• 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.
• 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).

The site Text-Link-Ads.com pretty much doesn’t appear in search results at all (except in a paid ad at the top of the results). So, it’s okay for TLA to be shown in search results only if they pay Google? Other sites, like JohnChow.com, have met similar fates, though Chow’s site may have been demoted for other reasons.

The original idea of TLA is interesting, though Google obviously doesn’t like it. Here’s my idea: Why doesn’t TLA start offering an option to sell links with nofollow attributes attached so no PageRank is passed-on to the advertiser? Google can’t complain about that, and we still get compact, unintrusive ads. Or does Google have another reason for trying to kill TLA? Could they be trying to prop-up their AdSense ad network?

Maybe Google needs to stop putting so much emphasis on links. They need to find more variables to factor-in to their calculations. Keywords used to be the largest factor in search ranking before Google came along. Nowadays keywords are of little importance compared to incoming links. Should incoming links meet the same fate as keywords?

The site penalties are not isolated to the TLA program. Selling any sort of link without an attached nofollow attribute could kill your Google search rankings.

It would be nice if Google got over their link addiction, but I doubt it will happen any time soon. I think that TLA needs to start using nofollow tags though. PageRank effects aside, TLA is a great idea. “Traditional” ads tend to annoy users, driving them towards ad-blocking software. Text links are compact and far from annoying. So, TLA, change the whole idea of your program. Go from “increase your PageRank” to “don’t annoy people with your ads.”