Retailer JCPenney saw its results in Google fall last month after it was established that the company was using paid links to improve search results for a number of key terms. Now, a new report shows that many other sites are continuing to use this strategy, even if some of them are unaware.
According to a report from the Nieman Journalism Lab, websites for news organizations such as GlobalPost, the Christian Science Monitor and the Charleston Daily Mail have all been using paid links on their sites without following proper protocol to avoid being penalized by Google, even after the JCPenney debacle.
In an email to Nieman Lab, Bob Hanna, ad director at the Christian Science Monitor, said the organization was “comfortable” that the ads were appropriate despite the lack of nofollow tags. But Hanna did say the company would be reassessing the situation in light of recent events.
Nieman says the simplest thing sites can do to avoid this problem is to avoid publishing paid links in the first place. But, if that's not an option, using the nofollow tag should help.
There should also be no fear of being penalized by Google for using nofollow tags, as Matt Cutts said earlier this week in a YouTube video that he saw no evidence the search engine giant would be looking negatively on these tags.
