All over the world, companies want links on websites. Why? Well, the main reason is that companies want (as we all know) to rank highly on Google. For the uninitiated, it may not be immediately clear how these two things are related.
To look at that subject a little more detail, let’s take a short but significant trip down memory lane.
A Little History
When Google was founded in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the majority of search engines (Yahoo was the search engine at the time) relied on counting keywords on web pages to determine relevance to the search term. So, when searching for “cats for sale” – pages with the words “cats for sale” written many times would rank highly. Understandably – this system wasn’t hard to game.
Google’s angle was different. They theorised that the best content on the internet would be linked to by other sites, so their ranking algorithm was based (almost entirely) on how many links were pointing at a site. If lots of different sites all linked to the same website about cats, with the anchor text cats for sale, then there was a pretty good chance that the page being linked to was a good resource about cats – specifically ones which were for sale. They attributed a value between 1 and 10 to each site based on the number of links it had pointing at it – they called this PageRank (as in Larry Page, not Web-Page).
Google were right, of course, and their innovative new search algorithm quickly proved that this was a reliable and efficient method for ranking sites. A few years later, they became the number one search engine in the world – where they remain today. But, as these things tend to go, companies went back to trying to game the system to rank at the top.
Even though Google’s algorithm relies much, much less on links alone than it did back in the nineties, people still want links because links make their site rank highly.
The State of The Link
People still want links so badly that they’re willing to pay large quantities of money to get them. The number one ranking position in a Google search can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to a company in revenue. A few high value links can often be worth an investment of $50-$500 per link.
So what happens? Bloggers are a great target. Google’s algoritm now includes lots of clever things like judging the value of a link based on the content around it. A link to a site about cats on a site about mechanical engineering isn’t worth much. A link to a site about cats on a pet blog, is worth a great deal.
A link to a site about travel bookings on a travel blog, is worth lots. Here’s where things get ethically questionable.
Selling links is a no-go, full stop, according to Google’s terms of service. If you sell links and Google find out, you will be kicked out of the search results and it can be very, very hard to get back in. What’s more – it’s rather easy to report a site selling links. Want to do it? Go ahead, there’s a very simple form to fill out to report people right here.
Why You Should Stop Spamming Your Readers
There’s a huge difference between advertising and paid links. Advertising is a transparent relationship between a blogger and a company – everyone can see the relationship, it’s fully disclosed. Paid links almost always go under the radar, they are a hidden transaction that goes on behind the scenes. As far as the reader is concerned, the links included in the content they’re reading is a legitimate recommendation from the author. If you sell paid links, you’re seriously, seriously doing it wrong.
Travel blogging revolves, as do all facets of blogging, around a degree of journalistic integrity. Your audience read your content because they expect it to be honest, frank, and to the point. They don’t expect your “honest recommendations” to be fueled by corporate motivations.
Short sighted travel bloggers, at this point, will cry “I have to make a living, don’t be so ridiculous, there’s no point running a travel blog if it doesn’t make money, and this makes money.” – and to those people I would say this: Without real content, you have no audience. Without an audience you have no traffic. Without any traffic, you have no blog. Selling links will work, sure, for now. Until you are ousted by your industry and shunned. Think that won’t happen to you?
It happened to this paid link buyer this week. Seriously. Click it.
Now consider the following: How easy would it be for someone to pose as a company wanting to buy a link from you purely for the sake of ousting you as a worthless travel blog publishing phony content?
Gawker, above, just proved that it isn’t out of the realm of possibility – and people didn’t exactly take kindly to the news.
If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content. That’s something we’d consider writing about on Travelllll.com – and if we don’t… someone else will. Let’s get this subject out in the open. This industry needs quality, it needs legitimacy, and it needs integrity. What it does not need, is any more link farms.
Run (transparent) sponsored posts, sell display media, talk about companies you’re working with. Don’t hide paid links in your content and claim that it was your own idea.
The travel blogging industry is young – SEO spammers always leverage young and impressionable website owners with promises of wads of cash. But look to other industries which have matured light-years ahead of this one. They have grown, they have evolved, but they all have on thing in common. They have legitimate, sustainable business models – and top quality content.
Write the travel blog you would want to read.
Post Revisions:
- 9 December, 2011 @ 10:21 [Current Revision] by John O'Nolan
- 31 October, 2011 @ 15:40 by John O'Nolan
- 28 October, 2011 @ 2:32 by John O'Nolan
- 28 October, 2011 @ 2:02 by John O'Nolan
- 28 October, 2011 @ 1:53 by John O'Nolan
- 28 October, 2011 @ 1:47 by John O'Nolan
- 28 October, 2011 @ 0:35 by John O'Nolan
“If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content. We will run it on Travelllll.com.” I’m not even going to get into the ethical part of all this. Everyone can say what they like but posting that above is doing what for you? I just went and looked at 3 random past articles and seen at least 3-4 people you have linked to that have paid text links on their site. Just saying
“Run sponsored posts” What is a sponsored post anyways? Someone paid you $250 dollars to write a random article and then give them a link credit for it? To me that seems exactly like a paid link to me.
I understand what your saying, cool but stating your going to start rating people out because you want Google to be better (and yes it’s just Google were talking about, it’s not a world law. You can’t go to jail for it) seems like your not going to be making many friends, thats all.
I’ve been enjoying the content on Travelllll.com so far, but I think the idea of outing fellow travel bloggers is pretty piss poor form.
Do you think you’ll get people to stop by embarrassing them in a public forum when most of us already know who accepts paid links. It’s great to educate new bloggers, that’s what my membership course helps to do, but you should let them make their own decisions. We’re all adults here.
I’ve been part of the travel blogging community since January 2007 when I got my blog up and running, and the online travel community since 1998 when I first put my travelogue and travel tips on my own website.
I’ve always appreciate how supportive travel bloggers have been of one another. As the community has grown, and more and more people are getting into the mix, there’s been a lot of debates, but it has helped the community as a whole grow.
Debating is fine. Encouraging travel bloggers to turn in their peers (or competition even) is distasteful.
I think you’re going a step too far, and potentially doing a greater disservice to the community as a whole by taking a holier than thou attitude toward on issue.
You’re wrong about being “kicked out of the search engines” – Google’s never deindexed sites for selling links that I know of – but you can lose your PR – which is effectively what you are selling anyways – so it does have a bad effect on a site’s potential income.
To be there is stuff all difference between sponsored posts and paid links – you are arguing semantics. If the link buyer knows what they are doing , and many don’t, then they want a contextual in-content link – not a paragraph at the end saying “This post was sponsored by cheap car parking in London”.
I think you under-estimate readers – very few of them follow contextual links anyways.
I just commented on the Travel Blogger Burnout article and you have no moderation there. Why is there moderation on this article? Isn’t this site intended as a media news site? If so, why would you want to kill discussion by sending every comment into moderation?
Every single comment on Travelllll.com is moderated. We approve any and all comments in a very timely manner, unless they’re somehow wildly inappropriate (we’ve now had over 700 comments and we’ve yet to not-approve a single one).
Thanks for your concern :)
Sorry, lame to moderate on a network blog. You say you have 700 comments and all have been approved but how does anyone know other then you? If it’s a personal blog I can see it but this isn’t. God knows Yahoo should moderate but you know what, they don’t and I think that says it all in itself and respect a site that doesn’t. I don’t trust sites (ones that aren’t personal blogs) that moderate. To me that’s more unethical then all this crap about text links or whatever. I’ll hope for the best that this actually gets published! (damn and I was trying to stay neutral but got fired up about comments of all things).
My bad. My personal suggestion, stop delaying comments on this site.
If you don’t moderate comments, you get a whole load of spam. You also leave yourself open to outright libel being published on your site and getting sued.
Any site that doesn’t moderate is utterly crazy for not doing so.
GrumpyTraveller your comment back sums up your legal knowledge, which is zero! “You also leave yourself open to outright libel being published on your site and getting sued.” If Yahoo, CNN, or whatever don’t… I think Travelllllllll is freaking ok on liability. Unless you can produce multipliable cases which differ.
And why are you posting as “GrumpyTraveller.com” then as “Flightstomalaga.com”, which is the most spammy name you could ever use or are you just commenting to try and get free links to your overloaded affiliate link site? You offer nothing on that site and is worse then any of this “Sneaky paid Text Link” talk going on in this post. In fact I can’t even find a place on that site that says “I only made this site in hopes that you would click on a link and buy something so I could make some money” anywhere. Seriously that’s how you roll but want to yell at others? As a reader your site is more offending then DIWYY is because she writes something for her readers at least and if she needs to place a text link in a post to make enough money to keep that content coming, why would I care bc she at least offers me something worth a crap (and actually she has a loyal following, which your loaded down affiliate sites do not).
This is two groups, flat out! One group is made up of Travel Bloggers who make content and have a loyal followings but use whatever means they can to make money to keep the content going, the other group is made up of people (like GrumpyTravller and guys like Durant) that have loaded down affiliate sites that are only driven by SEO search hits. You don’t have to be a rocket science to figure out why the old guys are bashing the Travel Bloggers because they can only survive as long as they stay on top and if someone threatens that, they are screwed because they have ZERO followers. Which means their content is rubbish enough that no one wants to come back for more. That says a lot in itself I think! Would you rather visit a clean site that is full of rubbish content, loaded with self motivated affiliate links or a personality site that has black-hat links in it that support the site but produce content that is good enough for a loyal following? As a reader that’s an easy decision I think!
——————————————————————-
You can moderate, got no problems with that, I’m saying delaying comments because you want to see everyone before they go live is lame. Sorry Travelllllll your failing again on this! I’d focus more on proof reading more then every comment that comes through… would save you a lot of work as well (see the 6 corrections on this post if you don’t believe John). I get a notification about a new comment and if it looks spammy (like Flightstomalaga.com) then I just delete it, easy fix. But I don’t delay the comments in anyway bc why would I want to piss off readers like that, the ones that aren’t doing anything wrong?
I think the whole tone of this ‘original’ article is the same thing like the delaying of comments, it’s like your talking down to your readers/commenter’s when you have to ‘Please wait while we review your comment and see if it’s worthy of our site”. If no else agrees then it’s just my opinion, if someone else agrees, then I have made a point.
T-roy is absolutely right! I asked David why he is an anti-paid links activist and not a anti-affiliate marketer activist. I had no idea you were an affiliate marketer, David! It’s clear to me now. Well, I can help you build traffic to your site, David, but it’s going to take a lot more than posting links in your comments to http://www.flightstomalaga.com.
For $500 you can write a sponsored post with a link back to http://www.flightstomalaga.com/ on DIWYY. For $700 I’ll write the post and include the link. Do you mind if the link is nofollow? Don’t worry, I’ll let everyone know it’s a sponsored post.
If you have a personal beef, fine. But, don’t take it out on the travel blogging community. I am enraged to read such an article that airs superiority. I guess you think you have earned the right to police the travel blogging community the way you see fit?
Travelllll.com was a great idea. I talked about it on my blog. It was inspirational for a bunch of bloggers to get together and start a magazine style site encompassing all things travel. But guess what, you blew it. Once you allow this sort of crap to happen you weaken the amazing travel blogging community that exists. We offer support to each other, we engage each other and we discuss issues like this one, but, we don’t decide to:
“If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content. We will run it on Travelllll.com.”
Get off your high horse and be a better part of our community, don’t go destroying with what you believe is moral ethics. The idea of Travelllll.com becoming the police of non-disclosed paid links on travel blogs is not the least bit an ethical approach on the subject.
You could have had a great discussion surrounding this topic, but you didn’t, you acted like a angry king.
This is an opinion piece – you are of course more than welcome to disagree with it. The discussion you refer to, I believe, is what’s happening right now ;)
This is not a healthy discussion. John O’Nolan and Travelllll.com deciding to police the travel blogging community because you feel as though its the right thing to do is not healthy. You already made the decision to act as thou King. There was no discussion prior to your decision to go ahead and impact the travel blogging community. This discussion going on now is either people supporting or opposing your decision. That’s what happens in a kingdom, not a democracy.
Go to Burger King, get a kids meal and cherish the hat. It might even make you feel more royal than you already are.
Should we take it as read that Jason sells links on his site?
Cheap shot and utterly misses the point.
I do cheap shots well, thanks for the compliment.
It’s not missing the point though. It’s all too easy to criticise the tone when the content is attacking a practice you take part in. It’s like a tobacco company criticising anti-smoking adverts for being too graphic.
The reaction to this post has been remarkably defensive. If anyone’s prepared to say: “I sell such links, I don’t believe it’s unethical and I think John O’Nolan is wrong to say it is,” then I’ll applaud them for their honesty and willingness to argue with full disclosure. I’m less inclined to pay heed to high-pitched shrieking from people who are selling links and don’t like being pulled up on it.
I have an advertising page on my blog that details all my practices including selling links. It’s not a protected page. Everyone on the Internet and in this thread is more than welcome to go view it. http://2backpackers.com/advertising-public-relations
This was a harsh and also not a clear piece. I agree with Lissie. It’s semantics. It takes several paragraphs of you discussing ‘text links’ until you finally expand to say that to you ‘text links’ are defined as spammy, hidden, undisclosed, paid-for links. To me…a text link does not mean this. It can be or it can be a disclosed advertisement that happens to take the form of a link. I know many bloggers that sell text links that are in fact advertisements that are fully disclosed and journalistically sound because of that.
I would suggest being more clear especially when writing a piece like this.
I’m disappointed by this post, although I see you’re amending it as the comments start rolling in.
There are many travel bloggers that do disclose all forms of advertising on their site. Those that chose to engage in spammy links will loose their audience anyway- no one wants to read that type of content, so why the desire to publicly engage in “blog bashing”? Pegging us against each other doesn’t do anything to further our community or help new bloggers.
Jillian, thanks for pointing out the fact that John changed his message. I wouldn’t have noticed, because I had already read it once. Now, those reading our comments won’t understand our harsh reaction to the original post.
John, I think you and Travelllll.com should consider showing your edits to this post so they understand how this conversation began. If you don’t like what you originally wrote, yank the post completely.
I have to agree with my colleague’s comments above. I am now confused about the purpose of this site. In one sentence fragment, you went from opinion to policing. The About section of Travelllll declares that this site is about covering the news and events in the travel blogging industry. If a blogger is publishing in a manner that his audience doesn’t like or Google doesn’t like, then those parties will stop reading or punish it, respectively. Why does Travelllll have a role in playing Big Brother? And, why would it seek out that role? If you would have left out that sentence fragment, you would have achieved your goal of bringing the issue to the forefront and stimulating debate on the issue. I’m afraid you’ve now made the Travelllll the issue. Do all the editors want Travelllll to extend its stated mission of journalism and opinion writing to policing individual business decisions bloggers make?
Wait, let me get this straight? Your questioning ethics about others but at the same time your changing your original article to make it softer (ie; make you look nicer then before) but not stating you made the change at all on here? Hey typo’s I can understand, grammar ok but changing your original words?
From the Travellllllll Facebook Fanpage:
(Post from Fan)
Wayfaring Wanderer: WTF? Really? While you won’t find any paid links on my little blog, I do know those that have them. Honestly, I was unaware that it was wrong to do, but this statement is uncalled for. (And it kind of pisses me off) “If you sell paid links, you are less than worthless as a travel blogger, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
(Response Back)
Travelllll.com: Wayfaring Wanderer You know what? You’re right – that was a little over the top. I’ve amended that line to be a little less antagonistic – my apologies. ^JO”
Am I the only one who thinks that’s really messed up at all??? Seriously WTF? No the ethical thing would be what…. wait for it, wait for it… to say you messed up, sorry, and note it! (We’ll see if this comment gets approved at all).
Travelllll.com, I ask that you please share with the readers your original unedited sentence. You have altered your words and thereby the actions you so godly implored originally.
Edited sentence: “If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content. That’s something we’d consider writing about on Travelllll.com – and if we don’t… someone else will.”
It’s almost irrelevant, you have changed several sentences at this point. You guys are the ones that should be “ashamed”.
I agree, how about the original article as it was before you started doing changes to it without noting any of it! I know at least 3 different parts you have changed from the original. This is so jacked up! You got all these comments but your changing your work thus making the commenter’s response look different then what they were originally suppose to be.
It’s nice to know that you don’t edit comments but you have no problem changing your article to make yourself look better. Is this really ethical??? (Seriously, We’ll see if this comment gets approved at all… hope they don’t edit it then approve it).
Per our editorial policy, we have a tracking system so that you can see if a post has been changed or updated and exactly what those changes were. Check just below the photo credit and click on “Post Revisions: (Show)”
http://travelllll.com/2011/10/28/paid-link-seduction/?rev=3400
You do seem rather angry Jason, and I’m sure that anger is for the greater good rather than because you’re selling links and don’t want to be called out on it.
By the way, I like the advertising page on your site: http://2backpackers.com/advertising-public-relations
Jason posted recently about how frustrated he is as a travel blogger because it’s difficult to make a living at it and here you are trying to publicly humiliate him. I’m stunned at the nerve you have.
I recently posted about insomnia, and here you are trying to accuse me of being a bit of a bastard. You’ll note how the two clauses are utterly irrelevant to each other.
Jason got angry about John’s post. John’s post called for people to report bloggers who have paid links on their site. Jason has paid links on his site. I think he should disclose that before getting on his high horse about what John wrote. Simple.
David, why are you getting into people’s business? You have follow links to a casino site on your homepage. I doubt you didn’t receive payment for those. How is that any different than any of the behavior you are relishing in calling other people out on?
Jeff – that’s an advert. They paid for it. I accepted the money. It’s not disguised as anything other than an advert.
David, my ad page is not protected, it’s open to everyone. I don’t hide behind it. The link to my website is in every comment I leave here. Click on the link and go to the bottom of my website where it reads Advertising/PR. It’s all public. Sharing what’s already public on my site doesn’t anger me. What angers me is the business that Travelllll.com has decided to take on. When did it become you guys’ mission to eliminate travel bloggers that sell links?
I didn’t see the way that was originally written but I think you are way off base here. Maybe selling links for some people to anyone who approaches them is spammy for some. However, links to relevant content that people endorse, whether they are paid or not, shouldn’t matter. Yes, disclosure should be made about these links if they are paid. However, to say all paid text links are spammy is just wrong.
You can have some integrity with this by putting only links that you endorse – paid or not – on your content. If every piece you write has a paid link or links, that is one thing. To be selective on the links you choose to use and only make it occasional content is another.
Who are you travelllll? You jump into the scene with a brand new website and annoying domain name and brand yourself the moral authority on travel blogs? I understand there are several well-known travel bloggers on board with this new website but really, who do you think you are? How long have you been around as a website? Two months?
I’ve been writing about my travels online since 2003 before they were called blogs. I’ve seen travel blogs and websites come and go and despite who founded your site you have just as much of a chance as anyone out there. I don’t care who you are really, but for you to come along and threaten me or my travel blog colleagues who are doing the best they can to figure out how to make a go at travel blogging by reporting them to Google is despicable.
I’ve built websites that have been banned by Google. Guess what happened? I contacted them, found out why I was banned, changed it and they reinstated me. It’s not nearly as hard to get back on to Google’s website like you so ominously state.
Stop being such a fear mongering bully and let to each his own. They’ll find out soon enough, but your sanctimonious rant is not helpful to the cause. If you’re so anti-travel-blogs-with-links then stop linking to those sites that have them. I’ve already seen three websites that you link to that have paid links. Why do you support those sites if you are so adamantly opposed to buying and selling links?
Those in glass houses, travellllllll, those in glass houses.
I don’t sell links. I never have and never will.
That being said….
Google is not the law nor is it an arbiter of morality. I have signed no contract with Google nor have I agreed to any terms they have put forward. No one is bound by anything Google says.
All Google rules are unilateral. They have stated what they like and they have stated the consequences of not behaving in a manner they like. It is completely up to every individual blogger how they want to run their site and how they want to deal with Google.
If you want to run sponsored posts with keyword stuffed links for apartments in barcelona….that is your business. If you want to have links for “cheap hotels in London” floating without reason in your sidebar….go nuts.
I think it is highly unwise to do such things. It looks like crap and ultimately ruins your credibility. However, I do believe it is within the rights of anyone to do that to their site if they want.
The ONLY reason people want to buy links is because Google has created an algorithm which is easy to game. If it wasn’t for the holes in the way Google handles search, no one would care if people purchased or sold links any more than they would if people sold space for images.
I don’t think it is necessary to call anyone out because it is a self correcting problem. You aren’t going to make it big if you are selling links. You are shooting yourself in the foot.
Awesome post. If the “advertiser” won’t let you mark the link “nofollow” you’re nothing more than the final cog in a black hat SEO play and fully deserve to be reported to Google.
Nice work John.
That’s not, actually, what either the post or the staff contributors are saying. They’re not objecting to paid follow links. They’re objecting to sneak text links without disclosing that the post is sponsored.
yeah have just picked up on that distinction. An odd one.
Yeah. They’re also all happy with do-follow links in sidebar “banner” ads.
Some people seem to be getting rather tetchy here. I assume that’s because they disagree with the tone rather than the message. After all, it’s unlikely that anyone would be so aggressive about a post decrying paid links purely because they’ve a vested interest – ie. they make a living by selling said paid links.
And, on a complete tangent, this page makes for a nice read: http://2backpackers.com/advertising-public-relations
Here’s another nice page: http://www.diwyy.com/advertise/
I don’t get it Grumpy Traveler? What are all those links at the bottom of your site?
Do you mean the banner adverts in the sidebar or the links to my own sites in the footer?
I’m curious about the ones under the “Deals” section, myself. Those “cheap flights to Australia” — did someone pay you for them, David? Are you doing it out of the goodness of your heart? They don’t seem to be marked no-follow when I click on them.
It’s a link to my other site, Australiaflightbargains.com. Which has lots of ads and affiliate links in it, but no paid links. I can pay myself £50 a month for that link if it makes you feel better. Also, I’m pretty sure it’s in-article links that we’re talking about here rather than sidebar links.
None of the links on my site are nofollow (as far as I’m aware – there may be some widget that affects them in the comments or something). I don’t believe in nofollow – surely if you’re putting the link in, you want someone to follow it?
So, just to clarify, David, you do sell links on your site? Because if you are selling a banner ad with a follow-link in it, you are selling a paid link. If you sell a sponsored post with a follow-link in it, you are selling a paid link. You are also in breach of Google’s rules, just as much as the people called out in the post above. Which is probably why the post itself is woolly as to what is a paid link and what is not a paid link. Because most of the editorial team at Travelll have their own forms of selling links.
This post refers exclusively to contextual paid links which appear inside the body of the post content without disclosure. Apologies for the confusion.
But you’re aware that if those links are “follow” links that’s still in breach of Google’s guidelines and most likely an SEO ploy just like the ones you pillory? People in glass houses…
Jenny – I sell adverts on my site, yes. If people come to me asking for links I say I don’t do paid links, but you can buy an ad and code it however you darn well please. But they clearly look like adverts – that’s the main thing. I’m hardly trying to disguise them. And I’m not trying to play within Google’s ‘rules’ – hence I can’t be bothered to nofollow any links.
That’s an odd distinction to make, but I guess you’re focusing on sellers lying to readers rather than following/ignoring Googletron’s rules. Though worth noting perhaps, on the topic of penalties G doesn’t make the distinction you are.
Jenny – last reply, as my face is on this page already. I don’t care how bloggers are funding their site. I don’t sell paid links in copy on Grumpy Traveller, I do sell advertising space. I don’t do sponsored posts, I don’t do guest posts, and I don’t slip links into posts if people ask me to. There’s nothing massively immoral about any of these things as far as I’m concerned, but they don’t feel right to me. I’d rather avoid them, and I don’t think the whole sponsored post/ sneaky paid contextual link thing is treating the reader with much respect. I may use a carefully chosen affiliate link where appropriate, and I’ll disclose that on the site.
How others do it is up to them. Their methods may be different to mine, and I might not particularly agree with them. But I don’t have to go and visit their site. I can just not pay any attention, and I’m fine with that.
I actually thought the tone of the original piece was overly preachy too, but the knee-jerky responses were very illuminating. As I’ve said elsewhere – a little too much like cigarette companies complaining that anti-smoking ads are too graphic. John has very valid points – ones that a lot of people agree with – and he may have expressed them in a very bull in a china shop way. But the anger seems to be coming from people who are selling contextual links, but aren’t happy to openly declare it in a debate where such disclosures are surely relevant and necessary.
Oh good, I see one person already participating in the witch hunt. Yes, you’re absolutely right. You caught me! I am making a living off of selling links. In fact, next month I’m retiring because my link selling efforts have gone so well. In fact, I will happily donate every dollar I’ve made on selling text links this month to charity. Oh wait, I haven’t made any.
Why are you so worried about what everyone is making on their travel blogs David? http://www.grumpytraveller.com/2011/08/29/travel-blogger-honesty-survey
No, I really want to know what your fascination is with it that you call out my website that is meant to educate and inspire young women who want to travel the world for the first time because you think I’m making a living off of selling text links. Clearly, you only came to my website for evidence so you can lynch us in a public forum.
So I see now that I should start living in fear of sharing my opinions on travelllll lest the travel blog tattle tales find out and start ganging up on me. Good I’m glad we’ve gotten to the mature part of the conversation.
Travelllll: One step forward for the travel blog community and two steps back.
Jerri – this is specifically why I highlighted your website:
“Who are you travelllll? You jump into the scene with a brand new website and annoying domain name and brand yourself the moral authority on travel blogs? I understand there are several well-known travel bloggers on board with this new website but really, who do you think you are? How long have you been around as a website? Two months?
I’ve been writing about my travels online since 2003 before they were called blogs. I’ve seen travel blogs and websites come and go and despite who founded your site you have just as much of a chance as anyone out there. I don’t care who you are really, but for you to come along and threaten me or my travel blog colleagues who are doing the best they can to figure out how to make a go at travel blogging by reporting them to Google is despicable.
I’ve built websites that have been banned by Google. Guess what happened? I contacted them, found out why I was banned, changed it and they reinstated me. It’s not nearly as hard to get back on to Google’s website like you so ominously state.
Stop being such a fear mongering bully and let to each his own. They’ll find out soon enough, but your sanctimonious rant is not helpful to the cause. If you’re so anti-travel-blogs-with-links then stop linking to those sites that have them. I’ve already seen three websites that you link to that have paid links. Why do you support those sites if you are so adamantly opposed to buying and selling links?
Those in glass houses, travellllllll, those in glass houses.”
It seemed to be very vociferous response, so I went to your website to see if you do sell links or not. Just for a bit of perspective, to ascertain whether the strength of response could be influenced by the fact that you are doing what John suggests should be reported/ stamped out. I’ve no intention of doing any lynchings; I’m just curious to see if there’s a pattern amongst the people who have been angered by this post. There seems to be.
I frankly don’t care where you make your money. I don’t care if you’re making any money or not. I’m not worried about whether people are making money from their blogs or not – it’s no crime to just blog for the fun of it.
What I do care about is people trying to sell the idea of travel blogging as way of making a living via e-books etc when they’re not making money out of it themselves. I do care about the web being filled up with crap just because people think they can make money from it.
And I’ll ask you this question. If you’re upset that someone has ‘outed’ you for doing something, why are you doing it in the first place? If it’s not wrong, surely there’s no shame?
I don’t see anywhere in your comments, David, about your concern for people selling “make a living with your travel blog” advice. I’m not convinced. Further if this is your calling, “I do care about the web being filled up with crap just because people think they can make money from it,” maybe starting with travel blogs is the wrong place to start. Maybe you best start with affiliate marketers.
You have not outed me. I chose to comment on this post. You may infer what you will about whether I sell links or not. Either way, I am not ashamed at how I run my website. What angers me about this post and the reason I reacted so harshly is the tone of superiority. It could go like this:
paid links = bad
instead it goes like this
paid links = “If you sell paid links, you are less than worthless as a travel blogger, and you should be ashamed of yourself”
Anyway, I’ve wasted enough of my time on this site. Call it what you will, you are deliberately trying to publicly humiliate people and there is no integrity in that.
Well Google certainly hasn’t been punishing any Travel Blog I know over the past 2 years who’ve been littering their sidebars and footers with text links in exchange for $$ in PR4/5/6 sites.
I would like to know why?
Suggestion:
Before calling out Travel Bloggers on their willful or mistaken deeds. I would suggest someone on this site call out the companies selling them first!!
Did I just save your bacon? I think I did.
Well, I am speechless. After a very strong beginning for this great site, you’ve started to break down the travel blogging community you’ve worked so hard to build up.
I think it’s important to get the word out about the realities of buying and selling links. Bloggers, and particularly new bloggers, need to know the realities of this kind of business and the potential penalties that can result.
But Travelllll could have done that EASILY, John, without threatening to post a list of every travel blogger selling links! (For people just seeing this now, the original line — “If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content. We will run it on Travelllll.com” — has since been deleted from the piece without notation.)
There are ways to EDUCATE bloggers without policing the travel blogging community, which seems to serve no purpose but inflating your own sense of self-worth. If you REALLY cared about the well-being of multi-billion-dollar corporation Google that much, you’d simply email them directly and quietly. Problem solved.
But no, you must have a list of people up on your site, a modern pillory for the 21st century. What good does that do? Honestly, John.
And furthermore, I am shocked that you are changing your original strong statements without noting so on the post. Typos are one thing; changing the entire meaning of what you said after people complained (making early comments look like they’re making things up) is quite another. That’s incredibly ironic for a piece about transparency, dontcha think?
This is a serious misstep for Travelllll and for you, John. Fix this. Quickly.
I read both the original article and I’ve now seen the edited version, while I agree that the tone was harsh in the beginning, and made my opinion known in what I hoped was a kind way … in the end, I agree completely re: paid links. I won’t accept them on my site. I’ve done sponsored guest posts and even those I have a discomfort level with so it’s likely I’ll never do them again.
I don’t love the idea of travel blog monetization to begin with. Maybe those who are so defensive are guilty of doing exactly what John is pointing out as problematic and while you may not think John has the right — keep in mind — it’s his opinion. We all have a right to our own. Even those of you who sell dreaded text links. Keep doing it if you want to. Why do you care soooo much what travelllll thinks if it’s been working for you?
Kirsten, it’s not that I care about John’s opinion on whether selling text links is right or wrong.
What I care about is the nasty all-or-nothing tone he took in the original piece, and the fact that he’s only adding fuel to the fire regarding a very divisive topic that has been rehashed ad nauseam in other public forums (ie. Facebook).
He’s effectively pitting people in a once friendly and supportive community against each other.
That’s my gripe with his original article.
Fair enough Dave. I didn’t see John’s original article, or his tone in it, quite the same way. But, I can imagine how you might have and then been offended.
John, thank you for writing this article.
I don’t agree that people should not sell links or advertising just because of Google. Google is not the law and no-one needs to really care about what they think. Selling followed links in your navigation under a “Sponsors” heading, or saying “this post was sponsored by xxx” may not be appreciated by Google, but it’s not deceitful to your readers, so if you can ethically live with it, then that’s your choice. Just don’t lie to your readers.
I do however agree with the general point of your article.
On a daily basis we deal with stuff like this in our forums. People posting fake glowing reviews for hotels, tour operators, etc. We’ve outed quite a few of the responsible companies on Twitter, etc.. They deserved it. And the outings have been reasonably effective at actually stopping the spam. I’d always prefer to out the company buying the links (like G Adventures here: http://twitter.com/#!/samdaams/statuses/128808275742425089) rather than the misguided blogger letting them on their site. Sometimes you have to mention where the link is posted in order to point out this problem though.
Simply put, if you’re not doing right by your readers, then it’s well within any other person’s right to out you. It’s the risk you take for the extra few bucks you make.
Great stuff. If you’re making this many travel bloggers angry, you must be doing something right.
As David Whitley has noticed, there’s an awful lot of people getting awfully defensive in these comments. Aggrieved sense of betrayal, indignant finger-pointing, re-assertion of community spirit in the face of an outsider… Magnificent stuff. Just exactly the kind of response journalists usually get from corrupt vested interests when they dig up something that stinks.
The “aggrieved sense of betrayal and indignant finger-pointing” came from the original post, in case you didn’t notice. The commenters are responding in kind.
And it’s hilarious that you believe that an opinion has merit merely because it makes people angry. Someone could write a post comparing Obama to Hitler and that would get a lot of people angry, too.
No, it wouldn’t. People would laugh & ignore it, because it would be patent rubbish. Unlike John O’Nolan’s article.
I have read several times recently how paid links are a no-no and that having them results in severe penalties on Google searches. According to Google’s own webmaster tools site, however, it is possible to have paid links without jeopardizing Google search status.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66736 says:
Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:
Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the tag
Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file
Hi everyone. Thank you for your comments so far, we are reading every one and taking your feedback on board.
It was a late night post in response to the Gawker revelations and maybe I didn’t check it was clear enough about what kind of links we were talking about. It was certainly a bit confrontational but I’m not so bothered by that. It’s John’s style. (Mike is soft & flowery. John is IN YER FACE! It’s a ying yang thing!).
On versions: No conspiracy. There can’t be. Right from day one, as part of our commitment to transparency we’ve had the little version checking widget on every post. (How many bloggers or news sites do that? Genuine question. I don’t know. I suspect it’s not many.) There’s nothing wrong in correcting a mistake, clarifying or improving. I do it, you do it, we all do it. You wouldn’t leave an error that had been pointed out to you on your blog would you? It might have helped though if we had just said in the comments “you’re right. I meant this. I’ll change it”.
Otherwise… No, despite the original wording of the article, we have no plans to be the stealth link police. Anyone can do that. We just think, like most of you, that it is wrong to embed a paid-for link, with or without a “nofollow”, in the context of a post without disclosing that the post is ‘sponsored’ or ‘advertorial’.
Alistair, I actually don’t mind the tone. It’s an opinion piece and this is a topic that always creates passionate responses. What caught my eye and I what I commented on earlier was this sentence fragment, ¨If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content. That’s something we’d consider writing about on Travelllll.com…¨ Does travelllll really see a role for itself to police and be the place where people go to complain about business practices they don’t like? This to me is a step beyond reporting. And, if you don’t, why would you include such a provocative statement?
For the record, I do not accept text links. I have done exactly 1 sponsored post and disclosed the nature of the post clearly to the reader to avoid any problems with my audience and with Google. Not everyone who has an issue with this piece is a link seller. What I do have a problem with is a 3rd party getting between a blogger and his audience or him and Google. The sentence I reference above seems to open that door.
Finally, please feel free to raise issues that need debate in the industry. But, any post that needs 5 revisions for content modification, probably wasn’t ready for primetime publishing.
So, just to clarify, Travelll’s editorial perspective on this is: paid links in sponsored posts, disclosed as such but not no-followed are fine? And this is the point of the article? Some paid links are OK, others aren’t?
I appreciate Alastair’s rational and more level-headed response and also agree with Matt, below, that staff comments were surprising and yes, mean-spirited – especially to specifically attack certain bloggers and add their links to your comments. Not what I expected here. I also appreciate this specificity: “We just think, like most of you, that it is wrong to embed a paid-for link, with or without a “no-follow”, in the context of a post without disclosing that the post is ‘sponsored’ or ‘advertorial’.” The original article should have stated that right off the bat, not lumped all ‘text links’ in together whether they are disclosed or not.
Lisa, all Travelllll.com staff have a “Staff” badge beside their name. I have checked and re-checked all comments by staffers on this post and I can’t find any at all which are mean sprited or which attack any bloggers.
http://2backpackers.com/advertising-public-relations
I will post that link for every comment I leave. Maybe it will gain me some traffic and respect from David.
Alastair, regarding your comments “We just think, like most of you, that it is wrong to embed a paid-for link, with or without a “nofollow”, in the context of a post without disclosing that the post is ‘sponsored’ or ‘advertorial’.”
Great point, great argument, could have been another good discussion. The point that angered me was that, as an opinion piece, Travelllll.com made the decision to publicly share all travel bloggers that you have decided are worthless. And then you add a link to report them to Google. Hey, that’s legal, I get it. But is it really a discussion or opinion piece? Is it rather an action or now a mission of what Travelllll.com intends to do?
You are a website that get’s to do whatever you want. I get to do whatever I want on my websites. We can disagree, but do we want to go calling each other out on each other’s own website? I don’t want to do that, I don’t think it’s healthy.
I have had situations this week that put me over the edge. In my 2.5 yrs of blogging it all seemed to happen in one week. The first was just the constant negativity and self righteousness of a person’s comments. The second was this article deciding to publicly list travel bloggers they personally considered worthless. And now, I find myself acting in a way that I don’t think I have ever communicated online. I don’t regret it. Sometimes, when you feel completely convinced that someone’s views or actions are in no way constructive, you need to step up and voice your opinion. I am doing that and I intend to remain as vocal.
I can non longer support Travelllll.com, but honestly, I know that doesn’t matter, but it’s my right as a reader. And maybe some others will decide not to follow my blog anymore because they weren’t aware that I sell links. Again, my advertising/pr page is not hidden. And all that is fine, it’s everyone’s choices. We take actions based on what we believe. And my action is to no longer view Travelllll.com (and that’s very difficult to type by the way. I find myself constantly counting to 5, lol) as a startup community leader in the travel blogosphere.
Alastair (Staff): This is what irks me the most and maybe a majority of the commenter’s is not so much about the debate of the text links but that John went and started changing the article after it was posted to make it more politically correct then the original but wasn’t noting it.
Then you come on here and say everything is in order and that there is “No conspiracy” because you have a special widget that fixes stuff like “late night post in response to the Gawker revelations and maybe I didn’t check it was clear enough” kind of articles. For now, we’ll just call it the Magic John Widget.
So let’s talk about the Magic John Widget, what does it do? “Right from day one, as part of our commitment to transparency we’ve had the little version checking widget on every post. (How many bloggers or news sites do that? Genuine question. I don’t know. I suspect it’s not many.)” Hummm, wow that is a powerful widget but I think to answer your question, it’s because the majority of others sites don’t change the meanings of their articles that they write when it all goes wrong and thus don’t need one posted.
Yes, I fix things in my articles all the time, like the majority of people do. In fact, I like to call it my official proofing system. What I change are grammar, spelling and identity (example: it’s Springfield, Missouri not Springfield, Illinois) corrections.
But you did damage control and came out and told everyone there was “No conspiracy” but you did in such a sleazy way, that no one can make heads or tails of what John changed. Do you take all us readers to be fools, seriously? That if you sweep it under the rug and make it so confusing that people can’t understand the changes, that they will just forget about it? I can’t see how you guys are the victims of anything, you created this mess as a team and really screwed the pooch on this one.
I decided that since you guys are basically REFUSING to make the original article coherent enough that you don’t have to work at Travelllll.coml to understand it, that I would just list out the corrections below that John made. So it will be out in the open and everyone knows.
>>>Correction #1: FAIL: not a spelling/grammar error
-Original Version: “If you sell paid links, you are less than worthless as a travel blogger, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
- New Version: “If you sell paid links, you’re seriously, seriously doing it wrong.” [Note: they decided to add some 3 links on the words of "doing it wrong"]
>>>Correction #2: FAIL: not a spelling/grammar error (unless he misspelled me for someone)
- Original Version: Now consider the following: How easy would it be for me [cross out 'me' and insert someone] to pose as a company wanting to buy a link from you purely for the sake of ousting you as a worthless travel blog publishing phony content?
>>>Correction #3: FAIL: not a spelling/grammar error
- Original Version: “In the above case, people didn’t exactly take kindly to it.”
- New Version: “Gawker, above, just proved that it isn’t out of the realm of possibility – and people didn’t exactly take kindly to the news.”
>>>Correction #4: FAIL: not a spelling/grammar error
- Original Version: If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content. We will run it on Travelllll.com. (“We will” was in strong bold type)
- New Version: That’s something we’d consider writing about on Travelllll.com – and if we don’t… someone else will.
>>>Correction #5: FAIL: not a spelling/grammar error
- Original Version: Run sponsored posts, sell display media, talk about companies you’re working with. Don’t hide paid links in your content and claim that it was your own idea.
- New Version: Run (transparent) sponsored posts, sell display media, talk about companies you’re working with. Don’t hide paid links in your content and claim that it was your own idea.
To me how can you raise the ethical question when you guys haven’t even acknowledge that the original article had major errors or that hiding those changes in a way that is so difficult for anyone to even understand them is what is pissing people off!
Seriously we all would like an answer please.
Well it’s not fixing a typing, it was an alteration of the entire tone of the piece after some well founded criticism.
I don’t deal with paid links, but like the others I am shocked at the pompous and indignant attitude not just in the article, but in staff comments. Rather than get nasty, staff really should have taken a higher road in defending their points. A healthy debate is one thing, childish retorts is quite another.
This is an important topic, but the approach was entirely wrong. Entirely. Both in the original execution, comments and revision. I think a more robust editorial process is probably needed for this site.
I’m not sure that the point of Travelllll is to do much squishy-huggy “supporting of the travel blogging community.” Like Tnooz covers and reports on travel tech, this site launched to cover all aspects of travel blogging as a creative outlet and/or a profession.
If that means smacking the apparently rather pervasive travel blogging practice of (undisclosed) paid links, then that’s what they’ll do, and they should. It’s a journalism thing, yo.
I do pass judgment on selling links; it’s a violation of reader trust, I don’t like it and I don’t think much of those who do it. They can take or leave my opinion, of course, but those who sell links shouldn’t go looking for any squishy-huggy from the “community,” because they are gaming the search engines that so many of the community (unfortunately) seem to depend upon for the success of their sites.
However, Travelllll, you don’t change the original wording of a post without making it VERY obvious, usually with a line-through and possibly an explanation in parentheses after that. Not doing so looks skanky and undercuts your ethics argument.
“It’s a journalism thing yo”
The only problem is, a blogger isn’t always a journalist. There are no rules that says a blogger has to disclose a paid link. My personal opinion is that a blogger should, it’s much better to be honest with your readers. But like I said, there’s no hard fast rule about this when it comes to blogging.
This is spot on. Only point I’d add is as Dave mentions it takes two to tango – the companies paying for links are just as (more?) culpable. Bloggers would not be accepting payment for links if there weren’t companies out there offering payment, which is a very shadowy SEO strategy.
As someone in online PR and marketing this is something I would never, ever, endorse clients doing.
“If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content.”
This is not a full sentence. Might want to edit that.
“If anyone sends us a tip off about a travel blogger publishing phony paid-link content.”
That sentence was bothering me as well.
I sell text links. They’re over there in my side bar and they earn me somewhere in the neighborhood of 200US/monthly. My readers aren’t likely to mistake them for anything more than what they are. They have no context. They’re on a sidebar below the fold. If you’d like to report me and/or report on me, that’s cool. I don’t write for Google anyway, though I hear I could use the link love.
I don’t care if you (bloggers) sell text links if they are a) useful and b) disclosed. That’s not an either or, that’s both. It’s no skin off your nose to put a disclaimer in the post. “This post contains sponsored links, but I genuinely think the product/service/some third thing is worth your time. That’s why I’ve linked there.” If you want to maintain my trust (probably you don’t care WTF *I* think) you need to share the terms.
A disclaimer helps maintain that trust when I get email from a link buyer (or sponsored post buyer) that includes your site as an example of a successful campaign. Did you know you’re being used as part of a junk advertising/sponsored content pitch? You are. Your customers are disclosing for you and oh, that makes you look really bad. But I don’t feel any need to rat you out to the GMonster, I’ll just stop reading. I’ll unfollow you on Twitter and unfriend you on Facebook. (I get it, you don’t care what *I* think.)
Junk content is bad for anyone who wants to be taken seriously. I happen to agree with John on the gist of what he says: “Run (transparent) sponsored posts, sell display media, talk about companies you’re working with. Don’t hide paid links in your content…” and “Write the travel blog you would want to read.” This is solid advice.
But. Really? T5 wants tips about who’s selling links? Do you not know already? (I’ve just told you, I am, that should help.) Do you really care? If a successful career is built on trust, this kind of tactic pretty much ensures that your readership isn’t going to want to share information with you.
Furthermore, “It was late and John has a confrontational style” isn’t an excuse for an editorial that a sensible publication should have seen fit to sleep on. Quality editorial, a goal you recommend, warrants more than a knee jerk reaction and 8am revisions. If content establishes trust, this is a pretty fair example of how not to do that. There’s a lack of clarity about the topic and a vague threat. Threatening your audience, like insulting them, is rarely a good policy.
“Write the travel blog you would want to read.” That seems like a good idea.
It’s pretty easy to spot people who sell links. It doesn’t take a genius to go to a website or read a blog post and go hmmm that doesn’t look natural.
But I’m not sure what would poses you to write this article. I am anti-link selling. I did it. It made me lots of cash and I still take the emails I get via nomadicmatt and through some links on some of the MFA sites I had from my internet marketing days. Way piss away cash?
But I agree with Gary that it’s an awful long term strategy for building a credible and reliable blog as people trust you for info and you should be linking to companies you use, at least in context. But that’s a long argument for another day. If links are disclosed on your sidebar, sure go sell them. I don’t care. I don’t agree with it but it’s your business model.
But would I ever OUT fellow travel bloggers and publicly shame them? No way. No how. If a blogger asks my opinion on having them, I’ll tell them but I’d never name and shame and there is no reason to ever.
Let people do their own thing. It’s their business and they have to answer to their readers. Not me. You. Or any other blogger.
Whether paid text links are disclosed or not isn’t the issue. Fact is, search engines don’t like having their results gamed by SEOs and link brokers. If you join the Black Hat Gang, there’s a good chance that Marshall Google or Sheriff Bing will come looking for you.
It’s also important to remember that search penalties usually hit link sellers, not link buyers. When you sell links to the black hats, you’re sticking your neck out for their benefit–and they won’t come to your rescue if your neck ends up in a noose.
Your post and your comments are beginning to contradict, T5. There’s no shame in retracting your article, rethinking your actual position and reposting your stance clearly, calmly and concisely.
Am intrigued by the comparative morals at play here. Several of the incredibly amusing comments raise the debate of which is worst, the blogger taking $ for links versus the company paying $ for links.
I wonder if a fair analogy is that of the drug taker (company) and drug dealer (blogger). Neither is on sound ethical grounds, but the former is nearly always more desperate and naive than the latter? Just wondering…
Is Travelllll planning to follow the Gawker model of manufacturing scandals for page views? Because if so I’m going to stay away. I’d much prefer a helpful, supportive and informative website that fosters our growing community instead of trying to tear it up.
So let me get this straight because I’m really confused. Travelllll’s official stance is “that it is wrong to embed a paid-for link, with or without a “nofollow”, in the context of a post without disclosing that the post is ‘sponsored’ or ‘advertorial’.” This wasn’t even in the original post but rather an afterthought in the comments section.
In the meantime, I’ve had a hundred visits to my site because a link to my advertising page was posted, based on YOUR call to action to report link selling violators
No where on that advertising page does it state that we do not disclose. We do. So, based on your site’s call to action my site was publicly degraded and I was humiliated for voicing my opinion. I just want to get this straight.
“I’d much prefer a helpful, supportive and informative website that fosters our growing community instead of trying to tear it up.”
Warning newbie bloggers that selling links can have negative consequences strikes me as being extremely “helpful, supportive, and informative.”
IMHO, John O’Nolan and Travelllll.com deserve credit–and respect–for encouraging travel bloggers to think and behave like professional Web publishers. Travellll.com is the best resource on the Web for travel bloggers–period.
“This post refers exclusively to contextual paid links which appear inside the body of the post content without disclosure. Apologies for the confusion.” – John Nolan
I wish you’d written that in your lede! It definitely would have helped prevent some angst among your readers/community.
I’m a big fan of this site, have been from the launch, but perhaps this post is an example of a need for more editing among all of you owners/columnists. Perhaps a checks and balances – have a peer read a piece before you hit publish – to confirm that indeed your point is being made clearly and succinctly (and without threats).
Oops! John O’Nolan. Sorry, messed up your last name. See, we all need proofreaders!
I have a few responses out there that have been awaiting moderation. They have a link to my sales page, the same link David has already shown, so I do hope they are qualified to appear here.
Hi Jason, sorry about the delay – the links triggered the spam filter so they didn’t show up in the comment-queue. I’ve just approved them all now.
You know what’s ironic, Travelllll’s home page has a zero pagerank, even though its MozRank is at 4.46. That seems to suggest they’ve been selling paid links as well and as result their PR was penalized to zero by Google.
As Nelson might say: HA HA!
Given that the last PageRank update was in August and Travelllll.com launched for the first time in September – I personally don’t find this particularly ironic.
Actually John, even if Travelllll had been given a pagerank it might look zero. Apparently Google changed the api code a fortnight or so back so many/most displays (like my SEO for Chrome widget) are showing zero for everything.
Whats even funnier Mister Snogglepants is that t5′s only been live for a couple of months and there’s hasn’t been a PR update in that time :)
Guys,
I’ve got four comments in the spam folder from somebody called “blogger”. His/her email is “email@blogger.com” and the ip is from Thailand. (ident withheld & I’m not about to browse it). He/she wants to say beastly things about us and other people commenting, and I’d happily let them… but not anonymously
I find this article very interesting! This is exactly the information I was looking for in my Barcelona Apartment! I hope my cheap hotels in las vegas was as good!
Slept on this, and really the only bit that I find even mildly off the mark … is the photo. A pic of a guy in a suit at a UK travel insurance company would really be far more appropriate — unless you’re talking about an insurer who lets their staff work in bikinis of course.
Personally I don’t see the big deal in outing people — it seems that both sides (the link buyer/sellers and those reporting them) are supposed to undertake their business in a blackened room out back. Odd.
To my mind, reporting link sellers is a bit like filing DMCAs. Just as I don’t report every single site I find stealing our content and slapping adsense on it, I don’t report every site I come across selling links. Bur report I do.
While I get why you’ve focussed on the in content, non disclosed but followed links, (I assume to dodge the “That’s just Google’s rule bullet”) it would be great to see another post discussing that aspect of the topic (as obviously there’s some interesting opinions on this topic). Perhaps then some would have a better understanding of why link selling is seen by many to be a black hat SEO play, as it seems many still think link buying is advertising — which it isn’t.
Just make sure you publish the final version — not a work in progress ;-)
Wow, I read the original article before starting a 14-hour shift down the mine. There are some people just wanting to make trouble. The original article was not the well thought out, each to their own. No one has the moral high ground here. But some of the comments here are simply put raking muck.
I’ve always found the travel blogging community open and supportive. But this post, and some of the comments here, have made me a little ashamed to be a part of the travel blogging community. There’s no reason to personally attack other bloggers. If you have a problem with a blog. If you don’t like the fact a blogger is selling paid links, then send them an email, and voice your concerns. And if the blogger doesn’t care about your concerns, then just stop reading.
My opinion is that if you have a sponsored post, or paid link, to just tell your readers. I only have a few affiliated links (and I’ve made about $0 from them) and I still have a disclaimer page up. It seems like a pretty simple thing to do.
I get the point of this post might have been to warn other bloggers about paid links, but it was not done in the best way. T5 should be about helping bloggers, and not putting them down.
I don’t know if this comment will get seen amongst all this bitching but I’m new to travel blogging and I’d like some clarification. Shoe-horning an advertiser’s link into a blog post without explain or relevance to the article does seem wrong, but I see sponsored posts everywhere so is that OK? If an advertiser – travel insurance company, money exchange, hotel chain, etc – writes a post for my site that’s appropriate for my audience and has a link to their company included in the text (“Once you’ve sorted your TRAVEL INSURANCE you can get on with planning your trip, etc…”) is that OK with Google? These posts always seems to have some sort of declaration about being a sponsored post so it would be obvious to readers but it would be good content so what’s the problem with that? I’m talking about one link to an advertiser. A standard link, not ref=no follow, just a link. Yes, I’m new and naive to all this and, I guess, I need to be ready for the abuse to come hurling but can we try and have a mature and open conversation? Can I take the occasional (3 a year?) sponsored post without upsetting the Google gods? Thank you.
no its not OK with Google – unless the links have a “nofollow” attribute to them. The problem is that Google sees it as gaming their system – in reality – most of run our businesses with an eye to our bottom line – Google is part of the environment we live in – but I don’t spend all day and night worrying about whether Google will be annoyed.
BTW if you are accepting posts – you should be being paid for it – don’t do it for free!
Thanks Lissie. A friend knows a company that arranges these sponsored posts and, yes, the site owners get paid. It seems to depend on their PageRank/MozRank how much so as I’m new I wouldn’t be likely to be offered much.
I did hear that the links have to be “normal” so not with a “nofollow” attribute but you can state it’s a sponsored posts to be clear to readers. I see these posts everywhere so I honestly thought they were OK with the open declaration.
Is it different to have a competition or event sponsored post from a company? For example, a company might contact us to say ‘please write about my event’ and we can say, “Hey, that’s free advertising. Pay me and I’ll declare it’s a sponsored post and then yes I’ll publish something about your event.” I see these type of posts everywhere too so I find it hard to separate the two types.
Again, I’m new to all this and really hoping to learn how to do things the right way and to make a little money to help fund my travels and time.
Just to give a bit of perspective from a long time blog reader but non blogger…
I have been reading a lot of travel blogs for a couple of years now (many of the ones who commented on this thread!) and honestly I found older posts of a much higher standard…I used to look forward to new posts from my favourite bloggers but now find that it sometimes seems a whole post is centred around having a text link in it. I find it spammy and far less interesting and has put me off reading some blogs.
It is also VERY obvious and makes me wonder who would ever click those links?!
As someone who is just beginning to experiment with advertisements and dealing with advertisers this whole debate makes for a really interesting read.
With regards to the original article, I have read the amended text so was unaware of any changes. Reading the comments I have to agree with those who said that any changes should be highlighted so new readers are aware. I know there is a revisions link but I skipped past that and didn’t notice it.
This could have been a very informative post which sparked a constructed debate but I think the way it was written was wrong and has led to a lot of negative feedback. Newish bloggers like myself look to this site for advice and guidance because of the guys behind it who I fully respect in the travel blogging community, so maybe a little more thought before hitting the publish button.
Having said all that I do agree with some of John’s points. With my blog I’m trying to build a reputation ( a good one! ) so I want readers to be interested in the content. If I litter it with paid text links then I feel as though readers will not trust the content I’ve written around it. It may be my honest thoughts on something but that is all lost if I link to budget flights in the middle of it.
That’s not to say I won’t have links in my content, they will be to sites I’ve found and want to link to without payment.
I’ve only ever sold one text link and to be honest I felt dirty doing it. At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference. I have a full time job so I don’t need to be making money from my blog – other bloggers do so selling links is an extra way of earning cash.
Big Congratulations Paul! (Shouldn’t you be on honeymoon or something?)
Yes, I think that sounds about right. As far as the “debate” goes, the line on paid-links seems to be shared pretty much by all. The sound & fury is about the packaging.
Your line about ‘feeling dirty’ made me think about the first time I decided to use affiliated ads & links on my Travel-Lists site. I resisted the idea for years because it ‘felt dirty’.
It wasn’t the display ads so much. I didn’t see much difference between them and cpc ads (in fact, they felt better because at least I selected which ones I displayed to my readers, where Google or another network makes that decision for cpc ads), but it was the links I felt un-comfortable about. So in the end I decided to do what would make me feel comfy: Rule No1. I only sign up to merchants that I already list and link to organically. Rule No 2. Every affiliated link has a GBP sign (a separate link) next to it that says onmouseover “Affiliated link. I might earn money if you go on to buy something from the website at the end of this link. Click here for more info”. It takes visitors to an Affiliation Policy page.
It’s all a bit ponderous but it makes me feel happy – and here’s the twist. I ran a survey for several months on Google analytics, comparing click-thrus on similar affiliated links and ordinary ones. The affiliated links get between 20 – 30% more clicks. I like to think of it as honesty being rewarded :)
Here’s something else to consider before selling your virtue to the link pimps:
Links that appear even remotely questionable are going to discourage inbound links from other site owners. And that won’t help your own PageRank score or third-party Web referrals.
I do not blog, I do not have a travel blog, I read travel blogs. What is wrong with you people? What is wrong with making money? Who cares how you get paid, I assume any link I click on in any blog, or any website for that matter, whether it is in an ad or in the text, is monetized. It is my choice as a reader if I want to click or not. If your content is good and you have a link embedded that you get paid for, so what? I dislike like bad content whether it has paid links or no paid links. I dislike high and mighty blogging so I most likely will not be coming back here nor will I be visiting Dave’s blog. I will be checking out Jason’s blog as well as Jenny’s. Bottom line for the reader is CONTENT IS KING, if your content is great, people will come back and no one but you (and apparently Dave and John) will care how you get paid.
“Bottom line for the reader is CONTENT IS KING, if your content is great, people will come back and no one but you (and apparently Dave and John) will care how you get paid.”
The search engines care. Since you don’t blog, that obviously isn’t a concern for you, but it’s a valid concern for those who want–and want to profit from–organic search traffic.
Here’s what Google has to say about paid links:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66736
Here’s a Google form for reporting paid links:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks
And here’s an article by search guru Danny Sullivan about paid links, which he wrote back in 2007:
http://searchengineland.com/official-selling-paid-links-can-hurt-your-pagerank-or-rankings-on-google-12360
Key quotes from that article:
“It’s Google’s search engine. They have every right to say that if you sell links, they might penalize you.
“Google is not telling people what to do with their sites, which is a popular argument point. Google is telling people what to do if they are concerned about doing better in Google. Don’t want to be harmed in Google? Don’t sell links.
“Don’t care about Google? Sell links all you want.”
I am glad I came across this. This post and especially the comments to it are an invaluable insight into the travel blogging world. What a revelation. I had no idea that, underneath all the RT’ing and cross-linking fellow bloggers’ sites, you guys actually hated each other.
My modest blog is a leisure affair of a full-time London banker. I travel strictly during leave from my income-earning job and blog about my travels to a fairly limited audience. The occasional external feedback I receive has always been good though, so the idea of giving up banking and joining the [travel blogging] “club” did cross my mind, and not once.
But the reality of the bloggers’ world seems like a far cry from the idyll I had imagined. Here comes a tight, over-saturated market of writers forced to co-operate with (and even help promote) the competitors they do not necessarily like or respect. The same writers who jump at each other’s throats and get personal at a single provokation — at that struggling to make ends meet.
You know what? I’ll just stick to banking.
I haven’t read all the comments, but there are way too many, so forgive me if somebody already touched on this already.
Selling text links is no less ethical than most run-of-the-mill everyday advertising practices.
Advertising is a way of promoting a product, often through celebrity endorsements, to convince consumers of a products value and, ultimately, to convince them to buy it. Often non-transparent and lies in an ethical grey area.
If you had studied advertising at all, you would know that a person’s belief that that the advertising was paid for in most cases has very little affect on the effectiveness of the ad. However, in many cases it is not obvious to the audience that advertisements have been paid for.
Product placement in films and movies is completely non-transparent. So is much of sponsorship of athletes, which has them wear a certain brand of clothing when appearing in media. We all know the reason why press trips are offered and taken as well.
Selling text links is selling your recommendation that Google rank a product higher so that more people will see it, probably increase their perception of its value, and thus purchase it. Is this moral? Probably not.
Is it less moral than advertising or practices undertaken in other industries? That’s also doubtful.
There are few industries that can claim complete morality. Most industries have ethically questionable practices. Hell, Marx makes a good case that the entire basis for capitalist exchanges is morally suspect.
So, is selling text links ethical? Probably not. Is selling advertising more ethical than selling text links? Probably not. But even if it is, the degree to which it is more moral is tiny at best.
You’re making mountains out of mole hills.
Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback on this post, I think it’s safe to draw a line under the whole thing here and point you over to our followup post here:
http://travelllll.com/2011/10/31/talking-about-paid-links-we-did-it-wrong/