W3C PageRank 9 Links for Only $83 a Month!
For a donation of only $1,000 per year you too can be a supporter of the World Wide Web Consortium and have two links to your site, one on the PageRank 9 ranked W3C Supporters Page and the second at the Supporter Details page, PageRank 7.
Sure, supporters or sponsors pages predate even the World Wide Web and are alive and well in free local newspapers or event flyers, but in a world of search engine link spamming and ‘nofollow’ tag linking controversies, this bargain of a deal at W3C seems quite, well… priceless.
That is until Matt Cutts addresses the issue on his blog.
Until then, you too can join the likes of such relevant and trusted link sponsors as Save.TV Online Videorecorder, MySpace Layouts, Dubai Furnished Apartments and Online Casino Bluebook on the W3C Supporters page.
But seriously folks, this is chance to support the W3C and get some recognition in return, in this interesting fund raising tactic. More about the W3C Supporters Program:
W3C operations are primarily financed through Membership dues (see also information about W3C Membership). Through the W3C Supporters Program, we encourage Members and non-Members alike to make general contributions, both financial and of goods such as software and hardware, to help support W3C’s operations.
There are 85 Major Supporters to date, who more than likely all paid $1,000 to have the link included on the page. For you math hounds out there that adds up to $85,000 in support, and that’s before news of the program hit the search blogosphere today.
Some more details from Emad Fanous:
* The fees are annual
* They are also accepting donations like software and hardware. They will be putting up a wishlist
* It is a great deal for 2 links, pagerank 7 and 9
* The value of the link will be diminished the more links go up on that page (pagerank is calculated by giving weight to outgoing links based on the number of outgoing links from the originating page).
* With this information showing up all over the place (like here), Google is bound to find out about it and, when they’ve found sites that are selling links, have discounted those links
* It is an interesting way for the W3C to make money. I wonder if they intended this to happen or if this is just a side-effect of what they were trying to do. In any case, they provide good services and information and I hope it doesn’t harm them
* PR has been given less weight by Google but still carries some weightIn short, give for the right reasons…not to try to extract search engine (or more specifically, Google) benefit.
Note: Using the Text Link Ads Link Worth Calculator to find the TLA value of these links, the result was : More Than You Can Afford! Hey Patrick Gavin, it’s time to fix your calculator ’cause this is the cheapest bargain I’ve seen in ages!
