Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as: * Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag * Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file
I don't really see any way those links are different than the links pulled in by just about every advertising platform out there (including AdWords). The links appear to be being served up with Javascript (except for the "Ads by the Lounge" part), as opposed to being statically embedded like Text Link Ads or the other link brokers do. I'd doubt this is the issue.
Google's explanation of these issues is generally that they want to make sure all followed links are editorial votes of quality. I'd argue that this link counts as such with the owner basically saying "I use ad Lounge, it's great and you should too." I do grant though that Google might not agree with my interpretation of their rules. ;)
All that aside if I were the site owner I'd at least nofollow that link, or preferably remove it if it doesn't violate some TOS with the ad service just because I wouldn't want to give my advertising away for free.
I actually run The Lounge, the ad network in question. I would be very surprised if it was that link as most of my other publishers run the same link and it hasn't affected them in that way. It is also similar to what many other ad networks do, include a simple link back to the ad network.
Of course Justin is free to remove it just to see if it makes a difference.
No follow the paid link - not just the 'Ads By the Lounge part' (as keltex mentioned) & add meta descriptions. Meta KWs don't mean much (if anything), but Google will often use your meta descriptions in their results.
There are myriad ASP.NET based websites that rank well. Look at the markup on Guthrie's or Hanselman's blog. Both have WebForms artifacts like ViewState, __doPostBack, and generated IDs, but rank well.
WebForms definitely encourages sloppy markup, which I'm no fan of, but that clearly isn't the only issue Justin's having.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...
Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as: * Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag * Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file