Clear Disclosure of Sponsorship Is Critical

There seems to be some ambiguity among marketers and webmasters concerning paid links and whether or not they should affect search engine rankings. If you care about Google, and you should since in almost all cases Google is your largest target audience, you should know Google’s policy on paid links as outlined by Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team…

Clear disclosure of sponsorship is critical, and that includes disclosure for search engines. If a link in a paid post would affect search engines, that link should not pass PageRank (e.g. by using the nofollow attribute). Google — and other search engines — do take action which can include demoting sites that sell links that pass PageRank, for example.

Being familiar with Google’s user guidelines and policies is important for marketers and search professionals who follow best practices and are helping to contribute to the quality and growth of search as a marketing and information tool. It can also keep you out of trouble!