Sponsored Links
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What are Sponsored Links?
Sponsored links are any links where the sponsor pays for placement. These advertisements are typically displayed above, and to the right of, search engine results or content. But they sometimes also appear below search results.
Google AdWords ads are labeled as "Sponsored Links", as shown here:

Yahoo Search Marketing ads use the "Sponsor Results" label:

While MSN Live Search ads use the "Sponsored Sites" heading:

Do Sponsored Links increase PageRank?
Sponsored Links such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN ads use long and sophisticated tracking links which don't get crawled by Google. As such no PageRank is passed along the link.
However, many websites sell sponsored text links which use short links that link directly to the sponsor's website. These types of links are usually crawled by Google and therefore do attract PageRank.
Which websites offer Sponsored Links?
Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter all offer Sponsored Links. Link brokers, such as Text Links Ads, also offer Sponsored Links, but of a different sort. Link brokers sell simple text links that link directly to your site, and therefore attracts PageRank. The linked anchor text is usually the keyword phrase you're trying to get top rankings for. However there is no accompanying description next to the link so they don't do as good a job of persuading people to click on your link.
Site Map:
- Text Link Guide - homepage
- Text Links - search engines, link traffic
- Anchor Text - variations, misspellings
- Image Links - image maps, alt text
- PageRank - increase PageRank, attribute
- Link Popularity - authority pages, link quality, quantity, relevancy, reputation
- Sitemaps - XML, Google, generators, Yahoo!
- Linkbait
- Link Seeding - link spam
- Link Exchange - bad neighborhoods, link exchange software
- Sponsored Links - PageRank
- Affiliate Links
- Link Brokers - RON, ROS, Text Link Ads
- Natural Linking - artificial linking, link triangles, www or non-www
- Broken Links - link rot, broken link testing
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