Earlier this year, we covered how publishers are afraid to link out and how it has become a problem for the savvy webmaster community.
A new thread at WebmasterWorld started over the weekend, with one webmaster saying how he was touched by Paul Walker's death and his contributions to the world when he was alive.
Because of all that Paul Walker did, he wanted to do his little part and add a link to his charity site. But before doing so, he asked if he would get dinged or would it hurt his Google rankings and his business if he linked to a charity site. And more importantly, he asked if it would hurt the charity site if he linked to it and didn't nofollow his link.
He wrote:
I've decided that the VERY least I can do is link to his charitable foundation from the footer of my sites, a simple "please donate to roww.org" sort of thing and that's presenting a bit of a problem.Google, while I don't particularly care if they lie it or not the reality is that a footer link to a charitable trust makes my site seem like a template and the last thing I want is for that to be held against the charity site, and to a lesser extent my own.
Is it safe (according to Google algorithms) to link to a charity site from your pages in 2013/2014.
It is amazing we live in a web world that has to ask questions like this.
Most of the responses are to nofollow the link. But why? It is not a paid link? It is a link out of true giving and without anything wanted in return.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for donate image
