Should you Monetize?

[Resonate]

Yes, we should discuss specific ways to generate revenue from your website. And the trends that work or don't work need to be addresses as well. But even before the specifics are shared, I wanted to provoke you all to discussions about the whole concept of monetizing your websites.

Especially after the Google hammer-dropping of PR, and its discloser of devaluing a site/page's PageRank because of their interpretations of what is a paid link. And even further that they (Google) have a working algorithm that semantically determines if your website links are paid or not.

So, let me ask you all this. In the Post-Google PR era of SEO, should a webmaster "worry" about linking to another site from his if that link is paid for? Yes, Google has every right to do what they will to their search results. Yes, Google has every right to give or take away the little green pixels on their toolbar for a site. But, since they have created the
PageRank structure as a "gauge" for a web site's authority, do they have the right to determine what is an acceptable link, and to tell you that if you decide to link out, you must use their proprietary (at least it started that way) nofollow attribute to show them that you are complying with them?

Are you worried when you link out from your site to another, even if its paid for or not? Why would there be a worry? Well, if you figure that Google is now determining what's the relevance of your outgoing links - and if they find that outgoing link not 100% totally relevant, you may be found to be "not in compliance".

Should you monetize your website?