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Thread: Google laying the Smack Down on link selling sites!!

  1. #1
    Registered Farmer77's Avatar
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    Google laying the Smack Down on link selling sites!!

    Chris,
    I would like to hear from you on this issue. Seems there is a wide-scale page rank demotion by Google right now, specifically sites that sell text link ads. I was going to sell some text link ads at TLA, but it don't look like I will be doing that now. How does Google even know if a site is selling links and not free-linking?

  2. #2
    Registered ZigE's Avatar
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    It's been purely an aesthetic change to the toolbar, their rankings haven't been affected, so far.
    Last edited by ZigE; 10-26-2007 at 02:02 AM.

  3. #3
    Registered fatnewt's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Farmer77 View Post
    How does Google even know if a site is selling links and not free-linking?
    Probably not from an automated process, although their might be some automation to "flag" sites for review.

    If your site is about hockey, for example, and you have five links next to each other for print toner, email marketing, kitchen knives, discount DVDs and a casino -- you're probably selling links.

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    Administrator Chris's Avatar
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  5. #5
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    Strange how Google goes out of their way to manually hit a handful of prominent bloggers, but feels comfortable defending their algorithm ranking jewwatch #2 for "jew"
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    This PR adjustment happened across the board to many sectors which include directories (most of them are now called link farms), blogs and forums, so it is not Google hitting just one type of website.

    If links are being discounted, since PR is determined by links, it should be expected that many sites lose Page Rank.

  7. #7
    4x4
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    The majority of my sites went up, and lots that were 0 went up to 3. I've also noticed a LOT of sub-pages going from 0 to 1 or 2 as well, even on brand new sites.

    -Todd

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    It's been quite interesting to say the least. Some very high pagerank sites got hit such as:
    * http://www.washingtonpost.com/ PR7 to PR5
    * http://www.forbes.com/ PR7 to PR5
    * http://www.suntimes.com/ PR7 to PR5
    * http://www.sfgate.com/ PR7 to PR5
    * http://www.statcounter.com/ PR10 to PR6
    * http://www.masternewmedia.org/ PR7 to PR4
    * http://www.autoblog.com/ PR6 to PR4
    * http://www.engadget.com/ PR7 to PR5
    * http://www.problogger.net/ PR6 to PR4
    * http://www.copyblogger.com/ PR6 to PR4
    * http://www.joystiq.com/ PR6 to PR4
    * http://www.tuaw.com/ PR6 to PR4
    * http://www.searchengineguide.com/ PR7 to PR4
    This really changes everything. Now if google doesn't like the sites you link out to, they can apply a penalty to your pagerank, especially if you are selling links for the purpose of manipulating pagerank.

  9. #9
    4x4
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    People need to learn.

    Google is only part of the puzzle for making $ online.

    End of story.

  10. #10
    Administrator Chris's Avatar
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    None of my sites dropped, 1 went up.
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    Maybe those links coming to your sites are legitimate in the eyes of Google instead of known link broker shill sites that are paid links.

    PR on this forum home page is PR 4 on my Google Toolbar.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Farmer77 View Post
    Chris,
    I would like to hear from you on this issue. Seems there is a wide-scale page rank demotion by Google right now, specifically sites that sell text link ads. I was going to sell some text link ads at TLA, but it don't look like I will be doing that now. How does Google even know if a site is selling links and not free-linking?
    If it says anywhere on your site that you're selling links, and if someone reports you to Google.

    It's actually ALL RIGHT to sell links. It's called ADVERTISING, but google recommends that you use rel=nofollow for that. Of course, you also have to inform your customers of that.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by ToddW View Post
    People need to learn.

    Google is only part of the puzzle for making $ online.

    End of story.
    Yup, Google is only part of the puzzle. It's a large piece though, 70% share. Pretty big.

    But working on other search engines wouldn't hurt.

  14. #14

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    Yes to clear up all the hype and the talk.....

    Google is not hitting all sites selling links...
    I started a Web Directory www.LinkTerritory.com about 3 months ago, before the google update, after the update google gave me a PR4 Homepage and PR3 Inner pages, I also rank page 1 and 2 for my keywords. The problem that was going on with "Link Farms" was a far different problem than just selling links. These sites were using tricks to manipulate the search results.

    Just stick to selling links to other relevant sites, like if you have a site about brittney spears than you can put a link to another brittney site..........but I wouldn't even have a brittney site in the first place! Haha

    Hope that helped clear things up for ya
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