In light of all that Matt Cutts has said about paid links and especially links to unrelated sites, how is it that w3schools seems to be able to place unrelated links (which I assume are paid) on their site? The links can be seen on the right hand side of the page under what is apparently the Shopping category. I see the same link on http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_sessions.asp and http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_cookies.asp, but I am unsure if it site wide. Here's an excerpt of their code: <table class="right" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr><td align="center" class="right"> <a target="_blank" href="http://www. blackjackballroom. com" title="Online Casinos">Online Casinos</a> </td></tr></table> Code (markup): As you can see, there is no nofollow attribute. I also fail to see exactly how online casinos are related to learning php.
Why wouldn't they be able to put links? Google have no control over that. The idea that google are going to do anything about paid links is laughable. There is no way google can determine if a link has been purchased or not, And even if they can, Google can't tell people how they are and are not allowed to advertise.
All of the links on the side are not nofollow. Google might stop them from passing link value. You could report it to Matt Cutts and see what he says. I don't report anything.
Sure they can, if theres a link for pills or casino on a site about guide dogs then its a fair bet its a bought link. Also loads of sites are using text like "buy links", "advertise here", "text links $x" etc, again very easy to see they are paid links. Thats correct, its your site and you can do what you want with it. But then dont cry when they stop you passing PR or blacklist your site or something, either play to their rules or risk getting burned!
Oh, I agree with you 100%. To me, it's Google trying to tell the world how the internet should be run. I understand that their algorithm can be manipulated by paid links, and that they'll have a hard time maintaining relevent, natural rankings if there isn't some way to account for paid links, but that sounds like a problem with thier business model, not everyone else's. Asking me to play Gestapo and report paid links puts search engines in a governing body role that I don't want them in.
I guess it's very easy for them to simply stop the PR juice since the sites are WAY off topic(I mean casino != PHP), and probably that's the "paid links won't count" deal. But on the other hand, people may be clicking on it, so it justifies the $$. It's not always about PR, it's about people clicking on it.
I'd be surprised if that link is there for people to click it, the subject is way way out so they'll hardly be getting any traffic from it.
Why would it be a fair bet that a site linking to a non-related site is selling text links? I link to non-related sites all the time. I do so because they have something i feel my readers would be interested in, Even though it may have nothing to do with what my site is generally about. And even if the links are purchased, So what? People are allowed to advertise. The last thing i would worry about is passing PR. But let's assume what you say is correct and that google can determine if a link has been purchased or not. How can it be fair for them to dictate how we advertise on our own sites? What is the alternative? Use javascript to display those links? It is also against the webmaster guidelines to do anything that purposefully hides a page element from the google bot. So what you are saying is don't advertise at all unless you use adwords and adsense. Google are trying to frighten people in to not managing thier own advertising campaigns and instead go through them, And from your reaction i can see that they have succeeded.
I guess it proves that when money is at stake, nobody's listening to Google. Google is one of the spammiest companies on the internet to be telling anyone how to do business. They get sued every day because of their business practices.
By the way, that is exactly what you did with this thread. Google employees troll this forum all the time. -Michael
A link exchange scheme like that is just as bad as buying/selling links! So you're going to get punished exactly the same.