So... I'm learning that Google doesn't like it when people have paid for links for SEO. (I wish they would list all of the rules in one single place so there's no guess work, just one list.) Which means paying to be listed in a directory is something that Google doesn't like. Paying for a link being put on a website is something Google doesn't like. They also don't like, apparently, if I put ads on my website that people have paid for? I haven't had a problem with people posting paid advertisements in between blog posts. I state clearly that the website in a particular blog post is an ad, and the title usually says "Paid Advertisement". I've never put "nofollow" in those, as I usually only work with companies I trust. I'm trying to find a balance, moving forward, if I were to offer paid post privileges to clients. Should I only ever offer "nofollow" links from now on? Is there a way to tell what Google thinks about your website? How do other websites/blogs handle working with advertisers in this way?
Technically speaking, these "paid advertisement" links should be nofollow links. Google doesn't detect all websites which allow paid, followed links, but when they do they usually restrict your ability to pass any link juice to the sites you link to. They may also decrease the value of your toolbar Pagerank. With regards to paid directories, Google is OK with these providing they exercise some editorial judgement over any sites they link to. The top directories tend not to allow any optimised anchor text whereas most of the rest of them allow any anchor text you choose provided you pay them or link to them. So, there are two ways to handle working with advertisers. Either nofollow the paid links or be subtle about any paid links you choose to follow. Being subtle here means not marking them out as paid advertisements, not having too many paid links and not having paid links which lead to a bunch of sites in totally unrelated niches. For every paid blog post, for example, I'd make sure I have at least three or four blog posts which are not paid posts. This minimises the risk of Google suspecting that the links are paid links, but there is always going to be at least a small degree of risk when you follow paid links.
you should have a good ration of dofollow and nofollow links irrespective of paid or free ones. Also try doing it slow, 20-40 links a day for new sites to be in the safer side.
The only reason I've allowed it, is because I didn't realize there was a rule against it. I've not done it often. I often like to show support to websites and things that I love and give them links. So if moving forward, I add "no follow" to some links and do follow to particular ones, would that be a step in the right direction? Should I go back and add "no follow" to some links?
I wouldn't go back and change the ones that people paid for do-follow, as would practically defeat the point, unless you are passing mad traffic their way. I'd be pissed.