Can We Still Buy Sponsored Links On Other Websites?

While the offline world is filled with lots of sponsorship and  people seem to be embracing them, the online world seems to have difficulty playing the same sponsorship  game as Google does not acknowledge sponsored links.  We have to respect Google in their direction because they have helped to mould the rules of how Internet games should be played.

Some websites ignored Google

We can see some websites ignoring Google as they don’t think that’s the only way to do an online business.  They get their traffic from social media and other websites.  They also work with sponsorship programs with other websites.  They are creating a world which the traditional media has been doing all along.  That is to work in partnership with larger media and to create a “loud noise” to the unknown untargeted world out there.

Some websites obeyed Google

Some websites want to work with Google as their partnership as they will be able to create a constant flow of targeted traffic, looking  for that particular keywords.   In the long run, Google is still the preferred choice because we will want to explore many other websites which I still can’t find any better websites which can do that currently.

Some websites tried to trick Google

Some websites just want to make a balance between getting Google’s incoming traffic, while working on their usual sponsorship program.  They may or may not know how to obey Google rules.  But they just work on their websites like a traditional media. i.e. They just work on the contents, and ask for sponsorship by advertising on certain high-traffic  webpages.

Some websites tried to balance sponsorship with Google

These websites know the Google game, making sure that every sponsorship program will adopt “nofollow” attribute in it.  It can be quite a blindspot when we should adopt “nofollow” or not.  But looking from the Wikipedia’s point of  view where they get a lot of targeted traffic from  Google, Wikipedia simply adopt “nofollow” on every link.  It’s easier this way anyway!

Conclusion

Can we still buy sponsored links?  Looking from TechCrunch, Problogger and Mashable, they must be enjoying a lot of traffic from Google while working on their sponsored links.  One idea is to actually use redirect links or “nofollow”.  What do you think?