Has Buying Links For PageRank Been Google Slapped?
In reference to “Did Your PageRank Go Up Or Down” which I mentioned on 2nd May, I heard today from Michael Campbell [a must-read newsletter for Internet entrepreneurs] that the possible sea change in PageRank may have been due to the penalizing of some high PageRank sites who passed along PageRank to other sites thereby creating a ripple effect of decreasing PageRank.
Michael’s hypothesis is that the penalized sites were passing PageRank in a manner that Google disapproved of… namely selling it.
“There was a big ripple effect. It’s what happens when big PR8 sites suddenly have their GoogleJuice (PageRank) turned off, because they were selling links.”
Michael goes on to say, “Now I don’t buy links. Never have. Never will.”
OK, that’s clear enough… be very careful if you try to buy PageRank… Google’s cracking down on it.
I can’t say I’ve *never* bought links, but I’ve only done it on a very limited scale… and I intend to keep it at that level. Perhaps that’s why my three main sites all stayed at PR5.
May 10th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Hi Neil,
I have noticed a shift in Page Rank, and luckily for me it went in my favor. Thanks for letting us know about the Paid Link Slap. I don’t have any paid links now, but have considered purchasing them.
I wonder what this will do for companies who’s main business is selling links. The overall trickle-down could be devestating for a lot of webmasters.
All The Best!
May 10th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Hi Steve,
>>I wonder what this will do for companies who’s main business is selling links. <<
Yes, I wouldn’t want all my eggs in that particular basket right now.
Neil.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:43 am
Google’s on the right track. After all, the organic listings are the “unpaid” segments of the search results.
When sites at the top start accepting ‘bribes’, Google won’t be kind to such abuse of high standings.
If all these pages start to be secretly pushed up in pageranks by money influence, what does ‘organic’ mean in the end? Commerciality, which is a good thing in the right place, would actually become poison to the soil organics depend upon.
When Google can accurately weed out sites with fake popularity, and have the collaborators identified/delisted/demoted, that would make way for the true cream of the crop to rise to the top. Sites with the best unique content, that stay clean, should win in every category.
And searchers will more easily find those gems forged with real grassroot support. Which is the enabling purpose of the listings.
All the extremely clever shortcuts of ‘buying’ their way into the front page of organic listings may become shortlived misguided wasteful attempts in future. Hopefully, this is the lesson here.
May 13th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Dear Mr. Neil
Hi! This issue on high PR sites selling links is quite important.
Thnaks for commenting on it.
Best regards!
May 15th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Do you suppose that google might make a lot more money from this through their Adwords? If people aren’t spending money on getting normal links to show up well in searches they will be spending more money on Adwords to retain good placement on search results pages.
Won’t they?
May 16th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Moneywell: Yes. Presumably some sites will lose advertising revenue because their system of selling links to pass PR no longer works. That will, in turn, create a pool of unused ad-spend revenue… which could find its way into Google’s pockets via Adwords. It’s possible.
Neil.