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Went Hot: December 30, 2007 - 2:49 pm
Posted By: AndyBeard 553 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://community.izea.com)
Category: Google SEO
Ted suggests that Matt confirmed to him that Techcrunch "thanks" posts were in violation, and questions why "easy to spot" 125x125 pagerank passing links are allowed, but all links in compensated content have to be nofollowed.
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If the email snippet posted by Ted is true then a whole barrage of sh*t has just hit a Hell of a lot of fans.
Surely the time has come where we are no longer informed of this kind of thing via posts on other peoples sites, the occasional comment from Matt and posts on his own self styled unofficial site?
From Ted's blog, purported to be from Matt Cutts:
"Google (and probably all search engines) will consider all links in a paid post to be paid. If a link were truly editorial, someone wouldn't have had to pay for a review to get that link--the PageRank seller would have made the link on their own, without any payment involved."
I'd say the same is true for Yahoo!'s directory. So when are they going to either start nofollowing or giving away free listings? Oh, that's not the same because they're charging for the 'review' process. Unlike the paid posting. No wait, that's not right. The blogs are charging for a review as well.
My head hurts just thinking about it :).
My wish fro 2008 is a clearer defintiuon of what happens to websites when they DO and DON'T use the nofollow attribute. If your putting the request out there Google (matt) then tell us exactly why and what will happen. This grey area when talking with this issue is sicking.
There is no grey area. Don't use nofollow. Nofollow is for Google's benefit, not yours. The confusion over this is because it's FUD, pure and simple. There is no benefit to you as the user to use this outside of blog comments (and I personally question even that).
If you're linking stragegy is such that you need to worry about getting busted for not using nofollow, the problem's not nofollow or Google, it's your linking strategy - you look too much like an SEO and not enough like a natural. Make your site more natural looking via it's backlinks. If instead you want to CONFIRM that you're doing SEO, go ahead and put nofollow on and remove any doubt. OUtside cookie cutter software, the only people using nofollow enmasse are SEO'ers. You might as well send Matt Cutts an email asking for a personal hand review of your site.
Step back and think about this. I might get nailed if I don't use nofollow. Why? Because there's something about my site that says I'm selling or buying links. Well, shucks, just change it so Google can't tell if you're buying or selling links. This is not difficult.
{It's worth noting that Matt Cutt's explicitly called these people pagerank sellers, not serp manipulators or anything else. I suspect that was quite deliberate.)
Very, very good points wheel.
Almost no one knows what the hell a nofollow is. Although Cutts can review my site till his eyes bleed, it's legit. No sales, no exchanges, no nothin.
I'll admit I smiled yesterday as I no-followed my link to Google Images.
Nice post wheel and understood.