cookie that day, peppering your site with mobile phones, life insurance, ...

'Google Ads' - well, that's 'paid links' too!

Is that a useful taxonomy? And are they all bad??

--
Mike

However it helps you. I prefer to stay away from terms like 'good' and 'bad' personally, although inevitably they do creep in! All those things you mention above should be nofollow.

Affiliate links will harm your rankings if they aren't nofollowed. As far as I know this seems to be automated. It can affect your PageRank/ability to pass link juice, but to a lesser extent.

Paid links will harm your PageRank/ability to pass link juice if you're flagged for it. This tends to be manual, unless you sell links through a network (e.g. some kind of paid post site) which is discovered, and then I guess it's kind of semi-manual, if that makes sense.

I personally don't think Google ads have a significant direct effect (there may be secondary effects relating to your page speed etc.), but a lot of SEOs do believe it and I'm prepared to accept it might have a slight negative impact.

 

[mif]

> All those things you mention above should be nofollow.

OK, I'm fine with that. As long as G actually, properly, respects our usage of nofollow. Which in an ideal world, they would. BUT, then the spammers and the muppets start to use nofollow to cloak content! ...And then any usage of nofollow in and of itself implies we could be being naughty.

That's what worries me about using it.

I guess we have to assume that G has some form of nofollow-% metric, where if a page is all possibly-cloaked, bad, and some-low-% nofollowed, OK

--
Mike

 

[mif]

>> And if I have a direct banner or even text link relationship with 'Alps Motorcycle Tours' (perhaps www.amt.com?foo=mif) - is that a paid-link in G's eyes. Clearly it is paid, but its not recognisably 'affiliate'.

>Google recommends those kinds of links be nofollow. The idea is that the site is paying for you to refer your traffic to them, not paying you to improve their search rankings.

Depends on context. If Alps M/C Tours sponsor an article I wrote about motorcycle touring, with their banner above the fold, that's a good thing. It means my hosting costs get paid, I get something for my writing time, and the internet has a useful informative article about motorcycle touring that it would not otherwise have. Google should _support_ that, even as far as improving my reputation!

However, I'll make it nofollow, just to be clear and squeeky-clean about it - "no, honest, its not there just so they can get good ranking, look, I nofollowed it"

--
Mike

 

[Blossom]

As long as G actually, properly, respects our usage of nofollow. Which in an ideal world, they would. BUT, then the spammers and the muppets start to use nofollow to cloak content!

What?

Depends on context. If Alps M/C Tours sponsor an article I wrote about motorcycle touring, with their banner above the fold, that's a good thing. It means my hosting costs get paid, I get something for my writing time, and the internet has a useful informative article about motorcycle touring that it would not otherwise have. Google should _support_ that, even as far as improving my reputation!

It doesn't depend on context. In Google's eyes, you should write an article about motorcycle touring because you want to and because it's useful information that would help people in some way, not because you're paid to shoehorn a link in there to help someone else's rankings. Whether than can prove or even detect a relevant in-content paid link is another debate entirely.

If they are hypocritical about anything to do with paid links, it's saying some paid directory links are acceptable and some aren't.

 

[mif]

It doesn't depend on context. In Google's eyes, you should write an article about motorcycle touring because you want to and because it's useful information that would help people in some way, not because you're paid to shoehorn a link in there to help someone else's rankings. Whether than can prove or even detect a relevant in-content paid link is another debate entirely.

Quite so. I am using a real-world example. I wrote that article and had it on my site for some time, then was approached by a tour company who offered to sponsor it in return for a banner. Should I have refused? Should authors make a living writing books? Can I make a living as a writer of articles on a web site? Of course that is all moot wrt the current discussion, since it would be an impressive 'bot that could divine the subtlety of the above.

I completely agree that shoehorning a link into some poorly-written text, or just because somebody is paying me, is bad. I get a couple of approaches a week asking me to take paid 'guest posts'. Should I sell my soul to the devil? Probably not, though the money is tempting.

--
Mike

 

[devilsrefugee]

>> And if I have a direct banner or even text link relationship with 'Alps Motorcycle Tours' (perhaps www.amt.com?foo=mif) - is that a paid-link in G's eyes. Clearly it is paid, but its not recognisably 'affiliate'.

>Google recommends those kinds of links be nofollow. The idea is that the site is paying for you to refer your traffic to them, not paying you to improve their search rankings.

Depends on context. If Alps M/C Tours sponsor an article I wrote about motorcycle touring, with their banner above the fold, that's a good thing. It means my hosting costs get paid, I get something for my writing time, and the internet has a useful informative article about motorcycle touring that it would not otherwise have. Google should _support_ that, even as far as improving my reputation!

However, I'll make it nofollow, just to be clear and squeeky-clean about it - "no, honest, its not there just so they can get good ranking, look, I nofollowed it"

--
Mike

+1
I feel the same about nofollow comments on posts.

You should be rewarded (even with a small token) should you contribute useful discussion via commenting. Imo its up to the 'webmaster' to admin those comments and not approve spammy comments that bear no relevance. This way should the comments generally get flagged by G then the blame should lie with the webmaster for allowing it. But now, (generally) nobody comments because there is nothing really in it for them.

 

[Blossom]

+1
I feel the same about nofollow comments on posts.

You should be rewarded (even with a small token) should you contribute useful discussion via commenting. Imo its up to the 'webmaster' to admin those comments and not approve spammy comments that bear no relevance. This way should the comments generally get flagged by G then the blame should lie with the webmaster for allowing it. But now, (generally) nobody comments because there is nothing really in it for them.

Yes I agree...if comments are actively moderated then there should be no problem.

I comment quite a lot because it's a reciprocal thing (as long as you comment on the right sites); people visit you back, and often drop a comment as well. Obviously that doesn't work for strongly commercial blogs.

If you're a WordPress user, KeywordLuv and CommentLuv are definitely worth looking out for on sites.