I was impressed to learn Standford University was now trading foreign currency. Hey they have a page ranked fifth in the Google SERPs.
I blogged about it (http://www.smart-keywords.com/2006/03/google-easy-on-stanford-spam.htm) and sent off a copy of the link to my Google, Yahoo and MSN reps....
Within 15 minutes I got replies from Yahoo and MSN.... an hour later and Google has not gotten back...
so either they are looking in to it and will respond later, or they are really busy and have not seen the email...

I posted some backstory here: Hosted Doorway Pages & Paid Links Back At Stanford University (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060306-143432). Basically, the paper dropped paid links and hosted doorways last May. Guess they decided it made financial sense to do again, nor does Google seem to have hit them or these pages with any penalties. Of course, now that this old issue has been revisited, they'll probably get nabbed.

LOL... still no word from Google.

Just spoke to my ad rep and he was passing the info along though wanted an explanation of how it broke the rules.

Guess church and state are really divided. But to be fair they are and understanding one area does not mean an overall understanding of both.

Hey if they are willing to let this stay I am buying as many pages from as many similair university papers as I can find that link the same way.

The story gets more interesting. According to the Online advertising manager at The Stanford Daily "we only sell hosted content pages to one company" - they are Maverick Insight at maverickinsight.com - now they have their domain private so no contact info that way.....

But Stanford is back selling "hosted content pages".... line up everyone the edu links will be flowing - guess there will be bidding wars for some of the keywords..... add a few cheap links to the page and the power of the edu pushes it rhough to page one... well there may be a little more to it but....

The "Place Your Company Ad Here" box goes straight to Maverick Advertising.

The page in question has been removed and now serves up a 404 error page.

The page in question has been removed and now serves up a 404 error page.

That was fast.....

I'm checking this out even though the page is gone now, AussieWebmaster. Thanks for mentioning it.

I'm checking this out even though the page is gone now, AussieWebmaster. Thanks for mentioning it.

Glad to help....

Maybe it was an old one they missed last cleanup?

Maybe it was an old one they missed last cleanup?

No they referred me to Maverick Insight to call for placing "hosted content pages".