Foreign Language Advertisers/Sponsors

Should I turn down the cash?

[lorenzinho2]

I've been approached by a potential sponsor from Italy for my English language site. My home page has PR7, and I'm uhhh.... suspicious of the motives behind wanting to put Italian anchor text on a 100% English site.

For reasons of principle, I feel like I should turn down the cash, but at the same time, who am I to question WHY someone wants to buy a sponsorship? Plus, the $$$ will go right back into the site, and help fund some new features, making the site better, blah, blah, blah.

I guess I have two questions. 1) Is there an ethical issue with me accepting an Italian sponsor; and 2) Has anyone heard of sites getting dinged by the search engines for having off topic links?

[asinah]

shouldn't be a problem. Just go ahead and take the cash. Ask him to pay you in advance for 3-4 month. If your PR7 drops you still have revenues left.

[lorenzinho2]

I'm not sure if i am interested in trading my pr, or more importantly my good standing with search engines, for a couple of months of revenue.

[heini]

So what is the question then? Do you sell advertizing space on your site, yes or no?

[lorenzinho2]

yes, I sell both advertising and sponsorships on my site. The question is:

1) Is there an ethical issue with me accepting an Italian sponsor; and 2) Has anyone heard of sites getting dinged by the search engines for having off topic links?

Foreign language ads are clearly not relevant to the content on my site. Again, I am looking for people who know if accepting non-relevant advertisers on my site, who are clearly simply looking to buy PR, will get my site penalized.

Not sure how else to explain it.

[heini]

So you are having a Google issue, right? PR is a Google concept.
If so, Google does of course not penalize sites for having links in more than one language or leading to sites with another topic.
What can happen is Google not passing PR to your advertizer.

All that applies to any advertizer on your site, has nothing whatsoever to do with languages.

[lorenzinho2]

Thank you.