Kwazeen

October 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added such as to the page Direct marketing do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Hertz1888 (talk) 01:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

March 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added to the page Espresso machine do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used as a platform for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you.

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Veganism. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam guideline for further explanations. Because Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute value, its external links are disregarded by most search engines. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. Thank you. Yworo (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Haiku. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. If you continue spamming, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Yworo (talk) 19:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Reply

I simply have some articles on my watchlist, so I can see when links are added and review them. It is not possible for me to review every link already in articles on Wikipedia. Our external linking policy prohibits links to nearly all blogs and sites which are full of Google ads and associates links. It does not prohibit all commercial links. We always link, for example, to a company's website from the article of that company. I will review the links on the articles mentioned, they have probably been there some time or they may have been added during a period when I was not active on Wikipedia. One person can't do everything. However, we don't accept the argument that "other stuff exists" means we have to let additional links which violation our policies be added to the article. If you find links which should not be on articles, you should also remove them. If you make a mistake, there will probably be someone watching who will fix it. Yworo (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

To answer your specific issues:

1. You are correct about the CoffeeGeek link, I've removed it. Though it might be an appropriate link on an article about the specific product reviewed, if that product were notable enough to merit an article.
2. There is nothing wrong with the Breitling page: pages about notable companies and their products are specifically allowed (see WP:CORP). However, the only link allowed to the company website is to the website's front page (see WP:ELOFFICIAL). Deep links directly to pages selling products are not allowed on a company article. However, if the product itself is notable there may be a page on it with a link directly to the official company description page, even if there is a buy-it-now link on that page (most reputable manufacturers do not sell directly, but rather through dealers, so usually there is not such a link and the product cannot be bought directly).
3. While the link in the second paragraph should not be text-based, it's a watch news and review site: there is informative material on the page and no buy-it-now link on the page. In particular, there is no link through which to buy the product being reviewed. Therefore IMO the link is acceptable. Many news sites including newspaper sites sell advertising: that's how they stay in business. ProfessionalWatches.com has an editorial staff listed on their "About" page and writers who write informative articles about watches. While the particular article linked is short, other reviews on the site are longer. It's an online magazine and can be cited just as a print magazine about watches (which would also have advertising) could be cited.

Thanks for your concern and I hope this helps to clarify what is and is not allowable. In particular, personal websites and blogs which belong to a non-notable individual can never be linked, especially if they make money from Google ads and Amazon or other online vendor affiliate links. Yworo (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Finally, the messages I left for you were official "canned" messages. I did not write the content of the messages. Also, I don't think we can assume that all such links are added by "spammers". Many may have been added by well-meaning individuals such as yourself who simply have not bothered to read and understand the details of our policies. It happens all the time that someone thinks that a link would be "useful" even though if violates our policies. Technically that person is a spammer only if they are the one materially benefiting from the link. If those sites did not belong to you, you were not technically spamming, though unfortunately our "canned" messages are named spam1, spam2, etc. it's not meant to imply that you are so benefiting but just as a method to inform about policy. Yworo (talk) 03:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Such warnings may be removed from your talk page once read and understood. You don't have to leave them there. :-) Yworo (talk) 03:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)