Comments on: Do A-Listers Really Still Promote Text-Link-Ads?

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:33:13 +0000

I’m not sure about TLA specifically but I know a lot of the big guys are still selling text links. Yaro Starak has talked about this recently and even though he did get slapped quite severely, his income didn’t drop and selling links makes him money so he continues to sell them though I think he uses the no-follow tag now.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:51:14 +0000

Court, thanks for informing us about text link ads. I wasn’t aware google didn’t like them. I haven’t used them at all, but I was considering it.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 14:03:24 +0000

Are you going to go back and edit your “Masterful Monetization Tutorial” to include your little disclaimer? Or are you going to stop pushing it in that article to avoid the hypocrisy you bluster about?

By: Money Never Sleeps

Money Never Sleeps — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:26:56 +0000

Its funny that you mention this…I have one site that is just a hobby UFC fighting site, another I try and really make money from..the UFC site has no ads and it has a PR5 while the one I’m pushing has a PR0…it seems Google really looks at the links you sell! My advice, build traffic and sell affiliate products…no ads, maybe a few sponsored reviews but thats it!!! trust me Court!

By: Denise

Denise — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:53:09 +0000

Now I have to figure out how to leave a nofollow on my ads (when they start to come in)

By: chinedu

chinedu — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:59:06 +0000

I think its quite a time you post another stuff here and moreso, i just cant find any of my comments uploaded here and don’t know why anyway.

By: Furniture Store

Furniture Store — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:36:40 +0000

That’s a very good topic you picked to write a post on. It seems to created a lot of debate one way and another; Google and their actions always seem to create a lot of reactions. Debate is always a great indicator of how good a post is i think

By: Court

Court — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:31:08 +0000

Frank as always I appreciate your input.

The debate in this thread really though is whether Google penalizes people for using advertising methods other than Adsense, and this isn’t why you were penalized.

Frank I know that you have your beliefs about Google but I just don’t see how any of that matters to people trying to make money with the internet. I don’t want to debate that because it simply doesn’t matter to me.

Unlike many other people Frank, I don’t care about what Google does. I care about how I can benefit from the traffic that they can and do provide to me.

By: Frank C

Frank C — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:31:53 +0000

As I noted above they penalized me and I don’t sell PR. I think I drew the penalty because I simply mentioned Izea, TLA and other such services in plain text in a post. Their flawed algorithms marked me as selling PR and they refuse to reinstate it.

Of course, I’m also highly critical of their ageist hiring practices as well as some of their other business practices that remind me of how Microsoft, AT&T, IBM and others have operated in the past but I doubt that would get a PR penalty.

The bottom line is that they’re simply forcing the practice of selling PR underground. It would have been better to have quietly discounted links their algorithms assumed were paid rather than taking a brute force slap approach. Having an overwhelming control of a market and being forceful against ‘the little guy/gal’ is a sure way to end up being the subject of Congressional investigations and FTC/DOJ probes, something neither we or they want since it will be bad for both our businesses.

By: Ruck

Ruck — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:57:50 +0000

*a little off topic*

“Do you think they are going to take the time to educate themselves about the subject as much as you have?”

Thank you for that sentence Court. I just recently had this backfire on me. Reading your words made me open my eyes a bit on how I should word my posts a little better.

Thanks,
Ruck