Paid Listings

Marketing
1

What I aim to do is charge a fee if advertisers want their free listings ranked higher so they are above the free listings in a directory.

With using NoFollow, I will be alright with Google, but just wonder if it’s allowed if I didn’t place anything on the paid listings to mention that they are paid. In other words, all I’m doing is ranking them higher, they are already in the listings, just because I get paid, they get ranked higher, so does site visitors need to know if they are paid or not as they are in the listings in anycase and are of quality and relevant to the category they are in.

No matter if someone wanted to pay for a listing to be included, I will not accept payment if the site is of poor quality and will not list it.

So instead of having sponsored listings or advertisement by each link, could I just put nothing so they look just like the other non paid listings?

Just curious?

2

It’s a trust issue. If Google did it, nobody would trust their search listings and would use a different site. Are there other sites your users can use to find the same thing without wondering what listings are paying to be there?

3

I know some sites that don’t show anything to say they are paid or free. I would say I’m the 3rd biggest in my niche.

How I see it is the listings are there in anycase, the owner of the site in the listing can have the option to get it’s listing moved up for a fee. If they do this, this can mean they are putting more effort into their site, it’s more likely to be an authority site, etc.

All listings on the site are practically randomly listed in anycase.

I probably will use featured listings or sponsored listings now though.