Dropping Your Text-Link-Ads? Read This First!

Oct 13, 2007 by Matt | Posted in Monetization 2 Comments

Are you killing your Text-Link-Ads after reading about how Google has been penalizing websites that sell text links? First, consider these two points:

  • With all of these sites panicking and removing their TLAs, the value of text ads is going up. If you continue to sell the ads, then you may be making more and more money as sites stop using the program. Personally, I’m too chicken to risk my rankings like that. :D
  • Sure, Google doesn’t like you selling text links on your website. What about the other services TLA offers? You can sell text links in your RSS feeds, which the big G doesn’t seem to have a problem with, or you can use their affiliate program.

I’d advise you against continuing to sell text links on your website, though I think TLA’s Feedvertising program is a good opportunity. Their affiliate program, used by ProBlogger Darren Rowse, seems to be profitable as well.

Feedburner’s RSS ad system is rather exclusive at the moment, and TLA’s is open to anyone (plus it seems to pay well).

  • http://www.kristarella.com kristarella

    I think that Google only penalises pages that use TLA without rel=”nofollow”.
    Good idea about the RSS feed too…

  • http://www.webmaster-source.com Matt

    Does TLA have a nofollow option? Selling links directly, you can use nofollow, but I didn’t think TLA let you sell nofollow links.

    The RSS ads seem really good, and I’m sure advertisers are starting to buy them a bit, with all the people who use RSS readers.