The Mirror’s taken out some of the links to MoneyExtra that I recently said looked like paid-for links added for search engine optimisation reasons (which would put the site in breach of Google’s guidelines – not that this would make it the only newspaper with paid links).
Of the 11 pages I pointed out, as of 10.30pm on Monday 14 Sept:
- 5 had weblinks to the MoneyExtra credit card page – 4 have had the MoneyExtra links removed. This one still has them, although the page layout has broken – maybe suggesting it’s being republished – with the top navigation sitting over the content.
- 5 contained links to the MoneyExtra debt page – all 5 still contain this MoneyExtra link, but all 5 have the same broken-layout issue.
- 1 contained links to a MoneyExtra car insurance page – all these links have been removed.
Before and after
A before example
Before: with links to MoneyExtra
The same page now – without links
Now with links removed
I’ll guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the other pages. And I’m not sure why they’ve deleted them – couldn’t the Mirror just have nofollowed them if they were genuine, editorially-chosen links and it was worried how they looked?
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