Alternate Theory For Google PageRank Drops
October 24th, 2007 by CourtAfter thinking about the fact that Google has applied two manual PageRank drops in the last two weeks to me and other sites, I have a new theory about the slapping that happened early this morning. The idea is actually quite simple, and if I’m right an entire sub-industry might be coming down. Here’s the theory, and then we’ll get to the explanation:
Google Didn’t Get The Buzz They Wanted Two Weeks Ago
It’s no secret that Google has been trying to crack down on paid links for quite some time. They also have stated to not use link schemes designed to increase search engine rankings - no secret here. When they dropped PageRank on some influential sites two weeks ago, it was widely believed that selling links was the reason. I think that reason was probably accurate, since most of the sites penalized were participating in some kind of text link advertising, whether it be through text-link-ads, direct text links, reviews, or other forms of selling links. This time around, network sites that link heavily between each other have been thrown into the mix.
Why would Google hit influential sites that sells links or interlink heavily? Obviously they would do it because they want to change the whole advertising model that causes sites to sell links. They want people to stop the heavy interlinking. Why would they hit us again? Why would they hit a bigger group of influential sites? Because the sites they hit are the only ones that can influence change.
The common threads among all of the sites that got hit are paid advertising, site interlinking, and influence. Problogger.net doesn’t directly sell links right? He does have a text-link-ads affiliate link, a network of sites that are interlinked, and a ton of influence. What happens when Problogger writes about this? People become afraid of buying and selling links.
Copyblogger.com doesn’t sell links right? What about the Text-Link-Ads banner in their sidebar and a group of interlinked sites, to go along with a ton of influence? It could be argued that they are promoting the selling of links. It could be argued that they are giving a ranking advantage to the other B5 Media sites they’re linking to. Now, Clopyblogger’s banner is there because Text-Link-Ads is paying to advertise, not because they are pushing affiliate signups. Why did CopyBlogger get slapped then? Google needs a bigger buzz. Slap now, ask questions later.
Why then would Google include other sites like Engadget that do not participate in link selling?
Google Wants To See Nofollows On The Network Links
Engadget is a network blog that links to a lot other blogs in the network. Linking to other blogs in their network could provide a search engine advantage that Google doesn’t want to see. Why penalize them then? If they stop their interlinking, other sites will follow. Slapping the #1 ranked blog in the world also really adds to the buzz.
Darren from ProBlogger.net and others have argued that those links are there to give the readers some related channels that they might be interested in. How does that fit into this theory? Google’s thinking is that if those links are really there for direct clicks only, why not put nofollows on them?
Copyblogger falls into this same category as a B5 Media site. If those B5 Media links are really about pushing direct traffic, nofollow links would work out just fine.
Google’s Iron Fist
Google had to make it bigger and better this time around. They got a lot more people to write about it this time, didn’t they? This time you’re going to see articles in mainstream newspapers because they hit some major players hard. Things are going to change this time around.
Text-Link-Ads Done?
I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how Text-Link-Ads is going to keep it going now. Their whole model is based around buying and selling links that pass PageRank and search engine ranking value. Google is going to keep slapping harder and harder until everyone stops doing it. If the influential people have to stop…. everyone stops. Their model doesn’t work anymore.
ReviewMe?
I think that ReviewMe can still survive, but people are going to have to stop using PageRank as a rating factor. People will have to start using nofollows on their paid reviews, so they will serve as advertising and consulting only. This will bring the price down, but it could still be a viable model.
PayPerPost?
They’re in the same situationas ReviewMe. They are going to have to evolve to a nofollow system, which will bring down revenue for them. It might still work though. One thing is certain, we’re going to see some changes.
The Future
We’re all going to adapt and be just fine. We’re going to do what we have to do. Am I worried about the future of my site? Not at all. I’m going to keep making it happen. This is actually a positive in a way for me because I don’t buy links at all and I’m gaining ground in sites that probably do. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the bigger marketing sites drop.
If these changes have you guys scared, don’t worry. We’re going to figure this whole thing out and keep moving forward.
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October 24th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Good post Court. This is about the same conclusion I came too last week when I wrote the post “Will Google Be The Death To PayPerPost Companies.”
Seems Google wants to be the only one to sell links and not be penalized for it.
I think the future will require more stealth link building, the type that Jim Boykin talks about on his blog.
We’ll just have to become link building Ninja’s!
Don
October 24th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I just checked out your post Don, it’s very very good.
This whole thing is going to change so that you have to put nofollows on every type of paid ad.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
What I don’t understand is, why did they bump you another notch down in PR after you put up the disclaimer on your Advertise page?
Don
October 24th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
That’s a very good question Don. It’s likely that they haven’t figured that out yet, even though I’ve done a request to be re-evaluated.
The fact that I got hit after I stopped the practice is one of the factors that led me to believe that Google simply hit the same people harder, and then added some other players to increase the effect.
I seriously doubt that someone at Google looked at my site in the last few weeks because they would have found that I was in compliance.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
So either everyone falls over themselves to fit within Googles strategem. Or too many people decide to forget all about google and pagerank becomes less important. I myself would prefer the second but right off the 1st will be the direction right.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I think everyone would prefer the second but I don’t think that’s going to be an option for a while!
October 24th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
“Why then would Google include other sites like Engadget that do not participate in link selling?”
The “sponsored links” on Engadget.com didn’t have that nofollow tag earlier today
October 24th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Ding ding ding!!
October 24th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
True that and they still haven’t nofollowed all of the network blogs.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Court - as I commented back to you on my own blog, I do believe there is something to the theory that the network linking is being devalued.
But the KnowMoreMedia blog network hasn’t been hit at all, which makes me wonder what could they have done differently to have avoided the penalty?
It did occur to me that the group projects that Darren does could have “hurt” him because of so many incoming links from outside niches.
But if that’s what you get for giving back to the blogging community, then I’ll happily take a PR1 and continue to serve my readers rather than kiss G’s a$$.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
That’s a pretty interesting point. It seems likely that the bigger, more influential players were the ones hit because that makes for a lot more impact.
KnowMoreMedia should re-evaluate at this point because G will probably keep looking for people to slap.
Anyway, thanks for the visit and insights Wendy!
October 24th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Sorry Court but I find it really hard to believe that network sites are penalised.
This is normal, legitimate linking. How could Google possibly justify penalising sites linking to themselves?
I’m hoping Wiep is right here.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Google has already stated that they don’t want to see excessive interlinking with intent to better search engine rankings.
There are other networks sites that don’t have sponsored links that got hit.
TechCrunch, on other other hand doesn’t do much interlinking and they are fine. This seems like a message that Google isn’t cool with it. No matter what you believe, you have to agree that it gives Weblogs and B5 an advantage that other sites don’t have.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
If everyone uses nofollow on all links to everyone - PageRank is still usless.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
It would be 100 times easier if Google would just say how they wanted it. If they didn’t like the network blogs linking like that, they should say so.
The funny thing is that they don’t say and then penalize. Come one guys.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Great post Court. My thoughts exactly. I think they definitely re-penalized influential sites that are selling links, and also penalized some (but not all) sites involved in excessive network linking.
The one consistent factor is that they manually penalized INFLUENTIAL sites. The sites they penalized are either huge news sites, extremely popular sites, or sites they simply have decided are influential. They are banking on all these bigger sites and blogs to create that huge panic (that, I agree, wasn’t as big as they had hoped for three weeks ago.)
I think that alot of people are definitely going to change what they’re doing, but I think we all need to be careful not to just freak out. We need to obviously avoid getting penalized, but we also really look at the other side of the picture: Google’s decision to re-penalize sites after not getting enough buzz (which is essentially exploiting the blog world by using pagerank as a means of creating a widespread panic) is simultaneously PROVING that (currently) pagerank is innacurate, inconsistent, and a poor tool for evaluating a web page. (An additional contributing factor to this point is the fact that is hasn’t been updated since last April.)
We should all start supporting and promoting sites and revenue streams that don’t heavily rely on pagerank as a means for determining value.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Thanks Liz!
You’re totally right, Google is trying to create a panic and they has probably succeeded somewhat.
I’m hoping that more people will realize that PR is a poor way to evaluate pages. That definitely has to change. Thanks for you insights!
October 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
ReviewMe doesn’t use PageRank to rank the sites. They use RSS subscribers, Alexa rank, and Technorati rank. None of those will be affected by a drop in PageRank.
Also, TLA will most definitely survive, they might have to adapt (and in some ways they already have) but they’ll be fine.
PayPerPost does use PR as a minimum requirement for some things I think but that shouldn’t be too hard to change either. I’d expect to see more emphasis on Technorati and Alexa rankings from here on out.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Also, it should be noted that the PageRank we all see in our toolbars and what not, plays absolutely no roll in your search engine rankings. This drop in PR hasn’t been accompanied by a drop in rankings at all.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
You’re right about that. This whole whoopla is about perceived value of advertising.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
My bad on ReviewMe, it should have said that people will stop using PageRank to determine who to buy reviews from.
When John Chow went in his ReviewMe rampage there’s no doubt that his then PR6 was one of the major contributing factors.
I can see TLA continuing with their post-level ads but I think that more and more people are going to get caught for the sidebar links. I haven’t seen as many people using the post-level ads so we’ll have to see how that works out.
Whether they do or do not make it, I can’t endorse their use because it’s a flawed model. If you get caught you’re in deep water so I won’t be participating or endorsing.
People that don’t buy links should be pretty excited right now because sites that do may start to go downhill.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:20 am
I think that’s a pretty bad way to look at things. We all pay for links in some form or another, what if Google decided to somehow go after people that hire writers or content creators? What if Google decides to go after affiliate links and penalize people for linking to an offer etc? This is a slippery slope and endorsing them at the top of it will make it harder to fight them later. IMO
October 25th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Google isn’t going to go after people that hire writers because that doesn’t affect their search results. Buying and selling links does affect their search results.
We actually don’t all buy links Ben. If people are in front of me because they’ve been buying links, sorry but I don’t think they deserve to be there.
Ben I’m sorry bro but fighting Google? You want to fight a company with a $200 billion market cap? You either play their game or you don’t. If you don’t care about their traffic then do whatever you want. I’m not saying that I agree with what they’re doing but that doesn’t mean I’m going to throw my business away because of it.
What, I should stick my shovel in the ground and say who cares? If you care about getting Google traffic, then you are the one on a slippery slope my friend.
I would recommend taking a good long look at what you’re saying because you have people that read your site, and whether you like it or not, you affect each of them.
You obviously sell and want to continue to sell links. If you want to do that you should get into a niche that isn’t as visible. I personally think you would be singing to a different tune if you had any PageRank that could be taken away.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I agree with your theory.
I am just not sure if the penalties were distributed manually.
Some very small blogs were penalized as well, and I find it hard to believe that Google’s engineers did that manually.
I think they are trying to incorporate the paid links and network links exploit in the algo.
October 24th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Thanks for your insights Daniel, that is definitely a possibility. That would be a lot more fair for everyone and I hope that it’s the case.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I think it’s time to use other methods of reaching the target market, without Google. They are pushing around the little guys to make themselves the only game in town, ensuring that they maintain a huge profit margin.
This needn’t be the death of paid posting and linking if people stop trying to stay with Google and start creating an alternative. There should be enough of the “little guys” to make something other than Google, a viable alternative!
October 24th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
That’s an interesting idea SageRave. The key there is that these companies like PayPerPost would have to start calculating value on traffic and forget about this other stuff.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:20 am
I think PPP is working in that line already. They are trying to measure the traffic themselves in a beta testing called ‘Argus’. Hope, they will start to implement the Argus rank soon.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
To the believers of “PR”, could you explain why google, that tries it’s hardest to protect it’s search alogarithm, and would share such an important thing like PR in a toolbar (designed for surfers not webmasters)? I don’t get the logic. Why would google do this? Google has you guys running through loops.
PR is a pipe dream of webmasters having a circle jerk session. A constant masturbation session of the glorous “PR”.
Google isn’t going to share with you the secrets to beat it. Get over it. Use your brain.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Chris,
Google’s algorithm is not top secret, it might be to you, but it is actually quite easy to look at it.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Sorry Chris but we’re not the ones who are fooled. The companies that are fooled are PayPerPost, Text-Link-Ads, and other sites that rank our worth according to PageRank.
Believers of PageRank? What does that even mean Chris? PageRank exists, period. It’s not something you do or do not believe in.
I would recommend digging a little deeper into my site before you make assumptions about what I do or do not believe.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I think the whole inter-linking theory may be incorrect. There is too much of it going on elsewhere… check out the iac.com web ring of sites. Hotels.com, RealEstate.com, LendingTree.com - they all clearly link to each other (see their footers - ‘Partner Sites’), but their pagerank is still very strong, even for their weaker sites like Servicemagic.com - PR7! They may be white-listed, but what did they have to do to avoid any penalties? …Spend millions of advertising dollars at G maybe? Also, I know inter-linking is being done elsewhere in less obvious places
and those sites have improved or have not been affected these last few weeks.
I think this is a direct attack on those that engage in or promote link buying and selling, as Aaron Wall says - ‘because it works’. Google wants to scare everyone with their magical PR sword. This is just going to slow what is occurring now, and cause creative new link buying/selling enterprises.
Besides, the black-hatters are starting to prove that PR is completely irrelevant… TrustRank matters now, and Google ain’t giving that score up any time soon.
PageRank is Google’s PR (public relations) tool (pun intended) they use to manipulate the masses - TrustRank is the REAL score they use to manipulate the SERPS.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Well DeletedLive, remember that it is just that, a theory. However, the theory states that these sites were penalized for excessive interlinking. This doesn’t mean that sites that simply interlink will get slapped.
The Weblogs network (Engadget) has network blogrolls with over 100 links. The B5 networks links are also q
October 25th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Well DeletedLive, remember that it is just that, a theory. However, the theory states that these sites were penalized for excessive interlinking. This doesn’t mean that sites that simply interlink will get slapped.
The Weblogs network (Engadget) has network blogrolls with over 100 links. The B5 networks links are also quite large.
If Google slapped for this reason, it’s likely that it isn’t over because logic tells you that they couldn’t have possibly found everyone yet.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I really think that Google should give us an accurate outline to help us rank better and so that we can follow the rules without gaming google’s algorithms.
Awesome post Court.
Cheers,
Carlo
October 25th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Amen Carlo!!! It’s so irritating that they don’t because there are a lot of people that want to comply. I’m hoping that they release some sort of explanation but to be honest, it really isn’t Google’s style.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Why would google give you anything? It would be like spam blockers giving out the secrets to get by the spam blocking filter. As soon as google gives out “the secret”, the sooner every single search result becomes spam.
Deal with it.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Why do they give out PageRank, then? …to use as a PR tool, that’s why.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Chris for a person who has a site with no authority what so ever, you write so matter of fact.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_enPR226&q=site%3Aconservatipedia.com&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_enPR226&q=conservatipedia.com&btnG=Search
Please kid, let the grown ups talk.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Chris you really don’t want to go there bro, Vic knows about 100 times more about this stuff than anyone you’ve ever heard of.
Arguing with Vic about Google is really not a good idea. You’re just going to end up looking stupid.
Just because you believe people don’t know how to rank well in Google doesn’t mean that people don’t know how to rank well in Google.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
There is a growing anti-google movement. Even before learning about this, I started finding much more relevant searches with yahoo, and the numbers prove it. Google is said to get 68 percent while Yahoo gets 75 percent relevant results. Everyone needs to just stop using Google search, give them a slap.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Kalidasa 85% of the searches on the net are placed in Google.
Google indexes in minutes Yahoo takes weeks and MSN may take months so by definition Google will always provide the latest information.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:07 am
It’s going to be a long time before people stop using Google to search Kalidasa. They are by far, without question the best search engine. As Vic stated, if you’re looking for anything recent you can forget about Yahoo.
Yahoo has a really long way to go. Yahoo does, however, have the most trafficked site in the world because of their other services. Keep in mind that even though they have the most trafficked site, people still don’t use their search engine that much. That’s a really, really bad sign for Yahoo.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:33 am
[…] Court wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAfter thinking about the fact that Google has applied two manual PageRank drops in the last two weeks to me and other sites, I have a new theory about the slapping that happened early this morning. The idea is actually quite simple, … […]
October 25th, 2007 at 7:27 am
Kalidasa is spot on with the observation that it’s Google that are heading for the biggest slap of all.
Big G will learn over time that you should not bite the hand that feeds you. The people they’ve attacked are the very people that put them where they are now.
It’s not going to happen overnight. A lot of web users don’t even know there are other ways to search other than use Google but that’s changing.
Over here in the UK Ask are conducting a very aggressive marketing campaign with TV ads, newspaper ads and billboards and people are starting to sit up and notice.
The other day I was doing some research and not once did I use Google. A combination of StumbleUpon and Live Search gave me exactly what I needed.
Regarding TLA and their future in the market. Well I think they’re already looking at their alternatives (AuctionAds and ShoppingAds) but I think they will simply revise their current model, use either no-follow links or widgets to continue providing a service.
October 25th, 2007 at 7:43 am
Mike the facts are what the facts are Ask at there peak there market share was 7% since than it has steadily went down, currently 4.28% and Ask does not have an advertising network to provide cash to help them grow.
You mention Google bitting the hand that feeds them, when actually Google feeds us not the way around.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:13 am
As always, spot on Vic. No matter what Ask does, they’re never going to gain market share. Google is just going to get bigger because they are that much better than everyone else.
Has anyone ever seen a Google commercial on tv? Ever seen Google pay for advertising on another site? Why do you think that is? Because that’s how far above the curve they are.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Hey Mike!
Thanks for your comments. Ask.com is also running a very aggressive marketing campaign here in the U.S., but they still aren’t gaining any market share on Google, in fact Google is still increasing their market share globally each year.
You may be right about TLA. It will be interesting to see what happens there. One thing is certain, if nofollows are added to their links, it will significantly decrease the value of their service. That means less profits without question. I would love to see what they have to say about all of this.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:00 am
So how will you react to this then? Start sticking nofollow to every link that looks like advertisement? I think Google is doing the exact opposite they should be doing. It is not the webmasters’ job to make their websites Google compatible. People in the Internet marketing business tend to forget this.
I’m quite sure over 90% of people who publish online have never read the Google webmaster guidelines. Depending on how you define publish that might actually be around 99% or higher. The guidelines are there to help, when you want to make it easier for your site to be crawled. But it’s actually Google’s job to improve their technology so every site will get crawled as well as possible.
Similarly, it’s Google’s job to identify advertisement on websites, and to disregard the links there if they see fit. I think they are trying to make us forget that. The whole “nofollow” was a specification by the search engines, and not a part of the HTML 4.01 standard.
I think it’s a wrong approach to the problem at hand that they try to move the responsibility of identifying paid advertisement to publishers. It’s their job, not ours.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Hi Sutocu!
That’s a very good question. Fortunately I don’t really have to react to this, because I already did two weeks ago. My site is 100% in compliance with what Google wants to see.
What people need to ask themselves at this point is whether they care about getting Google traffic or not. For people that have a legitimate strategy that doesn’t involve Google, they can do whatever their little hearts desire. The strategy I have in my business plan involves Google so I’m going to play the game.
A very interesting scenario has played out here because it’s gotten a lot harder for Google to find paid links. People are selling the links themselves now which means that it’s a lot harder to create a system that can find them. To a certain I can understand that, although I wish it wasn’t the case.
In my case, the advantages of complying with Google’s guidelines outweigh the losses of ad dollars. As part of my business plan, you will see a day when CourtneyTuttle.com is 100% ad free. I have much bigger plans for this site than pushing people to other sites in exchange for cash.
My site has gained a certain level of exposure thanks to Google. The same exposure that I gained through Google obviously exposed my site to Google, hence the -2 I’m currently looking at. That’s something you will have to consider Sutocu. As you gain more exposure in Google’s search engine, the things you are doing become more visible to them.
I think that most people are hoping that they can keep selling links without getting caught. I’m going to say that we don’t need to sell links that pass PageRank. We can make money selling links that don’t pass PageRank, and we can sell other advertising that doesn’t pass PageRank.
Remember that you and only you can choose what you want to do with your site. You have to right to do whatever you want to do with your site. If you want to sell 10,000 links off of your homepage, you’re within your rights as the owner of that domain. You just have to remember that Google has the right to do what they want with theirs. If they want to ban sites that do that from appearing in their domain, they have every right to do that.
Now at this point some people will choose to play the game, and some people will choose to find their traffic from other sources. As I stated earlier, I am going to comply because for me the positives outweigh the negatives.
Those that want to comply don’t need to stick a nofollow on everything that looks like an advertisement, but they can start by placing nofollows on everything that is a paid advertisement.
That’s what I’ve done, and now you can’t buy my PageRank, period. Some people may make a different choice, but they will have to face the potential consequences that go along with their decision.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
google won’t mind at all if there are people who think that it is google responsibility to check which is paid link ads. they can do that and penalize the wrong link. and by doing that those affected site will lose their rank wrongly. google won’t explain to site owner they just can keep quite never answer reply.
so i believe the reason google tell us all about this is to give a chance to do accordingly with paid link if we wish to put any. at least web master know what is better for them if they they want to receive traffic from google search engine. so if any web master feel they prefer paid link instead of google traffic then go ahead. there is nothing about who is right or who is wrong in this issues.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Just an idea that may be way out there (very much a newb, hold your flames), but could they be hitting you for all the back link