I'm concerned because a close friend has been offered $950 up front to advertise text-only links for two months on my friend's Web site. The $950 has been deposited in my friend's PayPal account. Here's what worries me. The advertiser is adding key terms to the site's URL. Like this, using this site as an example, these text links will be placed in the advertising column of the site: http://books.digitalpoint.com/ -- the text link is Books http://diamonds.digitalpoint.com/ -- the text link is Diamonds http://autos.digitalpoint.com/ -- etc. http://DVDs.digitalpoint.com/ http://toys.digitalpoint.com/ Is this too good to be true? Can my friend's own domain name (e..g, digitalpoint.com) be ruined by this?
If I understand you correctly, it looks like the advertiser is just adding keywords to the URL to increase the likelihood that people will click on the link. It may also be inorder to help w/ search engine rankings.
Is this a legitimate use of a domain name? Will search engines react badly to this multitude of domain names?
It's on your friend to decide whether he wants to advertise those links or not. Yes, it helps the advertiser for traffic as well as SEO.