Trinity Mirror stops selling followed links - Christian Science Monitor starts... 3
I pointed out recently that the Trinity Mirror group was selling paid links in its footer without applying a nofollow. It's now stopped - the links now look like this: <a href="http://www.godirect.co.uk/life-insurance.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Life Insurance</a>
I shall claim the credit for this sudden change. I thank you (more examples of newspapers selling links here).
I've now spotted that the Christian Science Monitor is selling paid links in its footer without applying nofollow. Obviously, you don't have to do this (it's a Google guideline, not the law). Don't blame me if their rankings get affected ...
And you should see their relocation page - stuffed full of keyword-rich links to other sites:
Unfortunately, Delia Smith is still selling paid links though.
Interesting that csmonitor.com has been given a PR0, indicating that Google has devalued their paid links anyway? They don't seem to have been penalised in the SERPS though.
Odd. I see it as PR5? Anyway, they don't rank very high for Christian Science (5 or so) so maybe it is affecting them?
Have you had a look round the relocation section? The articles with the relocation icon on the index page are stuffed full of keyword links. It looks like SEO gone mad ...!
Yeah sorry bout that, looks like both my PageRank toolbars were playing up yesterday, it is PR5 so false alarm on that one.
Perhaps it was wishful thinking, I don't expect Google to pick up on this crap anytime soon to be honest!
And yes. That relocation section is a crazy giant paid link article farm. Definitely putting the "fun" back into Christian Fundamentalism. And it seems like Relocation.com have paid big money for this, they get links from every article it seems, plus a promient link from the homepage header of csmonitor.com! Actually I wonder if all the sites linked to are owned by relocation.com...?