It’s been a widely accepted theory for quite some time that Google give extra value to links with age, which means rotating links will inevitable have less strength. There is a very good thread at search engine watch all about rotating links: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3865 (started in January, but its still current) Although, if people are so worried about the rotating nature of the links why not join a network which uses permanent links like www.link-vault.com you won’t get all your links at once though, you have to ‘grow’ them.
Yes: I have already joined one of my domains this week. The problem is they are so new and thier process of approvals seems entirely human based. The reason I have done is my SERPS on my main keyphrases have been slip sliding for about 1 month now. How knows why . After reading many articles about link-churning from reputable sources. I am now looking for permenent linking. The DP COOP network, many claim the click through is great...so I am keeping most of my domains here until I can properly assess link-vaultage.
I had a chance to beta test it some time back but there are so few in it right now, you will be giving up a lot of business by switching. Its one to watch though as I would expect with Alan backing it, it will grow at a pretty good rate. My other reason for not using it in earnest is he also choose not to go down the related path. He has also indicated that he has no plans to (or at least did a few months ago)
You left out the Springer type threads... - My ad got denied and now I'm mad so I'm gonna strip live online - I suffer from Coop Involvement Anxiety and so does my twin - I've never been able to validate the Coop, so now my twin and I are gonna strip live online ... what else?
If I understand the TOS correctly you can be a member of multiple ad networks, but you can't display multiple ads for multiple ad-networks on the same page. If you can however display the coop ads on every page bellow:www.example.com/somepath/ and have some other network ads on every page bellow: www.example.com/someotherpath/
From tos - "This means those sites are not able to utilize a similar advertising network" Link Vault is quite different to coop, so maybe it would not be considered a similar scheme? As with Link Vault the links aren't site wide (you just pick which pages you want them to appear on, and how many - plus they are permanent so its just like having 'normal' links. So maybe they would be ok if you just had link vault on some pages,but not all?
It might be wise to post that question in its own thread to be sure Shawn sees it and get what is allowed straight from the top. We can speculate all we want but its not worth risking an account being closed over speculation.
Link vault isn't terribly different... the main thing is their ads don't rotate, but beyond that, it's pretty similar.
So Shawn, can you clarify the TOS? Can you only run one ad network on a domain? Or is it per page (or folder)?
It's per page... it's perfectly okay to run the co-op ad network on one section (a sub-domain or folder for example), and other ad networks elsewhere.
Is it that much of a programming issue to not have the dp co-op links permanent??? The links can be dished out random based on weighting as of the moment - you take the same random chance based on weighting that you will get a good PR highly spidered page... And Google loves it that much more. Why not!!!
No, it's not hard at all from a technical standpoint, but it's been discussed before. Devaluing the network as an advertising network and trying to turn it into a link network is not a direction the co-op is going to take though. Static ads have very little advertising value... Which is why you don't see major ad networks (AdSense for example) running static ads on every page.
How could the links be permanent? What if your weight goes down? What will happen to the permanent links? And what if your weight goes up, were will you stay permanent with new links? And you would have the 'hey, that guy as a link in a PR7, my links are all in PR1, it's not fair' threads all over the place... Coop is an advertising network, the good think is that it gives you lots of backlinks helping you to go up in SERPs. See this as a banner exchange or a "site of the day"... Links are rotating but you still get something good from it...
I still have not seen any comment about the co-op program recalculating the weight several times, when weight drops significantly, then email if the weight does not come back up. This would save a lot of problems. The value clickthroughs from the links pale into insignificance compared to the value of ranking higher on the search engines. While the network may get pages higher to MSN and Yahoo, and higher for Google in the short term, I need something for myself and to recommend to clients and referers that can be trusted as much as possible to get higher rankings on Google for competitive words/phrases on a long term consistent basis, and get click thoughs. I realise that you do not rate SEO that highly - you have not done many particular hacks to seo your VBulletin - but achieving higher rankings on the search engines is something that being part of the co-op has achieved for me, but now I am seeing a little slide, and I would prefer to not be part of anything that Google has specifically devalued or most likely will devalue in the future. I want to get to the top, and to recommend something that will get others to the top of competitive phrases. I want to be the best that I can be, and be part of a program that is the best that it can be. Please! One of the big values of the co-op is how people are able to rank higher for their search terms. To get the best value out of this, permanent links would be the best. There are fair ways of calculating permanent links - calc PR per page when that page contacts the co-op and assigning weight per page/per site, and dishing out links on that basis. Weight increases, more links, weight decreases, the permanent links get removed. As you said - you would be able to easily program whichever way you consider is best for a permanent link type scheme. You are the programming genius, please make this an even more genius scheme relating to SEO. Is this not something for a poll? - Do you rate getting higher on the search engines a higher priority than the value of clickthroughs from the co-op ads.
As I've said before... the ad network is not a link exchange, it's an advertising network. If you are looking for a link exchange, there are other networks that would be more suited for what you are looking for.
It is always the webmaster's choice how they wish to promote a website. The COOP has been great to me. Like almost anything, nothing lasts forever. It is then our choice to move on. I can respect your call on this, Shawn. Yes you have accomplished your goal. The COOP definately has effect in SERPS with the other se's for now. Like some suggest, those days may be numbered as well. I appreciate the time and effort you have put into this. Maybe it's time for something 'new to experiment with'... Cheers
It's not that easy to come up with new/original ideas all the time. I'm sure I'll think of something new to play with one of these days.