After the recent fiasco with buying and selling text links, I wanted to make sure it was still allowed to sell banner ads. I was suprised to find out it’s not. You don’t have to worry about putting “nofollow” on your banner ads though, Google will do that automatically for you. Pretty cool, right?

I think anyone would agree that webmasters bring Google ungodly amounts of money, yet it seems like Google has grown to hate us. Google, the search engine, lives on links. They even say so and warn against a site that hordes there on traffic without linking out. They encourage you to link out. But they don’t want you to get links in!

Here is some of the shenanigans Google has pulled lately:

• Link exchanges are bad
• Directories that link directly to you are bad
• Buying links is bad
• Selling links is bad
• Selling ads that directly link to the buyer’s site is bad
• Giving away a program, plugin, theme or software that requires a “link” is bad

And the list goes on and on. I’m not the only one that feels this way. I work hard on my sites and I try to stay within the rules. The one on the list that probably bugs me the most is “linkware”. If I put my hard work into a software package (a forum, community site, whatever) or a theme, I should get some sort of reward. If I decide to release it as “linkware”, that’s my right. They are currently cracking down on sponsored themes, which I do get to an extent. But as a theme creator, that’s my design and in exchange for using it, I ask for a link. That’s a small token of support and helps me continue doing those kinds of things for free. I’m giving something of value and getting something of value back.

I don’t know how far they are going to take their vendetta against links, but I’m starting to lose faith in a company I used to have huge respect for, who’s motto is “don’t be evil”, who’s products I truly enjoy and tell everyone to use. I’m feeling burned and as more webmasters look for alternative sources of traffic we will influence our readers to use that source. Google is creating the tool of their own undoing. Sure, it’ll take a while, but their sewing the wrong kind of seeds. They won’t like the crop come harvest.

Technorati Tags: Google, Big Brother, Text Links, Banner Ads, Making Money, Webmasters