Selling Paid Links = PageRank Death
So it’s official…From the mouth of SearchEngineJournal editor Loren Baker post “Matt Cutts confirms paid links and PageRank update“, the voice of Google Matt Cutts has said:
The partial update to visible PageRank that went out a few days ago was primarily regarding PageRank selling and the forward links of sites. So paid links that pass PageRank would affect our opinion of a site.
Going forward, I expect that Google will be looking at additional sites that appear to be buying or selling PageRank.ÂÂ
So if you’re selling links, kiss PageRank goodbye.
This would be a good move to shift more human relevant content into the SERPs, although without visibility of it’s PR algorithmn, it’s difficult to judge how a site providing quality content can justify the provision of free content WITHOUT advertising as a revenue stream.
Has Google’s quality score grown to encompass the quality and sophistication of site content?
Or will it be some time before a comprehensive content ranking system makes it’s way into the PageRank system.
–
On the bread-and-butter side of things, I certainly don’t believe that any entrepreneur’s business should be held sway to the whim of a single number…
How much does PageRank really mean, other than “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.”
Uh huh…Having the monetization of your site held hostage by Larry, Sergei…or even Jerry Yang is certainly an indication that you’re going about things in the wrong way.
If you’re in this position, you certainly need to take an in-depth look at your business, and make it three-dimensional in terms of marketing and monetization, way beyond the one-dimensional reliance on PageRank.
Take it as a wake up call to figuring out the ingredients to generating a substantial income online.
James
November 9, 2007 at 7:48 am (16 years ago)Hmmm. Penalizing people that work with your competitors and forcing them to stop working with them. Sounds a bit on the criminal side.
anony
November 9, 2007 at 8:07 am (16 years ago)Hi, want to know how you would classify selling links, my site is not selling links, we do link exchange but not selling links, I paid yahoo for the directory listings, doe snot qualify for buying links? My site went down from 4 to 2, kindly advise.
anonymous
Chris Nielsen
November 9, 2007 at 8:14 am (16 years ago)Well, I think that describing linking as “democratic nature” hides the corruption and abuse that is going on. I think Google’s goal of making linking valid is a good one, but it’s too little too late and has what I hope is unwanted fallout…
We have some sites with paid links. Most of them have taken a PR hit, but given the income we get from those paid links we are not going to let a PR drop bother us at this point. If the PR drop results in a loss of paid links, then we will pay attention, but so far we just got two more customers and site traffic has remained the same. It appears the green bar is just a little shorter and that’s it.
The unwanted fall out that I mention is the fact that we have some sites with links, but they are not paid links and just links to our other sites. These sites also have seen a PR drop as well. While I cannot confirm that that it’s a paid link penality, we have a few sites that don’t have many outgoing links, and they have not changed. So as I predicted, it seems like Google is using a shotgun to try and hurt those that it sees as profiting from a link value that it created. They can play, but we can’t. To me, this is just evil and indicates that without linking and PR, Google won’t have much value. They are biting the hand that feeds them and it’s making me less of a Google fan.
Swifty
November 9, 2007 at 9:55 am (16 years ago)Mine too, after falling from 5 to 4, I felt a little depressed. Haha.
Lavernius Pedigree
November 15, 2007 at 5:02 am (16 years ago)This is all just another one of Google’s attempts to scare pubs and try to get the web to fix their problems with their engine. Paid links aren’t going anywhere. They took the better part of the year manually going to sites to come up with a list of sites to knock down. The spider cannot catch paid links, it’s how their entire system works.
13 Balls
October 23, 2015 at 5:21 pm (9 years ago)I believe this is among the most vital info for me.
And i’m happy studying your article. But should remark on some
normal things, The site style is ideal, the articles is truly excellent :
D. Good process, cheers