not cool.

i say that Matt should pull out his sword and lay it down harsh on them.

PhpBB is indirectly responsible for a LOT of the spam on websites. It's so easy to write bots to make PhpBB posts, that almost every forum I know of is chock full of spam links.

If it's not spam links, the software itself allows you to create a profile with a homepage link.

Not to mention the various XSS and other vulnerabilities it's had. Somebody once hacked one of my sites due to phpbb vulnerabilities.

as a sofware provider, they need to not only step up their security, but start putting nofollow in on links in posts and profiles by default. Somehow, I don't seem them doing that.

Well, one would think they would accept only on-topic ads, not completely offtopic ones, and moreover, verging on spam. But looks like money will buy anything...

Don't get me wrong.. i'm not against text link ads.

I make a few bucks a month selling them... but the ones I sell recieve nofollow tags, AND only exist on a page that search engines never see.

A thank you page that users see after completing a form.... 12% of people who complete a form click on one of those text link ads there... creating a great value to me and the purchaser.

To me.. 12% of somebody's converting traffic is much better than a PR9 link.

I am not sure if this is the right way of dealing with this issue. I can show you dozens of high profile sites buying and selling text links without disclosing them as ads.

Like I said before: In Germany the highest profile newspaper sites do it, more spammy than dark grey SEOs.

Feel free to point out more sites doing the same Tadeusz. (Please omit the "http" part, so that they won't be auto-linked...) It's certainly relevant.

Tadeusz, i didn't mean ban them... I just meant to tweak the little internal flag that says "links from this site don't pass on pagerank" that we all know exists.

Coincidence? http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=42953

Old habbits die hard....

Isn't adding a "nofollow" just a way of cloaking? The user thinks the link is legitimate, the search engine knows it's not.

a paragraph from the link that Jake9K gave us
<<Most of the sites they work on ... show fairly unrelated links in the footer of the pages (eg a jewlery shop listing hot tubs, leasing, home improvement sites, etc).>>

When buying jewelry, that very often means that they are am seriously courting a female. Which in turn means they are likely thinking about a new home.... seems very related to me. It would be like selling linking to places to buy bulk junk food on a video gaming site. ;o) Totally related!

That's an interesting way of looking at it, Jake9K, although I'm not sure that "cloaking" is the right word here.

Maybe the browser should prompt you: "You just clicked on an untrusted (nofollow) link. Are you sure you want to go there?"

nofollow is basically for search engines, not for visitors.

Definitely not cool.

wait, does anybody think visitors are actually clicking these links?

you pretty much have to be looking for them to find them.

We detected these a while ago; those links aren't giving those sites any benefit in Google.

Go Matt!!! :D

Heheh. Bet someone wants their money back now.

Detected automatically or manually, that is the question :-). Just no value – or no value for the linked-to + penalty for the linker?

I noticed the same thing happening with Wordpress themes. Some theme designers were putting affiliate links in the footer, as well as hosting the "demo" of the theme on the affiliate site, so that people would link to the affiliate when they want to demo the theme.

engtech: And it's not just Wordpress either – I've seen some Blogger templates that do the same. "Template sponsors" they call themselves.

Sad thing, that they need those links on their frontpage.

I think they should make the site clean without those type of ads...

I think it very hypocritical to just name&blame phpbb. I can name a dozen others PR8+PR9, including some you wouldn't expect to be selling their space for SEO sites*.

PR9 sites homepages go for 900$/month/link. So if you have ~8 these opensource people can earn some money, and the SEO people believe that they are doing their work.

Lets be an snitch: nature.com does so.

Owh and don't forget w3c.org who was knowingly selling links for more then 1.5 years in the form of their 'support program'.

as matt said, those links has been there for quite a while (although it wasn't PR9 then). and yes, that's a quite usual practice in germany. listing all big sites, that do this would lead to a very long list. by the way i hardly know a newspaper, that does NOT do it.

> I think it very hypocritical to just name&blame phpbb.

Well, I didn't. If you've been around for longer time, you know that the blog often covers these type of sites.... in the past, many players like Sat1, Wordpress, W3C, Washington Post have been mentioned, too, and I don't intend to suddenly stop with phpBB either.

> Lets be an snitch: nature.com does so.

Interesting – where?

philipp: /naturejobs/index.html

Before we start a witch hunt here: What's wrong with sponsoring Wordpress or Blogger themes? Next thing you forbid the theme makers to link themesleves in the footer or what? Next thing you should nofollow all links to your clients on your website, indeed anybody you do business with because that's manipulation!

So think twice before yelling.

If someone did a theme for a client the client has a right to be linked there.

Anonymous wrote:
>think it very hypocritical to just name&blame phpbb.....
>Lets be an snitch: nature.com does so.

>philipp: /naturejobs/index.html

They don't. The ads they have are in a clear list of "sponsored links". In English, that means advertisements.

Or is there something I'm not seeing?