How To Stay Under The Google Radar
So you got some paid links going on your blog and Google haven’t got to you yet and you want to keep it that way. Here are a few things you can do to stay under Google’s radar. Keep in mind that this is a cat and mouse game. What is working now may not work in the future.
Make Sure Links Are Related To Your Blog
Having links that are unrelated to your blog is one of the biggest paid link tip offs. Keeping your links related to what you blog about will help you stay under Google’s radar. You should consider more creative linking strategies as well. Links in the side bar are often viewed as paid links, especially if they are site wide. Links at the post level are a lot harder to detect. If you’re a new publisher to Text Link Ads, consider running single page links instead of site wide because those sell more.
Upgrade To The Latest TLA Plugin
If you are running an old TLA plugin, then you need to upgrade to the latest one right away. If you’ve been wondering how Google can tell if you’ve been selling Text Link Ads, it’s actually pretty simple. Shoemoney explained it in his Fun Numbers post. If you want to see all the sites running TLA, do a search for function tla_ads. The number has gone down from the 34,100 that Shoe reported. This doesn’t necessarily mean that publishers are dropping TLA. The latest TLA plugin doesn’t have function tla_ads in the codes so publisher running the new plugin won’t show up on the hit list.
Do Not Label The Links
Labeling your links with “Sponsored Links” “Advertisements” “TLA” “Text Link Ads” etc. just screams for Google to bitch slap you. The best thing to do is not to label the links at all. If you must label the links then do it with an image and not text. The image can say whatever you want it to say because the Googlebot can’t read it. This doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. For that reason, you’ll want the image to say something along the lines of “recommended sites” or “sites I read.”
Remove Your Link To Text Link Ads
Google has targeted Text Link Ads publishers because TLA is the biggest player in the link selling business. Many publishers link to TLA under their paid links using “Your Link Here” or “Get Featured Here.” The bot can follow the link to Text Link Ads and conclude that you are selling paid links.
The easiest way to avoid this is to remove the link to TLA. However, this could reduce link sales. A way around this would be to hide the link behind a redirect and add a nofollow and noindex to it. The bot won’t see text link ads in the URL because it’s behind a redirect and it won’t follow the link because you put a nofollow on it. Hell, it may even conclude that you are following Google’s guideline on putting nofollow on sponsored links. 
OK, that’s probably wishful thinking.
While the redirect and nofollow may keep you from the bot’s radar, it doesn’t keep you safe from pissed off readers from manually reporting your blog to Google. So, if you want to really play it safe, remove the link entirely.
Paid Links Are Not Going Away
Paid links are not going away no matter how hard Google tries. While Google has been able to get many sites to surrender, that had the effect of increasing prices because of less supply. I’ve talked to quite a few sites and they tell me that since the Google crack down, their link sales have been better than ever. As long as they stay under Google’s radar, they’ll be able to enjoy the income the links provide plus get Google traffic as well.
Good luck in your cat and mouse game with Google.
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Truth be told.
I just need my sites to get into TLA now!
You haven’t got yourself approved? I thought TLA has lost most of their publishers with so many leaving them? (I do know many stayed with them as well
)
I haven’t applied with TLA personaly but I have seen many removing TLA ads because they saw decrease in SERPs and again increase in SERPs after they removed them.
I decided to apply for TLA with another site, but have yet to find a site I would not care at all about and run this test
Why is PR so important? I don’t get it. If you write good content, link to other blogs, and promote, PR is quite superfluous…
Kenneth
Agreed.
Hiding a link to TLA behind nofollow and noindex might not stop google. I would cloak the link by user agent and IP address as well.
I am not sure even that cloaking would work, more like it is better than you simply remove that link completely. Even tho this is a tough mouse and cat game we can’t really say how to hide those links until people find out how they detect links and what makes things worst is that we have to fight Google and Google fighting us…
TLA is making all out efforts to save themselves…
Google seems to be going all out in asserting their dominion, what with slapping down on sites selling TLA, then making changes to the clickable area of adsense ads… probably all an effort to increase their own market share in the selling ads game.
On an off-topic, I was reading in the papers how an early employee who first joined Google as a masseuse when it was just a start-up, and how she is now a multi-millionaire after cashing in her stock shares…
Rags to riches! Thats pretty much the Google story isn’t it!
Thanks John, I like these tips (even I don’t sell any TLAs). Good post.
I just got it for one of my sites… I’m going to try the redirect.
Huh already got accepted? That was fast
Well link sales is never gonna stop.
I say sales link with a smarter way.
Use digital point forums to sell links easily
ditto. the only way link sales would stop is if google ruled out the use of links to determine ranking. anywho i don’t talk too much about dp link sales anymore… i.e. shhhh…
Good tips… but private advertising is still the best if you can find the advertisers.
Thanks for all the links!
A very good post here - but we will see if that will help enough….. It will be a hard fight.
redirecting the links is a very good idea,although I’m not a fan of TLA
i still need to grow my site
I think the easiest solution would be for TLA to switch their ad links to use rel=”nofollow”. If they really are buying links from the SITE and not PR from GOOGLE, they should have been doing that in the first place.
I’d agree with that, I only ever buy links for the traffic and so nofollowed links are fine by me.
As for the code problem, I find that writing your own code to show the TLA links works just fine!
Not getting a PR benefit would probably kill 85% of the publishers right out of TLA
Perhaps, but it could confuse the issue for Google. Right now TLA means paid nofollow links and is easier to spot. If TLA also did nofollow links, Google would really have to change their current actions. To penalize just for using a competing product would not stand up long. Right now, they are hiding behind supposed view experience. Not that any reader knows whether a link is nofollow or not.
Google doesn’t really care what the reader does. All they care about is making sure no one can game their search engine results.
Well said John, but you may want to clarify. Adding nofollow to the linkback to TLA will still get it crawled. Nofollow just prevents the passing of links juice. Of course this wont matter if you use a nice redirect.
Mike
I am sure google have no issue with us spreading traffic juice, it’s the link juice they are more concern, they dont want spammy sites.
I think adding a nofollow to TLA links is the best solution to avoid Google’s Fury!
wow, ur like the undercover agent for TLA’s for manipulating google. at least ur on toes, and making sure ur still banking in that dough.
*goes and changes title from sponsors to friends.
i need to grow my site also.
Yeah I got the email to change my TLA code
shhh it’s supposed to be a secret!
Thanks John, another
post .. but very 
Yes, i think google has cracked down on the sites selling links. But I see this as a mere step to correct the valuation of pagerank system of google, since the links on even high pr were going for very cheap and it was sort of deteriorating the PR system of google.
And what good is the PR system if they are manually penalizing a good site? They are really saying their system is not working anyway.
I recently changed my code in most sites. For me happend something different.. I had a PR drop in the sites that didn’t sell any links and those who do sell links via Text link Ads didn’t have the smae PR. Maybe I was just lucky..
Good tips but the cat has the mouse already. Thats because TLA publishers tend to visit their TLA control panel a lot, giving Google all the data they need to know that someone who checks out TLA a lot likely has business with them. If they’re onto you as a browser a quick check of whois data gives up your site addresses.
Whats on your site is irrelevant if you visit TLA daily.
If they do that then Google is going bankrupt because no company can withstand a nation class action lawsuit of invasion of privacy
It will likely detour a huge number of people from using Google too if the news media picks up on this so that would be the worst thing Google can do.
Oh, and for your own good, don’t respond in threads like this if you’re selling links, you KNOW google is stalking John right?
Ha ha, damn.
wihh, i always redirest my url !
haha
We don’t sell links via TLA. We decided to sell links directly, at $2 a pop.
Make hay while the sun shines. Yes it will be a cat and mouse game and why not use the advise so well communicated to play? Thanks for the tips. They will sooner or later catch on to what is happening and do something else to spoil the fun anyway!
I think tla is gone, what about the old links?
Google is just going to drive more people onto the Dark Side of Blackhat SEO. Selling text links is going to stay, just preple getting smarter to hide them.
Yes, it’s gone… gone… gone… My PR is 0 BUT LIFE goes on! Who knows,… the extra fire in my belly may help a great deal!
F*** Google. I’ll continue to sell links as long as I can, I don’t care. But of course I’ll have to hide, Google is evil!
Well, Even TechCrunch is still selling links with nonofollow… Take a look for yourself.
Very nice article and advice. Do you have an example of such a link and redirect for us newbies?
I am selling direct links and it’s with nofollow rules. I guess you just have to play by google’s rules.
Why don’t we all switch to Yahoo and MSN as publishers?
My big tip - nofollow some of your sponsored links… Google will reasonably assert that if you have a block of links where some are nofollowed, you are applying editorial discretion as to which links to pass juice to. So, you could very easily just add in some non-paid links into your sponsored