Sponsor Link from PR 8 Site - Allowed?

[acac]

I just saw something very interesting. A very popular and highly regarded blog had an interesting section in the front page titled:
Advertisement
Thanks to Our [BlogName] Sponsors
followed by direct links to three of its sponsors like Peer 1, Rackspace etc.

While I understand that any site can do what they please with their own site, however I also understood that Google doesn't like (and its likeness matters because it provides majority of traffic for most sites) links to sponsors unless it is Javascript link or nofollowed.

As the site is still having a high pagerank and heavy traffic, I wonder if it is a case of Google just missing it or it has allowed certain sites to be exempt from the rules which applies to lesser sites / orgs. Or has the rules changed for all?

What do you think?

[tedster]

Sometimes it does look like the "big" sites are measured with a different ruler. But we also cannot see what Google is doing with those sponsored links on the back end. My bet is that they are not really transerring any value to the target website.

[anallawalla]

If it's the same one I am thinking of*, the "post" is on its own page and it has a greybar PR.

* The ad starts with "We'd like to thank this week's BlogName sponsors:"

[Whitey]

I think Tedster's observation is highly plausable.

Added to this , my personal speculation is , based on an observation of a high authority site that sold sponsored badges and an ensuing penalty application to those recipient sites , is that these types of sponsored link referrals can raise a flag on Google's side [ editorially and algo ]. That alone could be enough to trigger a site review on both sides. PR 8's kinda stand out !

As a publisher I wouldn't risk losing our authority without applying "no follows " .

As a recipient site I also wouldn't risk a review of the direct link to my site . Many things could happen in terms of the reviewers interpretation of the guidelines to apply penalties.

[acac]

@tedster

> Sometimes it does look like the "big" sites are measured with a different ruler.
That's what I am afraid of too. I wish Google was more upfront about its policies.

@anallawalla It is the same site :)
Yes, the individual page has a greybar PR but the frontpage displayed it prominently too when I checked.

Thanks everyone for the helpful responses.