Hey everyone, I've got a blog-like website with PR4, growing rapidly. I've been contacted to put up a few ads in the form of linking the word in the content of the article. I was wondering if having a couple of words here and there with hyperlinks to other irrelevant websites hinders my websites reputation in search engines, it's PR or anything else? Thanks!
It won't be bad as long as you do not overdo it. Google has it's Ad service, Adsense, and they do not have nothing against ads. Though they ask from users to use not more than 3 adsense blocks. If you wish to sell links, paid links aren't approved by Google and will frown on them, but it won't be easy for them to spot.
I few links to other sites wont hurt your site. However if google suspects that you are selling links on your site for seo purposes they will dock you PR.
Over doing it would definitely hurt your blog's value. If there are more number of outgoing links to irrelevant sites, your ranking may go down, therefore make sure you do it within a limit.