No Old Spam Links Plugin Updated:
Can it salvage PR?

Today brings a flood of announcements that Google has knocked down many blog Page Ranks. This is thought to be due to a number of factors including excess numbers of paid posts. So, it is natural that I should hurry up and update “No Old Spam Links”, the plugin that lets you automatically “nofollow” sponsored posts after your contractual obligation to “follow” has expired.

In principle, this plugin may help protect your PR. In practice? Matt Cutts’ has never commented on “No Old Spam Links” and is likely unaware of it. So, who knows?

That said, here are the recent changes to the plugin:

1. I discovered and fixed a bug that sometimes when widgets were used. I fixed the bug.
2. I discovered and fixed a bug that sometimes occurs when you have no specific people in your “nofollow” list. Unfortunately, this bug was affecting my knitting blog so I was giving out way more followed paid links than I intended! Way more.)(Yes, my knitting blog’s page rank dropped; I’ll elaborate on this in a separate post.)
3. I tested the new version with WP 2.3. It works fine.

So, if your worried about excess followed paid links, I suggest you install No Old Spam Links. If you aren’t worried about Google, or you are waiting for them to announce the plugin helps, then don’t use it.

Other plugin news:

1. Tricia is testing the new version of Kontera Control at her WP 2.2 blog. I’m testing at my test blog. She was the one who alerted me to the general issue of plugins going buggy when widgets are used.
2. I updated “Hide No Sponsored Categories” but I’m letting it sit a few days so I can do a better job detecting any bugs. The future version should work for WP 2.3, be compatible with widgets (in fact, it is widgetized) and hopefully work for all versions of WP 2.2 and above. I also coded to detect problems with early version of WP and inform the user why the options page doesn’t display. (This was, btw, the update from hell because my favorite WP category hook vanished!)

Tags:Link Building My Plugins NoOldSpamLinks paid links sponsored posts WordPress

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• Ten Google Page Rank Haikus
• Kontera Control for WP 2.3: Feel Free To Test!
• Kontera Control Being Updated: Would you like me to test with your theme?
• Andy Beard Wants Dramatic Titles: Just Like Muhamed Saleem's.

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Do PPP and Google Agree About Something?
Contests entry posts are not “free”!

Yes. It appears the Pay Per Post and Google may very well agree about something! They may end up using different words, but when it appears they both think that posts written in order to gain a chance at winning a valuable prize are not freely given links.

In the case of Google: The blogger who offers the prize could get a severe Google penalty.

In the case of PPP: A blogger will not be paid for any PPP post flanked by the “contests” post.

So, yep, PPP and Google agree! These posts are kinda-sorta “paid”, “sponsored” or “not freely given” and will be treated as such. Now, for some details!

Pay Per Post’s Reaction to Contest Posts

Recently, PayPerPost rejected a post written by Joanna, of Nanashi-inc.net. The reason? Her PPP sponsored posts was placed next to a post that contained a link to a contest for an IPOD; the link served in place of an entry fee.

The problem? The PPP TOS prohibit posting a PPP post next to any sponsored post and PPP considers these “contests entrace fee” posts sponsored.

Google’s Reaction to Contest Posts

A short while back, Dave Airey decided to run a blog contest. He offered a prize; the entrance fee for the contest was a blog post that linked to Dave’s blog.

Soon after, Dave noticed he’d suffered a severe Google penalty; Matt Cutt’s mentioned the contest when explaining the penalty.

Luckily for Dave, he was able to ask his readers to delete the links. After they did, he regained his Google rank!

Similarities!

Notice the IPOD contest run by It’s Write Now Dave Airey’s contesnt. To enter the contest, both require a blog post with a link back to the contests’ blogs.

So, it would appear that both Google and PPP consider these sorts of “contest entry” blog posts with their links to be motivated by some sort of reward, bribe, or what have you. Of course, each business responds differently.

PPP accepts sponsored posts as an entirely valid option for blogs. However, they prohibit bloggers from placing these sorts of contest posts adjacent to PPP’s clients’ posts. So, PPP’s response is to not pay the blogger for the invalid post.

In contast, Google doesn’t like sponsored posts at all. If they detect the contest, they will apply a Google penalty to the blogger who runs the contest. We don’t entirely know whether they will penalize the bloggers who enter the contest. But since Google seems to see these links as unnatural, it seems there is some risk Google might do so.

The irony

If you read the IPOD contest rules carefully, you’ll notice I just wrote a post that qualifies me to enter the contest! Would PPP consider this post sponsored? Would Google? Hmmmm….
Tags:monetize PayPerPost sponsored posts

Related Posts:

• The Secret to Organizing Posts while Complying with PPP Best Practices
• Warning: Don't Back Date PPP Posts!
• Pay Per Post: No back to back sponsored posts.
• PPP & Argus: Great Leap Forward

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