Although we strongly disagree with some of the allegations and insinuations some of you have made in this thread; thank you for bringing it up so we can address the issue publicly.
Back in 2010 a review of all VS properties, including the white label program, was undertaken by our SEO consultants. They found that the duplicate markup structure and on-page copy used in the white label program was not adhering to Google?s specific instructions on handling duplicate content, found here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66359
We added the rel=?canonical? tag to address this issue and comply with Google?s guidelines; not to steal links from people or any other trickery. We sent out an announcement when these changes were made. Some people in this thread think that we?re stupid about this sort of thing; hopefully the above post from Google will clear that up for them.
Many successful affiliates have built white label sites that DO rank well in the search engines. However, I think we?d all agree (our stats surely show it) that the success of a white label cam site is based on your branding and traffic from your other properties and not solely based on SEO.
We?d be happy to consider removing this tag for any affiliates that request it, just drop us an email. Bear in mind that the site will revert to being in non-compliance with Google?s guidelines regarding duplicate content, etc.