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RobertClough
@iBrian: No loss in traffic and the number of inbound links is up so no complaints on that front.
For us TBPR is meaningless. From what we know, this is the third manual adjustment they've done on us and our advertisers have stuck with us because green pixels don't affect our ability to deliver customers to them.
But, a significant loss of traffic would hurt us and that is what will happen if Google decides they really want to do harm. So, what Jennifer and I are doing now is looking at how much traffic Google sends us, how much it will cost to replace it and how quickly we can replace it.
Halfdeck,
I'm in the middle of getting the kids fed and ready for school so maybe you could throw me a bone and let me know which sponsor you are referring to? robert@searchengineguide.com
That way I can dump the advertiser and have everyone fed, dressed and off to school asap. :-)
Thanks,
Robert
Halfdeck, thank you for sending the email with the sponsor in it! They are gone and gone. :-)
I'm going to take this a bit out of order...
If you are selling PageRank as part of a package...
This reminds me of those "buy a star" certificates where you send $15 and the company will send you a nice certificate with "your" star named after you.
Did they really sell you that star? No. They don't possess it, they can't deliver it, and you can't collect it. So all they are really selling you is a fun little story.
I don't possess PageRank. I can't deliver PageRank. And a buyer can't collect PageRank from me. And I've never even tried to sell the fun little story. Why, because I don't know how to sell stories. But, I am pretty good at selling advertising. With advertising, I can track traffic delivered and I can take customer feedback on conversions and work with them to continually improve our ability as a team to improve their results.
First, Robert, if you are not selling PageRank, there is absolutely no reason not to use nofollow
You may think it odd, but I totally understand your sentiment. But I think an equally valid viewpoint is, I'm not selling PageRank so why should I be considered guilty simply because I don't make changes to my site that have ZERO benefit to my users?
I understand your point of view, now do you better understand mine? I'm not asking you to agree with it, just hoping you'll better understand it and consider the fact that there are a lot of us out here who bristle a bit at being declared guilty of something we haven't done.
I've been selling graphic/text ad packages the same way since before Google existed. Was I selling PageRank back then? I think we'd both agree the answer is no. Am I selling PageRank now. I know with 100% certainly that I am not. Of course, you may speculate that I am and that is your prerogative.
Now, I left this until now because I believe my previous points needed to be made first. I can give you a concrete reason not to use nofollow when I'm not selling PageRank. I used to do everything in notepad so I have hundreds (a thousand?) hand coded pages that I would need to go back and change all the ads to fully comply with this. That will cost time and money. Yep, this is my problem and no one else's. But, now you know a reason why someone who isn't selling PageRank would not want to implement nofollow.
Aside from the points that I mentioned above there is a big issue that if addressed would probably be enough for me to be willing to go through the effort of putting in nofollow.
As far as I know, Google has not published on their site the information regarding their stance on nofollow and why and how we should implement it. If I am wrong and they have published this, please correct me. But by not officially publishing this on their site, Google is doing a disservice. The vast majority of small businesses out there who we serve, have no clue about this. I can't point them to a page on Google that explains their position and how to implement it.
I would have a lot more respect for Google if they would simply make this information officially available on their site instead of thinking people should just hear about it through the grapevine. Ignorance of the law is no excuse if you break the law. But never publishing the law for all to see is an abuse of power.
So, Halfdeck, always interesting to read your perspective and perhaps I've given you better insight into mine.
So for anyone looking for an out and out mud-slinging brawl, it's not going to happen here!
I don't know, if Google drops the bomb on us I'm going to need something sensational to draw some traffic. :-P
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