Google has apparently struck again imposing a penalty on websites it deems are creatures from the lower realms. You know the types, the kind that actually try and scrape a buck together selling text link ads on their sites.
It seems if Google determines this to be the case, in its great wisdom and don't-be-evil-ness, it will whack the domain with a 1 point penalty on Page Rank in order to damage the overall value of the site and those paid links.
This smacks once again of extraordinary arrogance. Google is telling the world that advertising is okay as long as it is placed through Google and it makes money from it.
They treat affiliate links to places like eBay the same way. Try using AdWords to promote your eBay driven sites and see the CPC soar.
Google claims that if you "out" your advertisers by using no-follow relative links, redirects, the use of box titles that tell Google what follows are ads, javascript, etc., than you are good Google-fearing folks who will not be subject to smiting. How many advertisers want to pay for an anchor text keyword ad and have it contain a no-follow tag? And keep in mind, even with such declarations if its AdWords' robot finds affiliate links you'll still face a mighty economic wrath from the increasingly omnipotent Google.
Time for the Attorney Generals of each State and Congress to act to sue the hypocrisy and monopoly power out of Google's shorts.
