I'm very new to the Coop. It was introduced to me by gentlemen who optimized my vBulletin forum. To be completely honest, I vaguely understand the whole concept and just today figured out how the anchor text works. I have two phrases set up as my anchor text in my coop ads. Now, from what I understand, these get served on other sites in the coop. Now, Google or MSN comes by, sees that search phrase or anchor text linked to my site. The moree sites with anchor text search phrases linked to my site and that improves my ranking for that particular term because the associated search engine sees my site as the authority. How many terms should I be using? Should I be driving to internal pages or my homepage? I've noticed my impressions have gone way down. Not sure why? Right now, I'm considering Link Vault. Not being an expert, I rely on expert advice -- and this was recommended. I'm just like any other site owner -- I want to increase traffic. Above all, although most say it doesn't happen, I'm concerned about my site being penalized. Any tips, suggestions or sage advice is very much appreciated. These boards have been invaluable and Shawn's tools are great. Thanks. -Chris
I'm sorry, this is just a daft thing to say. Being penalised by Google has bugger all to do with a sites legality. As for the original question, whether you will get penalised - probaly not. The are both a type of advertising network. The risk with coop is you get a lot of links all at once and they rotate, so this may raise a red flag at google, although most people accept they do no penalised you, they just discount the COOP links. Link Vault on the other hand is a permanent network, so IMO less likely to raise any flags at google. There are quite a few threads already about the pros and cons of both DP COOP and Link Vault, so it might be worth doing a search to save it al getting repeated.