Mega Challenge for Google Search Engine - Text-Link-Ads

Google and other major search engines (Yahoo, MSN Search etc.) which use back-links for importance calculation of a web page suffers from a fundamental flaw.

Back-links can be manipulated and even purchased. While Matt Cutts claim that they can be easily identified manually, I think it is a hard problem to solve algorithmically and hence to scale. However Google can apply few simple ideas to weed out bulk of link trading from major link traders.

The issue was highlighted to me because I display sponsored links on the front page of blog.taragana.com through text-link-ads. However all of my sponsored are always clearly marked with “nofollow” (or link condom as someone aptly named it) as per Google webmaster guidelines. This is to ensure that I am only providing them exposure on my blog but not page rank. When I signed for text-link-ads I carefully read their terms and conditions and there was nothing that prevented me from using nofollow on the outgoing sponsor links. To do this I wrote a custom WordPress plugin in PHP which processes their feed and displays the links with rel=nofollow added.

Couple of days ago I received an omnious email from text-link-ads:

Angsuman,

It is against our terms and conditions to have a rel=”nofollow” on the TLA ads. Could you please remove this? Please let me know once this is done and so we can send you payment for your links. Until then I have put your account on HOLD.

Brock Boser

Inventory Manager

Text-Link-Ads
a MediaWhiz Holdings, Inc. Company

They are holding back several hundreds of dollars!

I replied him today with:

Hi Brock,

When I signed up for text-link-ads I carefully noted the terms and conditions and I couldn’t find any condition anywhere which explicitly prohibited me from using nofollow on my links. Have the terms and conditions recently changed?

I am just following the Google Webmaster guidelines for sponsored links. Can you please clarify your position?

Best,
Angsuman

I hope he revises his stand on this issue. Let’s see if Brock plays fair. We will know in a day or two.

In a recent case Jeremy from Yahoo defended sponsored links as his site too had sponsored links but without “nofollow” tags. I disagree with his position. While search engines are not perfect they do a wonderful job of serving relevant content most of the time. I am willing to do my part to help them. However lots of webmaster who uses text-link-ads may not hold the same view. Google should also look at improving their algorithm to weed out sponsored links from affecting search results. I too have few ideas on how it can be done algorithmically.

What is your suggestion on what I should do? What would you have done?

Update: Please read the follow-up and conclusion to this issue.