I keep seeing ppl say things like: "Will doing this be punishable by Google? "Is this illegal? (in terms of SEO)" "Will my rankings be decreased if I__" What exactly are they talking/worried about? What kind of activities would make Google punish you?
Read the Google quality guidelines. If you don't follow them, you may be punished.... http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#quality
Google has penalized people for paid links (not for nofollow), sponsoring too many phpld and wp themes. They also have a 'report paid' links page. They don't like cloaking too This might be useful: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 Nofollow FAQ: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=96569
ah. thanks! Now that leads to another question - I read the page's definition of 'Nofollow' - but still not sure I'm getting it. Is Nofollow like, say I type a link here http://www.youtube.com, if I put the Nofollow code around it, Google won't count this as a backlink? Why would webmasters use this?
It is a lovely and intelligent question. Nofollow are very effective in maintaining a quality linkjuice. I hope this post will help you a bit. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/five-situations-where-you-should-use-nofollow-for-linking/6361/
Nofollow is being 'misused' and many webmasters make all external links nofollow to 'retain' PR Recommendation is to use nofollow for paid links or links that you don't think are good enough (but are still there on your website). Like blog comment link.
There are 3 major penalties that google dishes out. 1. The take you out of the index completely. 2. They move you to the end of the results (aka -950 penalty). 3. They move you down the results to at least #30 (aka -30 penalty). Google for those terms and you'll find out a lot of info on how and why the penalties are applied.
Cool - thanks so just in case anyone else wanted to know: the Google DON'Ts are: link farms, hidden texts, and unauthorized computerized programs for page and site submissions Thanks for everyone's help!