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Google's linking guidelines are pretty clear where it says "the following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results." They include "large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links."
Yesterday, Google Play announced podcast support. In their marketing email to folks, they actually asked that if the users will link, they should use specific anchor text.
Dan Shure posted a screen shot of the request on Twitter:
This is classic link building style emails you'd see from those looking to build links. It is also the style one would use to try to keep the marketing message the same. So I see it both ways but with Google, Google must be held to the highest possible standard around their own webmaster guidelines.
Google did not take the time to request the links be nofollowed, they should have. Especially since they took the time to ask for specific anchor text.
I guess Google has to penalize themselves for the term podcasts or Google Play.
Seriously, what do you think here?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
