I Said No To Text-Link-Ads
When I signed up for text-link-ads several months earlier, I meticulously read the terms and conditions. Nowhere was it mentioned that you couldn't use nofollow on your links. As such I had signed up with text-link-ads and have used nofollow from the very beginning. I used to make under 400$ monthly. Few days back I got a very interesting email from Brock Boser, Inventory manager of text-link-ads.
Angsuman,It is against our terms and conditions to have a rel="nofollow" on the TLA ads. Could you please remove this? Please let me know once this is done and so we can send you payment for your links. Until then I have put your account on HOLD.
Brock Boser
Inventory Manager
Text-Link-Ads
a MediaWhiz Holdings, Inc. Company
I replied to him with:
Hi Brock,
When I signed up for text-link-ads I carefully noted the terms and conditions and I couldn't find any condition anywhere which explicitly prohibited me from using nofollow on my links. Have the terms and conditions recently changed?
I am just following the Google Webmaster guidelines for sponsored links. Can you please clarify your position?
Best,
Angsuman
He replied back:
Angsuman,
We sell our ads as direct links void of any "no follow" tags so that is what our advertisers expect and are paying for. Unfortunately since we did not hear from you for over a week our clients started requesting to be removed. I believe we owe you around $200 for the ads for the first three weeks of the month. Please let me know if this will work and we will clear the hold and process the payment to you.
Thanks,
——————
Brock Boser
Inventory Manager
Text-Link-Ads
a MediaWhiz Holdings, Inc. Company
I decided I couldn't go along with text-link-ads under their revised terms as he put forward. So I decided to withdraw from text-link-ads. I replied him:
Hi Brock,
When I signed up I was clear from your terms and conditions that there is no restriction on using nofollow which is why I signed up.
It is not possible for me to remove the nofollow. So I have decided not to use Text-Link-Ads anymore.
I leave it to your conscience at to whether you want to pay me the money you owe on account of the ads displayed.Best,
Angsuman
Update: I did receive a payment from TLA today. So they played fair.
In conclusion I have decided to withdraw from text-link-ads and also removed their links from this blog. I will remove the few other links by tomorrow. At the core I want to play fair. I am not against link ads. They are a valid and proven advertising concept. However I think they should either be in javascript or with nofollow. What would you have done in my position? What are your thoughts on text-link-ads business model?
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July 8th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
This is interesting…I guess no one ever gave it a second thought. It’s simply assumed that links - paid or unpaid - on the sidebar especially are automatically “follow”.
From an advertiser’s viewpoint, why would they want to pay for a link that is “nofollow”?
July 25th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Bravo. I almost did the same thing. I still can’t find anything on their site about
rel="nofollow". I’d have Text-Link-Ads on my site in a second if they could be “nofollowed.” Of course, I knew their angle and what the end game would be. Still, I’m glad someone challenged them on it.August 9th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
When it comes down to it, ads in Javascript are called AdSense using AdWords, not text links.
They are completely separate industries and should be treated as such.
September 30th, 2007 at 5:09 am
Thanks for the post. Nice to see people giving away money for the good of search quality. I am interested in such a service, selling my space but no faking a link. Is there any good alternative?
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Just got a similar email from Brock. Moreover he also asked me to change the heading “Sponsored Links” to something like “Friends”.
Guess what have I replied?
Except to be fair to the advertisers I asked them not to pay me so the money can be refunded. Again, I’ll leave it to their conscience whether they actually refund the money
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Welcome to the club
November 11th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Hey Angsuman,
How did you change their output code and add the nofollow ? did you hardcode the links ?
November 27th, 2007 at 10:13 am
You are very great at negotiating with them.
Finally managed to get your payment.
Good job Angsuman.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:19 am
You are very good negotiating with them.
Congrats on your payment.
Before this I am using blogspot to blog. I got PR2 and then I just start my own blog. Do visit me back and help me with blogging. Thanx Angsuman
December 10th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Section 9a says, \
December 10th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Sorry, quote didn’t work:
December 11th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Brandon,
1. When text-link-ads first launched and I signed up this clause wasn’t in the contract.
2. When I signed up, text-link-ads allowed you to customize the links based on an API example they provided. They encouraged customization. I used it to add nofollow links, fully following their guidelines.
Hope that clairifies,
Angsuman
January 1st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Thanks for this post, it was very useful! I\’ve had a successful co-operation with TLA, making up to $900 during the peak months, and they have always been fair to me. But when I asked about adding rel=\”nofollow\” and about risks with sponsored links without the nofollow added, I was told to just be smart and not write out that the links were sponsored. That wouldn\’t be honest, and I wouldn\’t want to be seen as dishonest even by Google. I have now removed my TLA links (directly after the payment for december came), and will not put them back until the rel=\”nofollow\” is in place. Until then, I will manage all advertisements on my site all by myself to make sure it is done in a way that keeps everyone happy.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 am
We use text link ads on our websites. We are not dishonest about them being sponsored as they are. We do not use nofollow although that should not make a difference either way to an advertiser. Most ads are in place for a month. Not long enough to make a difference in any page rank as it is likely the link will not be there the next time the page is crawled. The purpose of buying the link in the first place may not be for the page rank as that would make very little sense. Rather it is to drive traffic to your website. That is all and a nofollow in place makes no difference for that. Just the same if it violates the TLA TOS then don’t do it or don’t use them. Pretty simple. They fetch you top dollar for your links though so why complain. As for altering their ad code… We have done this as well. We had to due to the default code breaking our layout. We contacted TLA and submitted our changes to them. They have not had an issue with this at all. Key point being “we contacted them in regard to the changes” The way I view TLA is that they find links relative to my websites content that in turn give my users something of relevance to look at and they saved me the time of having to scour the internet to find those that are actually interested in a link on our site. The payment is for the real estate that the links consume and that is all. If google does not like that we offer these links than that is just to bad for google. We do not base our actions on what google thinks as they are nothing to us other than a small percentage of our traffic. If they don’t like it we do not care. They can crawl elsewhere. If more people took on our attitude google’s pull in these areas would diminish. Take back control of the internet and take it out of the hands of corporate conglomerates such as google.