7 replies to this topic

[DarrenC]

I'm the blogger of a very popular blog within it's niche, and over two years ago, I allowed people to submit their travel articles for free and I would post them as a 'page' rather than an actual blog post, and linked to all of these pages from an article index page.

These articles have brought me tons of traffic, but I have a few concerns.

Whilst the links are not paid I do allow 2 links in an article, and the page it directs to must be related to the actual content. I am very fussy which articles I allow, and I usually add images, and tart up the article so it looks professional for the reader.

1) should I no-follow these links?
2) should I put a disclaimer that these are not paid links?
3) is there anything I should be doing to ensure that I am not penalised by Google or any other search engine?

I have a backlog of over 50 articles, that I'd like to submit for readers, and to increase traffic more.

Would appreciate your advice.

Edited by DarrenC, 21 December 2007 - 10:15 PM.

[joedolson]

I see no reason, given the situation you've outlined, that you should need to use nofollow or disclose anything.

It seems to me that you're offering a service by publishing the articles (assuming you're providing author citation) and that you're providing articles that should at least be of potential interest to your readership.

The whole subject of "paid" contributions or "paid" links is very sketchy --- the definition of what a "paid link" actually is is rather unclear.

Almost every link/content relationship has some kind of financial layer --- the paid links which Google wants to stop tend to be amongst the more direct financial relationships. But it's not a simple split between 'direct' and 'indirect.' More of a spectrum from "I paid you $1000 to put this link on your site, on the condition that it passes Pagerank" to "I'm hiring somebody to write me great content with the intention of promoting it as linkbait" all the way to "I'm paying to join this completely official professional association which allows me to place a link to my web site on theirs."

All of those are, in one way or another, purchased links --- but only the first one is explicitly frowned upon by search engines. In my view, what you need to do is make your own personal decision on the ethical question, completely ignoring the search engine's opinion on that aspect. Then, you need to decide whether it's possible for the search engines to identify what you are doing as questionable. Last, you need to ascertain the risks and benefits.

In your case, however, I just don't see any problem. As long as you're keeping an eye on the relationship of the links to content and keeping the content quality high, there really aren't any obvious flags --- and, in my opinion, there's no reason that what you're doing really is a problem.

[EGOL]

This is not an easy question and I understand why you ask it.

First, it sounds like this is working well for you. You are getting tons of traffic and folks are still giving you articles. Most important, you are fussy about what articles you accept.

My question is.... are you equally fussy about where the links are going and do you every check the old articles to see if the links are still going to a nice site? The reason that I ask, is... linking to bad neighborhoods is one of the deadly sins.

If you have checked the link destinations and are happy with them (and you think that google would be happy with them and they are not redirected), then keep moving with this.

Here is what I would do about the links.... If the old links are still going to nice sites I would leave them "as is". I am willing to bet that lots of the authors gave you those articles simply for the compensation of a link. If you remove the links or nofollow them then they will be angry.

Moving forward, I would modify my deal, that the articles will have a single link and that link will be in the author's credit paragraph at the bottom of the article. Or it could be at the top of the article....

"How to Find Bargains When Shopping in London"
By Joe Schmoe of londonshopping.com

Maintain your high standards, be careful where you link, congratulations on what sounds like a successful site.

[DarrenC]

Great replies and thanks.

Good points about the links and making sure they stay in good neighbourhoods.

I do check the links prior to making the article live.

Authors can't change their article, but there's nothing stopping the site closing down and some dodgy outfit buying the domain name.

I probably need to visit the articles from time to time and check the links.

Obviously, the authors are sending articles to promote their site for search engines and visitors, and some of them have made the link text a keyword term, i.e. cheap travel insurance.

Should I be stepping away from this type of link and only allowing them to use link keyword term for their business or website name?

[EGOL]

If they have deep content sites about the same subject as the article, I would not have a problem linking to them. However, if they are writing these article simply to jack up the PR of a competitive landing page on a site without useful and related content then I would be less enthusiastic about giving the link.

In an ideal world these articles would be written by real authors who love to write and the link would go to the homepage of their personal site or a deep content site that they have on a very related topic. No problem linking to that.

However, if you were a search engine and you saw lots of "Cheap airline tickets" links on articles about pet care, what would you think about the intent of that link?

[DarrenC]

However, if you were a search engine and you saw lots of "Cheap airline tickets" links on articles about pet care, what would you think about the intent of that link?

EGOL,

I'd think that they are trying to manipulate the SERPs and the article is for SEO rather than providing valuable content for the reader.

I am going to revisit my submission instructions and go through the 50ish articles previously submitted.

The reason why I am now very careful about how I maintain the blog is because I used to sell links, and I got my PR reduced by Google. Thankfully my SERPs and traffic has remained, but I am unable to remove the links until they expire.

I'll then apply to Google to relook at the situation.

Lesson learnt, but generating revenue on the blog is much more difficult now, and not many companies want to advertise in banners, and if I can't earn a living selling links, then I won't place Google's AdWords links on the blog as a matter of principle.

Darren

[EGOL]

Glad that your traffic and SERPs are holding up. I hope that you find a good income replacement.

Although principle is important, I might try Adsense if I was in your situation. If you can find good placements and formats you can make some nice income from it.

Lots of people will disagree with me... but if I owned Google I might favor adsense earning sites in the SERPs.

[Bluebonic]

Hi I know I'm new here so hello everyone & hi Bill, I heard about this forum at PubCon. If your fear is of article SERP manipulation I would either go through and nofollow links on a case by case basis as stated above. I wouldn't be too generous here as i'm sure your blog will still offer the article creator a fair amount of targeted traffic from a trusted source.

Have you taken a look at your internal follow/nofollow structure? I'd definitely read into that after the externals are taken care of- but be careful here.

I believe in building long term results with organics while always maintaining a minimal PPC campaign to successfully keep an online business afloat. In a nutshell, links have been the answer to those long term results. When I started out, link building was so overwhelming. I have discovered that its much better to start experimenting by doing a link search on one of your competitors and following up with those sites (use your judgment) - these are the people who will be more likely to accept your proposal. This has been more solid than the cold approach, for me that is. After repeated success you will discover ways to approach the Kaunas.

Edited by Bluebonic, 04 January 2008 - 12:39 AM.