Actually it goes like that: You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a link to my website. The link is presented as an organic,

Actually it goes like that: You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a link to my website. The link is presented as an organic, non paid link. =BAD You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a link to my website. The link is presented as a paid link, with a no follow attribute. =GOOD On a side note, your breakdown of the Ad Revenue using Google as a middleman is wrong. If you pay Google 100$ (via Adwords) to decide to show ad on my site, I will get 68% of that 100$ and Google will get 32% Adense revenue share: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en