Should party services directory switch to nofollow links? What are the implications?

[McTaggart]

Hello Mozzers, I'm looking at a niche party services directory (b2c). However, they're not using nofollow tags on backlinks from their paid entries (free entries only get phone numbers and not backlinks).

If they suddenly switch all the paid-for backlinks in their directory to nofollow, might that have some kind of negative impact. Switching sounds like the best way forward, but I want to avoid any unintended consequences.

Thanks in advance, Luke

[gazzerman1]

Fact is this, they are paying for dofollow links that pass pagerank and this is a no no in Google's eyes. However it might be the only reason people pay for anything on the site?

Switching may see positive effects as you will be retaining much more linkjuice and distributing it internally also you will be avoiding a potential future penalty for selling dofollow links.

So the result could be that you gain rankings in Google due to better internal juice flow but lose all your paying customers if all they want is a dofollow link.

[Carson-Ward]

When it comes to any directory, you probably want a nofollow link. It's not technically against the rules to pay for consideration to a directory, but that's usually just code for "pay for a link."

Unless this has a high traffic/monetary value to you, it's probably not worth going for.