What a day, Google have stirred up all sorts of crap by dropping the page rank of many top name bloggers. The widely accepted view for why this has happened is 2 fold.
- They are punishing sites that sell links
- They are dropping sites that are part of networks that artificially boost page rank
There are many Blogs that conform to the first, if you sell links on your Blog and make it public knowledge then you have either been hit or will be. For the second point most people highlight ProBlogger who has seen a drop from PR6 to 4 even though he claims he’s not selling anything (although I seriously doubt that his advertisers links are no followed)! Then again what is the point of having established high trust websites if you can’t use them for your own benefit? My own personal opinion is that this is Googles latest attempt at totally devaluing the selling page rank business. Of course brokers like Text Link Ads have the most to loose by this…that’s why I have a sneaky feeling that they knew it was coming!
You see not so long ago I received an e-mail from TLA that suggests a change in the way they do business, it strongly suggests that they are looking to sell site visitors rather that page rank. As Google attempt to remove the industry that has built up around page rank perhaps the biggest benefactor of that business has announced a switch to a CPC model. You will soon be paying for each visitor sent via a TLA link thus taking the emphasis away from page rank to that of visits, switching to cost per click instead of a fixed monthly price can be the only way of achieving this. It looks like you’ll no longer be using TLA to improve your search position but instead you’ll be buying visitors and this is something that will not incur the wrath of Google. Of course with this switch they’ll be going from being the biggest fish in the link brokerage pond to just another PPC seller in a big ocean but with the team they have I don’t think they’ll struggle too much.
4 Responses to “TLA Strikes Back”
SEO Optimization
October 25, 2007
Hi Paul,
As i I have stated on many blogs that blogged about this. It is not that Google stands on penalizing sites that sell or buy links, it is something more general, Google is penalizing sites that DO trick their algorithm, and tricking the algorithm doesn’t mean only selling links but also involves those tricky competitions “I will give this to the winner that links to my site” blla blla.
And the so honest ProBlogger hasn’t done such things, right? Mah
|Paul B
October 25, 2007
Who said ProBlogger was honest, not me? He manipulates a huge readership into providing one way links on a regular basis. Even worse he uses his own network to push whatever he likes to the top.
The truth is that we are all just guessing at what is going on! I don’t have a problem with it at all, many of the top bloggers out there are not in their position on merit, they are there simply because they have found ways of gaming the system. To be honest I’ve read more interesting information on your Blog than ProBloggers so if Google’s shake up puts good information back at the top then it’s a good thing.
|SEO Optimization
October 25, 2007
No not you, Darren said so in his post “I never sold links, why they penalized me” he even made it seem like Google might have penalized him because he has removed AdSense (oh come on..)..
I wasn’t accusing you or bashing on you, i was just trying to point out that those “innocent” babes out there are not that innocent as they tend to make their readers believe.
|Paul B
October 25, 2007
I think it’s fair to say that anybody who has been hit with a penalty has deserved it, some have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, others like Darren just have the crumbs around their mouths.
The cool bit is I saw around a 15% jump in search traffic across most of my sites yesterday. Happy days.
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