JS_Harris - 10:39 am on Jan 15, 2009 (gmt 0)

Amazing story, what Markus has achieved does inspire me.

This might interest some of you, call it my mission statement.

I came here tonight because I'm scared to death of Google's "nofollow" and wanted to do some digging around to let the feelings pass. I own several sites and one web directory (of which none of my own sites are in) and I'm having nightmares of being labeled a "bad neighborhood" by a cranky human behind his 4th cup of coffee on a Friday night when he'd rather be home. (It's a crazy feeling)

I've managed to avoid bankruptcy in these tough times but I lost my home to foreclosure last year when my full time job cut back to part time. I now rely on the income I earn as a webmaster to supplement my income and to make ends meet for my family, there aren't many jobs in my field right now. I'm 100% pro white hat only like most everyone here but still I worry.

I've SEO'd the snot out of all my sites, linked absolutely none of them together and tonight I was debating adding nofollow to every link in my directory to be safe. It doesn't accept reciprocals, all additions are moderated by me and STILL I feel this way. Needing the meager income I make online drives me to want to protect it.

How much do I need it? Enough to accept paid review requests while adding the word "/the" to my robots.txt file and then starting every review page uri with that word (and not telling the person paying me unless they ask). I need every dollar, who doesn't, but the power Google weilds over me often feels too big. Chill? yeah right, can't be done when I play with my little girl between articles, I owe her everything she deserves.

Then I read a success story on webmasterworld and I remember that nofollow is for links I can't vouch for because I didn't add them myself or check them out in advance. My fear of a human making a judgment call against me is still a possibility but NO... I'm not adding nofollow to the several hundred sites I've hand picked. For that, tonight, I thank you Markus. I can't afford to have even ONE site go down in rank right now (you can count them on your fingers, I don't have dozens or hundreds like some).

That article has inspired me, I'm writing all of this so I don't forget it, there is hope at the end of the tunnel not only for me and my family but for every webmaster. Now I hope this "mission statement" doesn't come back to haunt me, ugh- submit.