Paid links

[swirt]

Ignoring all other considerations like actual traffic and conversions they send you, to focus just on the search engine benefit of the link there are a few things to take into account:

1. Is the page that links to your site indexed in google? - If the page is not indexed,,then dropping the listing can not negatively impact your current standing in the search engine results.
2. What is the toolbarPR of the page that contains the link to your site? - The lower the toolbarPR of the page, the less impact the link can have on your site.
3. How many outgoing links are on that page? (is yours the only link on that page or does that page link to 50 other places) - The more ougoing links there are on the page, the less impact it can have on you.
4. Is the link a direct link to your site or is it redirected? - Only a direct link can be of benefit to you.
5. What is the link text of the link? - If the link says "Visit website" it will have less benefit to you than if it says "abctown bed and breakfast".

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Ignoring all other considerations like actual traffic and conversions they send you, to focus just on the search engine benefit of the link there are a few things to take into account:

1. Is the page that links to your site indexed in google? - If the page is not indexed,,then dropping the listing can not negatively impact your current standing in the search engine results.
2. What is the toolbarPR of the page that contains the link to your site? - The lower the toolbarPR of the page, the less impact the link can have on your site.
3. How many outgoing links are on that page? (is yours the only link on that page or does that page link to 50 other places) - The more ougoing links there are on the page, the less impact it can have on you.
4. Is the link a direct link to your site or is it redirected? - Only a direct link can be of benefit to you.
5. What is the link text of the link? - If the link says "Visit website" it will have less benefit to you than if it says "abctown bed and breakfast".

1. Not sure how to tell.
2. 7/10 don't have the right page rank button installed.
3. About 30+ outgoing links, mostly not search-related (ie- generic links having nothing to do with how I searched to find that page)
4. redirect
5. name of inn
So I guess that answers my question, not that I really had a choice as the link is gone anyway.
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1. Not sure how to tell.
The easiest way to check is is you have the google toolbar installed, look at the toolbarPR indicator...if it has some PR for the page your link appears on, then the page is indexed by google. If the page has not page rank displayed, it still may be indexed by google but you'd have to check by putting the following into the search box
site:www.whateverSite.com/whateverpageyourlinkappearson.html
if it returns a result that matches that page, then yes it is indexed, if it returns something else, then not.

 

[swirt]

adding to swirt's points
If the link has a nofollow attribute, Google/Bing don't follow link juice through it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow.

adding to swirt's points
If the link has a nofollow attribute, Google/Bing don't follow link juice through it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

Ooh yes, good point Paul, I neglected to break that out from it being a direct link.