I sell text links

And am only a little concerned.

[Jordo needs a drink]

There's another unrelated thread where a discussion of Google's ability to detect text links bought and sold for the purposes of PR and whether they really can or should detect them.

I wanted to post what I do, and some of my minor concerns so that y'all can rip it apart and continue the discussion.

I sell text link and banner advertising on one of my sites' home page. I show 5 text links in a block labeled "Sponsored Links" under my navigation block only on the home page and display rotating banner ads on one block in the center of my home page.

Why I'm not concerned Google will think these are for pagerank purposes only:
1. They are in a block labeled sponsored links.
2. They are in full view - not 5 links at the bottom of the page that seem out of place.
3. The purchase page clearly states my TOS for the links and that they are for advertising and driving traffic to a site (added recently).
4. All links require approval and will not be approved if we wouldn't normally feel comfortable linking to the site. In other words, no adult, gambling, etc sites and no sites where we would feel the need for a no follow tag.
5. If hand reviewed by Google (properly), I feel they would see my intent is create revenue by selling advertisements, not create revenue by selling pagerank.
6. It's not a link exchange, and I don't participate in any link exchanges or purchase text links.

Why I'm a little concerned:
1. I'm not a big company that can afford Google to not care about my site and not give a human review.
2. I don't use no follow, even though I wouldn't approve the links if I felt I needed to.
3. The links bought so far are unrelated to the theme of my site.
4. It wouldn't surprise me if some, if not all of the links purchased were for PR purposes, even though that's not why we're selling them.

[edited by: tedster at 1:37 am (utc) on Nov. 9, 2006]