Is It Wise To Accept Paid Advertising On My Site?

18 years ago

Hello Lainie,

A one time payment of $30 does seem low especially if the page it's to be placed on is getting lots of traffic.

Here's more info on Google and their feelings about paid links and passing page rank, etc.

Why should I report paid links to Google? - Webmaster Help Center

Hope this helps.

All The Best,

Tony

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Lainie

18 years ago

Thanks for the link Tony, that's helped clarify it for me.

Paid links for advertising purposes are OK as long as they have a rel="nofollow" attribute added to the <a> tag.

Does anyone know the correct way to add it? If the link was formatted like this:

<a href="http://www.advertisersite.com" target="_blank">Text link keyword</a>

where would the rel="nofollow" attribute go?

I've not added "nofollow" before and I don't think I've ever seen it in code either.

Thanks

Lainie

Thanks
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bgmacaw

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Lainie

Paid links for advertising purposes are OK as long as they have a rel="nofollow" attribute added to the <a> tag.

Does anyone know the correct way to add it? If the link was formatted like this:

<a href="http://www.advertisersite.com" target="_blank">Text link keyword</a>

where would the rel="nofollow" attribute go?

The placement isn't important so it can go anywhere inside the <a > area where the other attributes go.

The thing to keep in mind though is that virtually all of the people making such offers are looking for a followed link that will pass PageRank to their site. They aren't interested in 'advertising' on your site but are interested only in your 'Google Juice'.

Thanks

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Live4Freedom

18 years ago

At the end.

I had allot of info for you but even though I have been on the net when most of these people were still diapers, this site wont allow links in the beginning. Oh well too bad, sorry and I guess I will just say check out Matt's Blog from Google.

C ya

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Mike Hill

18 years ago

I would tell them that you offer No Follow paid advertising of $100 per month and see what they have to say. $30 one time for advertising on your is not very realistic on their part at all.

Mike Hill

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Tim Dixon 18 years ago

I would agree with Mike, $30 for a permanent link on a well trafficked page, no thanks!

But bgmacaw has a point, they're probably after the Google juice, but that's when it can become a little bit of a sticky area with Big G, although of course there are always ways around it. A natural link back to another site as part of the content on the page can be very difficult to highlight as a paid link by anybody looking.

But a text box ad is going to be fairly obvious......

Tim
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- Lainie 18 years ago
  
  Thanks everyone for your help.
  
  Live4Freedom - I found Matt's blog and spent a long time reading, thanks for that, I've come to the conclusion that they're just spammers and I shall ignore them.
  
  If they'd offered a realistic amount, like Mike suggested, I just might have fallen for it, but $30 one time payment for a link for the life of my website was a bit of an insult.
  
  I've learnt my lesson the hard way twice with Google so far and I don't intend to do it again if I can help it! So I shall be stearing well clear of any sticky areas with Google Tim, thanks for your input.
  
  So thanks to everyone who answered I'm a little bit wiser now.
  
  Much appreciated.
  
  Lainie
  
  Thanks
  
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Myles MacGregor

18 years ago

Generally, I find that accepting paid advertising on your site will just undermine your business. Once you have traffic coming to your site, don't send them elsewhere! All it's going to do for you is lose potential buyers.

However, if your site is getting a lot of traffic, and not converting well anyway, then go for it. I just think its suicide to bring paid advertising to a successful campaign.

Thanks

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Floyd Fisher

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Lainie

Is it a wise move to rent advertising space on my website because there has been a lot in the press about certain search engines penalizing website owners for adding paid links to their sites.

I have been approached several times by people wishing to 'buy a page' so they can place adverts on the page. The most recent has offered a one time payment of $30 to place a text ad onto a particular page on my site.

The page in question attracts quite a lot of traffic and is listed at number 2 on google, with an ezine article by me pointing to the same page at number 3.

So really I have two questions: Is it wise to accept the paid advertising and is this a fair amount to charge?

I thought advertising was charged at a monthly or yearly rate. A one time payment of $30 seems very low, but also and more importantly, I don't want to upset google and lose my search engine listing.

Thanks for any advice

Lainie

Just use a nofollow tag in the paid links, and you're all set.

Thanks
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Black Hat Cat

Banned 18 years ago

Is it a wise move to rent advertising space on my website because there has been a lot in the press about certain search engines penalizing website owners for adding paid links to their sites.

Ummm, how would any search engine know you were paid for the link? They wouldn't, unless you or the advertiser went around blabbing about it.

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Phil Weslow

18 years ago

Just be aware that the arangement that you suggested in your post might be in violation of Google's TOS. So the first question I would consider is, for the website you are considering placing these "ads" on, are you ok with the potential worst case senario of Google dropping your site from it's rankings.

With this in mind, I agree with some of the posts above, in the sense that there are blatant ways of doing this and some more subtle ways to engage in do-follow, text link sales.

As far as the offer that was made to you, there are several companies that match up buyers and sellers of do-follow text link ads. You can try text-link-ads.com or inlinks.com if you have a blog.

Thanks

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write-stuff

18 years ago

Guess I'll have to be one to disagree. Whether or not you accept paid advertising is a business decision and unless you're creating link farms I doubt Google cares (or even knows). The biggest most active sites on the internet earn HUGE fees for advertising and these are authority sites. One of my sites earns low four figures per month for selling ad banners and it is consistently #1 in Google for its keywords.

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ebusinesstutor

18 years ago

Why not sell paid banner advertising instead of permanent text links? That way you can still earn revenue there is not worry about Google applying penalities.

Thanks

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Is It Wise To Accept Paid Advertising On My Site?

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