I often get automated emails from unscrupulous SEO companies offering us money in exchange for a link on our PR 4 site. They are basically fishing for a network of highish authority sites to place relevant links for their clients. This is of course against Google policy – but we see it so frequently because it is very difficult for them to police. Simply stated there is still a grey area between advertising on relevant sites (legal) and buying links (illegal).

Today I clicked through to the terms and conditions for the websponsors advertising programme – here they are (I put in bold my fave part of the policy – where they say you can’t tell anyone you are advertising for them – classic):

webSponsors Advertiser Program Policy

 

Thank you for participating in the webSponsors advertiser program. You have been selected to participate due to the high-quality of your website. With your assistance, we are able to provide a high-quality advertising service for our clients. We do have a few simple requirements in place to ensure the level of service expected by our clients, and to ensure a healthy ongoing relationship with our advertisers.

webSponsors.org reserves the right to accept or reject any offers for an advertising placement on your website. If you accept to participate in our advertising program, webSponsors will periodically check your site to ensure any advertisement remains in place as agreed upon and to confirm your site adheres to the following policy guidelines:

• Advertisements will be maintained on the site as agreed for the full advertising period.
• During the course of our advertising agreement, you will not place pornographic, illegal, or other similarly questionable material on your site.
• Advertisements will not be altered without the prior approval of webSponsors.org.
• You will not willfully disclose the details of our advertising agreement.
• You will notify your webSponsors representative should you decide to no longer participate in the program.

 

Should we discover that any Advertiser does not comply with any of the policies described above, webSponsors reserves the right to a full refund of any or all of any advertising fees paid to you.