blog links?

[grrrafx]

Can a blog owner insert links in his/her blog which lead to for-profit websites? The Google terms of service seems to say "no". However, I'm getting vague rebuttals to this. Can this be done in some way acceptable to Google, or any blog publishing site, for that matter?:confused:

[balou]

Are you setting up the blog for the sole purpose of advertising your own websites? I can see they would have a problem with that. I haven't read the terms of service from top to bottom myself.

[undressedmonster]

Wow that's an interesting question. I would think that you have the right to put on your blog whatever you want (minus slander and kiddie porn).

I assume you're talking about Blogger, Google's official blogging software? What does it say is the reason for not wanting for-profit sites to be linked? They want people to use Ad-sense instead?

I think I see for-profit links on blogs all the time. That's the point of blogs: "Hey, look at this cool product!" Think about the iPhone. That's being talked about on every other blog on Earth.

Of course, if you're afraid of getting the boot from Google, you can always go the way of Typepad, Vox, or get your own site and host WordPress on it.

[EC]

can you point to the google TOS that states this? I've never heard of such a thing.

[grrrafx]

I just read a warning in TOS stating the blog service is for commercial use only.
I even printed it out, circling the warning. I just looked through blogger's TOS, yet couldn't find it. However, I've just switched to new blogger. Maybe their TOS has changed.