Is there a need to Nofollow a flash ad banner?

this is an unexpected problem for me!

[wanderingmind]

Wanted to put a flash ad banner on a site I run, to new site of mine. Not a link, mind you, an ad. The intention was traffic, not PR or links.

So I put it up, and then the new site started getting crawled fast, pages started getting indexed - but that is not what I wanted. I wanted click-thru traffic. This cannot be because of the few links I have got for the new site from here and there. I wanted link development to wait, and first expose my current visitors to the new site getting a few of them to register there.

So what gives? The Flash banner which links to the new site is being read by Googlebot and followed to the new site?

Not what was my intention.

If that is what is happening, what does one do? I never wanted to get into the nofollow business (totally dislike it, if I link to you, it is a LINK.)

Any ideas whats going on, and what is a way out?

[tedster]

How does the banner link to your other site? Is there a straight anchor tag or is the link scripted into the flash file?

It is common with banners to send the click through a scripted re-direct of some kind, often to count clicks. That also does the job of not being counted as a "real' link by Google. But I also use direclty linked banner ads to drive traffic to other related sites that I work with and have never had a problem from Google about it.

And one more though to add to my sort of rambling reply. Google has many ways of learning about a new site - it doesn't seem to need a link on another web page all the time to find you. Whatever, the mechanism (insert your favorite conspiracy theiry here) the initial crawl can come many ways, but staying in the index and getting ranked in a stable way will take link development.

So your plan may still work out for you, crawl or no crawl.

[wanderingmind]

Its a straight anchor tag I think. I know Google may have found and crawled the site in many ways, but the reasonable ranking in SERPs for this new site makes me suspect some PR is being passed through the flash banners. Something I wasn't expecting - that was meant for the second stage when I get a bit into links, not when I had just launched it.

Anyway, no harm done, but as Google says, an HTML link is a vote, and I didnt mean to vote for my own site rightaway!

[Marshall]

wanderingmind,

It may not have been your intention, but in connection with the FOO I just started, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Unless it is causing a problem, if it gets your site indexed and ranked, alls (or is it all's?) the better, IMHO.

Good luck with the new site.
Marshall