It is against our terms and conditions to have a
rel="nofollow"
on the [Text-Link-Ads] ads.
Let there be no more equivocation: Text-Link-Ads are black hat SEO sellers. They are a search engine influence broker.
Devil’s Advocate #1 says: “You’re just selling links… how is that different from Google Adsense or any other advertising?”
Response: You’re selling influence, through a link. Take away the influence (by nofollow
), and you’ll find yourself getting a letter from Text-Link-Ads saying your account has been placed on hold. The influence is the important part. The delivery mechanism is irrelevant. Focusing on the mechanism is a red herring.
Devil’s Advocate #2 says: “Search engines are smart enough to tell the difference between sponsored links and regular links.”
Response: No they’re not. Text-Link-Ads is completely predicated on its ability to fool search engines. Otherwise, they’d let you nofollow
the links. Also, they’d be paying you a lot less money.
Devil’s Advocate #3 says: “Search engines aren’t smart enough, but they should be! It’s not my fault that they’re not on their game.”
Response: I agree on both counts, but in the meantime you’re still knowingly polluting their search engine rankings with sponsored material. That’s black hat. Your day of reckoning is coming. Maybe you’ll be delisted. Maybe your PageRank will go down a few notches. Just know that you can’t shit on search engines and expect them to take it with a smile.
Devil’s Advocate #4 says: “It’s my site! I’ll do whatever I want!”
Response: I agree. And so do the search engines, which is why they’re trying to keep people like Text-Link-Ads from polluting their search results.
If you have another devil’s advocate (or maybe just devil) position that I haven’t addressed, let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post.