BLOG SPONSORS: Say Anything and Captain's Quarters have run into a problem with a sponsor that has angered Google sufficiently to get them removed from Google's search index. Apparently, the sponsor was simply after their Google page rank, and nothing else. Now that they have been removed from the search index the sponsor is terminating the relationship with them.

This very same sponsor contacted me about three weeks ago with an offer to place a link on the upper right corner of Powerpundit, for which they would pay me $300 per month. The woman who emailed absolutely assured me that no objectionable content was present on the advertising site, which people clicking the link would be directed to. She gave me the website of a Mormon blogger -- of all places -- to visit so that I would get an example of how the link would appear on Powerpundit. I visited the site, clicked the "sponsor" link in the upper right corner and was taken to a new page. The page consisted of mostly normal advertising links to different ebusinesses - until I got to the lower right corner of the webpage. There I found links to various hardcore pornographic sites.

It is my view that visitors to Powerpundit do not come here to be directed to such sites, and would be justifiably offended were I to place a link to such an advertising page here. Therefore, I promptly rejected the offer and rebuked the woman for being less than truthful with me. She emailed back to inform me that they had just discovered that very day -- how miraculous -- that such advertising was present on the page and that it would be removed.

She emailed a couple of more times to try and get me to reconsider, and assured me that the offending material had been removed. I never responded to her again, and that was that.

I'm sorry to see that Captain's Quarters, Say Anything and perhaps other bloggers have found that there were negative consequences as a result of dealing with these people.