Another Wordpress Blog

It’s no secret I’m a supporter of monetizing our blogs. Like John Reese, I think individual bloggers are the ones who decide the content of their blogs.

I also know that in search engines will be trying to distinguish paid-for-links from links that are placed only because someone feels enthusiastic about a site. That means if you are involved in paid posting, you will need to think about how search engines will learn to diagnose which links appear in paid articles and which ones are posted absolutely, positively, entirely for free.

To that end, I have compiled a list of ten features that I think scream “This is a paid-to-post link:”

1. Links to exactly one domain name in nearly every article.
2. No zero link articles; no multilink articles.
3. No links to newspaper articles or blogs in any article posted.
4. No real images in post. (Image either a tracking image or in tinyurl.)
5. Very commercial topic.
6. No adsense in blog post at site that normally runs adsense in blog posts.
7. Lots of posts on car insurance, mortgages, loans, travel and detox!
8. No identifiable focus for the blog.
9. Javascript blogrolling rolls on sidebar that is shared with many other blogs in a rag-tag assortment of niches.
10. Blog shows icons or displays a large fraction of these: My blog log, digg, blogcatalog, fuel my blog, U comment/I follow tag, I disclose tag, review me tag, PayPerPost tag or payU2blog tag.

Mind you some these features will appear on non-paid to post blogs. But if your blog shares more than 8 out of 10 of these features, I can guarantee you that Google will figure out many of the links are mostly paid for!

If I had any readers at this two week old blog, I’d ask you: What symptoms do you think scream “these links are paid for?”