A number of websites and blogs sell text links. There has been some talk that paid links lowers ones PR. There has also been talked that paid to review posts decrease ones PR as well.

I had signed up to ‘ReviewMe’ quite some time ago. I did my first review for them just last week. I accepted an offer to review thoughts.com for $15.00. Before I reviewed it, I signed up as a member of their community. Let’s just say that the $15.00, (which I’m refunding to Reviewme.com) was not worth the headache or abuse I received from one of their moderators.

The administrator of thoughts.com had signed up there asking bloggers to review thoughts.com. He requested that the keyword ‘Blogs’ be used in the review. Let it be noted the review I wrote was first rejected, because I chose to spell blogs with a small b.

The link in my review to thoughts.com could not be “no follow.” It had to be a link that passed PR to thoughts.com. He  was also paying for keyword density.

I made a post on their forums about  Hugs and Hope for Sick Kids and one of the members even said that it looked like a scam and my link was removed, because Hugs and Hope asks for charitable donations on their site.

The moderator accused me of having ulterior motives. What ulterior motives could I have besides wanting to help terminally ill children?

Today, in a thread regarding tips on getting your blog noticed where there were links to blogcatalog, blogflux and globeofblogs, I posted a link to bloggingfusion.com, and blogarama.com as recommended directories.

Many of you to my blog are likely familiar with bloggingfusion’s directory and know that it has quickly become a respected authority in directories.

You can submit your blog for free to bloggingfusion.com or you can purchase a sponsored listing that gives you better position in the directory and supports the cost of the site at the same time. Bloggingfusion offers a lot of services to bloggers.

The administrator of thoughts.com removed my link stating that he removed the links to bloggingfusion and blogarama.com, because he believed that they could arguably be considered link farms, and they certainly do not want to be linking to any sites of that nature.

Hu? Neither of these blog directories are  link farms.

Linkfarms are basically sites which consist of masses of links, for the purpose of getting rankings in search engines.

Some more thoughts on thoughts.com:

Isn’t it hypocritical of someone to criticize paid for reviews and paid advertising yet request a paid review?

Bloggers pay for a sponsored listing on bloggingfusion.com, just as thoughts.com paid for a paid review on my site.

The administrator of thoughts.com states

“Reviews are intended to help to generate buzz and spread the word about thoughts. We hire a fortune 500 company that helps us to generate buzz. This is not buying site-wide links without nofollow tags. These are two completely different issues all together.”

Google frowns upon both paid reviews and paid advertising though. Thoughts.com is buying paid reviews to increase their search engine placement.

I posted the following on thoughts.com, which was removed by staff and the thread was locked. I guess the truth is a hard pill to swallow.

“We don’t buy site wide links. We don’t pay for advertising. People pay us for a sponsored listing just as you paid us to review you. How can you be such a hypocrite?”

Thoughts.com has a page rank of six and 1,210 incoming links. Thoughts.com benefits by getting incoming links from bloggers like myself to thoughts.com.

It is true that Google frowns upon anyone that sells links. Paid links and reviews that pass PageRank do affect the Pagerank of a site. We all know that!

However Pagerank has no affect on the credibility of a site or it’s placement in search engines and there is a huge difference between a linkfarm and a blog directory that sells advertising.

Most of the links in bloggingfusion are “free” links. It is not a link farm or does Google consider it one.

My decision to leave thoughts.com was partly based on the administor’s comment towards both bloggingfusion and blogarama.

But that was not my own reason for leaving.

Thoughts.com has a moderator who is on some kind of power trip.

There was no accusing his insults or his behavior that brought me to almost tears.

On the 16th of October I reported a blog link to one of the moderators. It was spam and I thought I was being helpful.

His reply to me was ………

“That was one of the reasons I had to call Ben , for a clarification on the rule…and what is your problem? You seem hell bent on finding faults…Lady I’ve been helping out and keeping the peace and getting rid of spammers for over a year now. If you have a problem with the way I’m doing things contact Jason…So far he’s pretty much left me alone.”

I found no faults. I was told outgoing links to blogs were not permitted, so I reported it. They do have a report button.

Wayne’s Pm……………

hell Ben and I are good friends..we talk back and forth on the phone about Thoughts weekly, frustrations ..you bet, I’ve seen a hundred of your type come and go on here, you didn’t ask an innocent question nor was your post on trolls which to whom ever it was directed, is not the kind of thing we condone on here, eggshells…hell yea…theres more than me keeping an eye on you for sure..Just don’t try to play stupid with me, I’ll have a lot more respect then.

After 186 post you would think that I had proved I was not a spammer and I was honestly there to be a part of the community.

Thoughts have a lot of good people there, but I find it ironic that Thoughts.com pays for advertising- no follow at that- something they are against and lets members be insulted by mods on a power trip.

Thoughts.com wants thoughts? Well these are my thoughts!

What are yours?