Selling advertising the same as selling a link?

[stinky]

I understand Google says buying/selling links is a big no no.
What about advertising on websites? For example, my client has a directory which they want to sell graphic banner ads for customers that fit into there directory theme. These graphic ads would have straight html link going to persons site & maybe persons site name or keyword below the graphic ad as anchor text.
Is this something thats dangerous to do regarding Google?
Thank you for your input.

[incrediBILL]

As long as you put "rel=nofollow" on the link Google won't care.

[chrisv1963]

As long as you put "rel=nofollow" on the link Google won't care.

And anyone who owns a website (newbies, ...) are supposed to know Google's "internet laws"? Google doesn't own the internet. Google is simply a company that used to run a good search engine.

[koan]

Google doesn't own the internet.

Google never said so either. But if you want to play with Google, Google has a few rules.

Most banner ads however are usually rotating with others and a link without nofollow wouldn't have the power to influence its algorithm as much as a stable text link, so I don't think they care as much.

[tedster]

I've run into a bunch of smallish regional news sites that sell both text and banner ads without any nofollow. In fact, I don't think they even know about it!

Google seems to ignore them in ranking as well as not penalizing for the practice. In other words, Google just applies their own "internal nofollow" even though its not there in the code. I wouldn't absolutely depend on this effect, but I do see it happening. In fact, when the rel="nofollow" was first announced, Google did say they already used this approach internally and were now making it available to webmasters.

[incrediBILL]

Google seems to ignore them in ranking as well as not penalizing for the practice.

WMTs smacked ads on my site for "selling links" without the nofollow, i had to add it and beg for reinclusion.

Just because some get away with it doesn't mean you should try, it can bite you.

[stinky]

So does this only apply to home page ads?
What about the website who has a resource page (or links page) and has some interesting categories and each category has link going out to other websites with out the nofollow tag. Is there a chance for a penalty?

Also if you get a penalty would the servarity of penalty depend on how many links you had going out ? Would your site just take a small dip on serps or would they toss it out of the results all together.

Chrisv1963 makes a good point about newbies.

[Tallon]

I thought google wanted paid text links marked as "nofollow" because there was no way for them to determine what was paid and what wasn't...why can't they determine that banner links are ads with or without nofollow?

[denisl]

I was under the impression that Google treated text links and banner links differently, and that those people who contact me offering to buy a TEXT link were trying to do me harm.

[caran1]

When a link is added to your site, it is effectively an advertisement. When a visitor clicks on it and is redirected to the advertisers website.
Similarly when you click on a Google Adwords ad link, you are also redirected to the advertisers website.
Same end result.

[Robert Charlton]

When a link is added to your site, it is effectively an advertisement.

Algorithmically, at least, this is exactly backwards. There's an important distinction that should be made...

When a link is added to your site, Google would like to treat it algorithmically as a reference or recommendation.

When a paid or advertising link, or comment spam is added to your site, in Google's eyes it no longer is a recommendation. It's an advertisement... and, for understandable algorithmic reasons, Google wants to keep paid recommendations and editorial recommendations separate.

Same end result.

Google doesn't think so, and the FTC doesn't think so. Ads are identified as such in most media.

That said, Google isn't straining to make its top AdWords results contrast significantly (in a visual way) from its organic serps. Google does understand human behavior, even if it's not always saintly itself. ;)