Google Makes Paid Link Stance Official
November 28th, 2007 by Court
Edit: This apparently isn’t a brand new policy, so contrary to popular belief, Google already has an official position on this issue. They did recently change the wording so that their position applies only to links that pass PageRank. Read on to see how it applies to you, considering current circumstances.
As most of you know, bloggers everywhere are mad at Google because of the recent slappage that Goog laid down on sites that have been selling links.
A lot of the frustration was that people felt like Google wasn’t 100% clear on what they did and did not want. Google has made an official statement on this issue, in their webmaster help center (emphasis added):
…some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.
Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:
- Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag
- Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file
Paid Link Penalties Can Help You To Rank Better
If you read what the statement says, you can see that buying or selling links that pass PageRank can negatively effect the rankings of a site. I personally have been watching the sites that are ranked in front of me for ‘internet marketing’ and can tell you that many of the sites in the top 10 in Google were buying links before this fiasco. Many of those links have since come down, including one site-wide link using ‘internet marketing’ as the anchor from a PR10 site. Tell me that this doesn’t make it easier for me.
Google’s Paid Link Smack-Down Is Leveling The Playing Field
I know that some of you are mad because of this whole thing, and I understand that. A revenue stream that you could once use is pretty much over if you’re serious about your site. On the other hand, however, this will make it easier for you to compete for rankings against sites that have bigger budgets than you.
Help Is On The Way For Link Sellers
If you read the quote from Google, you’ll see that Google is ok with selling links, as long as you use nofollows on them. SocialSpark and other services are being created to allow you to connect with advertisers that want to buy buzz, not PageRank. Google is going to be ok with SocialSpark because you will be allowed to place nofollow on your links.
Let The Negative Comments Begin
Look I know that some of you aren’t going to be happy with this stance. You aren’t willing to accept the fact that this has some positive implications for you because you still have hard feelings. I’m sure that a few people are going to go into a tirade like the last time I wrote about this issue.
I personally think that thinking you can make it without Google isn’t very wise. Most people in this situation will just keep complaining for the next few years - blaming everything on Google. I can tell you right here what’s going to happen to these people - they’re just going to get passed up by the people that realize that Google can help them in a major way. Eventually every person involved with internet marketing is going to have to decide whether they need Google or not.
If you don’t need Google, you are a very rare exception.
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November 28th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
With respect, Court, this isn’t anything new. Google published this statement back in June.
However it’s interesting that it’s now being picked up by the likes of Search Rank and Search Engine Journal as being new news.
My tuppence, for what it’s worth, is that Google won’t start penalising people in the SERPs until the new year. They’ll want to assess the impact of the PR bitch slapping first before they start implementing the next stage of penalties.
November 28th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
You’re right that the statement was already up Mike, but if you read the next comment by Gabriel you will see that there is different wording. I personally had never seen the official wording from this section since it isn’t in the Official Webmaster Guidelines.
November 29th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Court,
Your original comment stating there was a change in wording was correct.
Current wording:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66736
Wording as of July 9:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070709222105/http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66736
While they did have a stance on paid links, they recently made it more exact by stating “that pass PageRank,” not just unmarked paid links in general.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Sounds like I need to do another edit lol, thanks Gabriel. I thought the wording was different but didn’t have a way to prove it until now.
November 28th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
PR is good but traffic is better.
I got more traffic from Google than anything else. That’s why I add nofollow on 1 Cool File. I don’t want to loose my PR6.
Even my new option to add a blog in the Blog Directory category for free in exchange of a short review now require a nofollow in the review of the blogger. The link is mostly to create buzz and traffic to my site. Plus, I get valuable feedback from users and so I’m making changes every day.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Hi Court,
This has been bugging me for sometime. If everyone uses the “nofollow” attribute, does that mean that all the linkbacks that we get will be worthless?
Does that mean, no matter how good our contents are or how many times it has been mentioned or linked by other bloggers, but with the “nofollow” attribute, it will be of no use for Google?
I mean, speaking from the sense of increasing backlinks for better Page Ranks.
I need some clarification over this to better plan my posts.
Thanks!
November 28th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Hi Costa, this is only about paid links. For links in your posts, you will carry on as usual. There is no need to place a nofollow on any link, unless someone paid you for it.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Costa,
Google wants legit links. What they don’t want is PAID LINKS. The basic Google algorithm is a voting system and they don’t want paid votes. So a regular link to an article of yours will be fine. If you are paying someone to have a link on their site and doing it in a way that GOOG can tell then they will penalize them.
Basically things like TextLinkAds make it so that the GOOG algorithm gives skewed results. Think about an election. Say for instance some James Bond movie Overlord character wanted to run for president and paid millions of people to go vote for him. The results would suck. Instead of a president elected by the people we would have some crazy rich guy that paid for his votes. Google is trying to avoid that. They want natural votes not manipulated ones.
I hope that makes sense.
-Dave
November 28th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Thanks Dave.
Sure hope Google has a foolproof way to differentiate between the two kinds of links as I am still linking to others without the “nofollow” attribute.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Hi, Court,
Thanks for your great tips and articles. I have been reading them all this while though I didn’t put down any comments…;D
I was quite down when all blogs were slapped with PR0 2 weeks ago. But,I have already stopped whining and picked myself up again.
I am working on new blogs and trying out Google Adsense and other internet marketing programs.
Thanks
November 29th, 2007 at 3:19 am
All it means that people buying/selling will just change how they do it. Instead of offering links in the side bar (where paid links usually go) people will buy keywords in people’s blogs/articles that link to their website. There is no way Google can detect that unless your are stupid and actively say you buy and sell links.
This move also is slightly confusing as Google itself says submit to Dmoz and Yahoo directory which is paid, and doesn’t use no follow attribute. So they must find that legit because it’s sold as “advertising” Which don’t blogs including yours Court used to do?? But you got Google bitch slapped. I didn’t see the same happening to Yahoo directory!
November 29th, 2007 at 11:16 am
There is no way Google can detect that unless your are stupid and actively say you buy and sell links.
Martin please? Are you kidding?
If you have a site that paid for 200 paid post with the keyword “Hello” pointing to httttp://www.abcblog.com dont you think they will not catch 200 licks with the same keyword pointing to the same place not fishy LOL.
Google is not run by idiots.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:53 am
if you were paying for links you would alter the anchor text unless you are silly. 200 licks as you put it Vic all with the same anchor text is not a lot if you have a fairly decent website.
Yes I do agree that it would look dodgy as seen on John chow for make money online, but he had over done it on “make money online” But i never said buy 200 keywords from website, i said keywords from articles would be bought. The same amount as if you were buying side bar links but in the article instead.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
It does not matter where you buy the link inside and article or on the side bar a paid link with dofollow is a paid link with dofollow.
An yes even as small as fifty articles with keyword hooks would easily be found.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Martin you’re missing something very big here which is the fact that people you’re competing against can report you for paid links. If this happens you will go into a cue awaiting manual inspection by Google’s spam team.
If you have a campaign of sponsored links in your posts, they will nail you upon visual inspection even if you get away with a small-scale campaign for a while.
Martin, do you really think it’s worth it? You’re trading the future of your site for a few bucks.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Martin Yahoo directory really isn’t paid. You pay them for the right to review your site, and they include you if they want.
Many sites that pay Yahoo never get listed in the directory.
Martin I straight up sold links that passed PageRank - I deserved exactly what I got and knew that I was taking that risk.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Court, I thought you sold your links as advertising and not as passing on page rank. If we take the same business model as Yahoo and say you can pay us to review your site and if we like we will add a link on our site. We would get into trouble and get google slapped. Yahoo doesn’t because of it’s authority.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Martin I sold links that passed PageRank. You think it makes it ok if I say that they are for advertising? Sorry man but that makes no sense.
Yahoo doesn’t get slapped because Google understands what they’re doing and Google has decided that the sites that Yahoo has let in are of high quality.
This doesn’t skew Google’s search engine rankings.
If you created a directory that had the quality of the Yahoo directory and repeated their model, letting Google know exactly what you were doing, you would not be slapped because it wouldn’t give a ranking advantage to lower quality sites.
If you did the same thing and let a bunch of junk sites in you would be slapped because then you would be selling links.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Also, yes Google are very clever. When I was talking about they wont be able to detect that, I was talking about buying keywords in articles. Which it isn’t possible to detect even for Google.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Yes Google bot can detect a keyword hook that is part of a paid campaign. If it is just one time shot they would not know but if it id part of a campaign they would easily know.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Instead of offering links in the side bar (where paid links usually go) people will buy keywords in people’s blogs/articles that link to their website.
That’s exactly what PayPerPost does. Hm, wonder what happened with that?
November 29th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
LMAO
November 30th, 2007 at 3:05 am
I’m not necessarily talking about PPP, if you approach without using programs such as PPP e.g contact people via e-mail. That is not detectable by Google.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Hi, Martin,
I apologize for being short earlier.
Also, people are already buying links in the way that you state and you’re right. Done privately Google has no idea- unless the link is to a site that has nothing to do with the originating site.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Finally. They should have come forward with this before all the link selling penalties. At least this makes it clear what is and what is not fine with Google.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Sutocu this is nothing new. This is new to you and bloggers because it is affecting them. Over 24 months ago they fell hard on paid directory and paid linked farms yet you did not hear anything from the blogger elite. This is now a story because it is causing problems to some of the blogger elite. It is a cliche but true follow the money
November 29th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I know there are a lot of people upset about Google’s decision. I don’t know maybe they should have eased into it a little more, but ultimately, this is a good decision. Remember, most of the people using the internet are just trying to find relevant information to a particular topic of interest. Google’s decision will help them do that and that’s the bottom line. If your success is built on the manipulation of a search engine to the detriment of the common searcher, then you probably need to rethink your approach anyway.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Matthew is like you say this benefits all of us that can not afford to buy rankings.
There is one thing though that I find funny you mention they should have eased it a bit more.
Court and me where chatting a few days ago and we kind of both felt that Google has been just so relaxed with this. Again this is nothing new to those of us that are SEO “experts” we have known this for years. Personally If I was running the show for Google I would have de-indexed a few sites to stress the point.
November 29th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I think if you use organic SEO and your website/s provide quality content then you really don’t have to worry what Google is going to do next. Here is a great resource that can help your business to the next level: http://portal-feeder-review.com
November 29th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Here are the problems I see with their policy.
First, since Google is heavily involved in online advertising sales for them to penalize sites in search for link sales that compete with their ad products is a conflict of interest. This puts them and their stockholders financial interests at risk. They need to clearly and cleanly separate the two enterprises so as to avoid eventual legal action.
Secondly, they have no way to accurately detect which links are paid for and which are not in terms of reviews. While some people, such as myself, disclose and nofollow paid review posts, many don’t. Also I’ve noticed a trend where review buyers are insisting on nondisclosure.
Lastly, I can’t see Google penalizing big sites that sell links to pass PR because it would lead to an invalidation of their search results. CNN, ESPN, MTV, etc. can sell PR passing links like crazy but the small time blogger can’t do it without being penalized. This also exposes them to negative goodwill.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Hi Frank,
I respect your honesty and your willingness to share your opinions. With respect, here are the problems I see with your observations.
Your first point: The advertising companies that were hurt by this are PayPerPost and Text-Link-Ads. Both of those ad models were set up to sell PageRank and/or improvements in Google search engine rankings. If this wasn’t the case, both of them would allow publishers to use nofollows. Google rankings are the only thing that is affected by putting a nofollow on a link. Frank this has nothing to do with ad products. Google allows people to use any ad product they want unless it was created to affect search engine rankings. PPP and TLA are search engine ranking products - not direct advertising products. If this wasn’t the case they could use nofollow and end their troubles.
Your second point: Your point proves why Google has to do this. People have been making it harder and harder for Google to detect paid links. If everyone disclosed, Google wouldn’t be in this position.
Your last point: Do you realize that until all of this happened I could buy a 2-year old domain, put up a one page site, and buy my way in front of all of the sites you mentioned? What you’re missing Frank is that much of the spam the comes up highly in Google’s index can be traced back to paid links. There is already an invalidation in Google’s search results.
Do you really think that CNN, ESPN, and MTV sell links that pass PageRank? I’m going to have to ask you to find a paid link on any one of those sites that passes PageRank because I don’t think they’re doing it.
I would love to hear what you have to say about these arguments Frank. I’m willing to keep talking about this as long as the conversation can remain positive.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Court about PPP: The nofollow is optional and can be ask by the advertiser. PPP will make it more visible so that posties can take or not a review.
That’s the answer Peter Wright gave me in a comment on their blog about RealRank.
In yesterday other post: “By weeks end we will roll out a new No-follow option for advertisers in PayPerPost.”
November 29th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Steve that is awsome, the only thing is you will see pricing come way down. Maybe before you could make $50.00 for a paid post with keyword with dofollow no you will probably see that same opportunity for % dollars.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Any opportunities that have been done this week and prior that have nofollow will be rejected, because TOS right now states that sponsored links have to be dofollow.
Also, it’s going to be harder to find advertisers with nofollow. Even though the guys at Izea say differently, most of the opps I’ve personally seen were SEO based. Why else would we have to add specific anchor text to three different links?
I hope that SocialSpark works and more advertisers come aboard that want word of mouth instead of SEO. There are a lot of folks hurting because of this mess right now.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
On the first point, Google apparently penalized some sites that simply linked to PPP organically, including the blog of someone who worked there. This kind of activity gives their activities the air of conflict of interest, even if their motives were entirely pure. Separation of search and advertising units would prevent this appearance of conflict.
On the second point, all they’re doing is forcing the activity underground, like speakeasys during Prohibition. This will cause more black/gray hatting, not less.
For the third one, see http://espn.adsonar.com/admin/pl/espn/landingPage.html and http://www.cnn.com/services/advertise/specs/specs_all_guidelines.html - no mention of nofollow there. It appears that MTV is only selling flash ad space as best I can tell.
From what I understand ‘real’ blackhat search spammers operators don’t pay for links anyway. That’s why white to slightly gray hat bloggers get a penalty and blackhat MFA’s and sploggers get a front row seat in search.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Frank,
1st point - Google didn’t penalize sites that linked to PPP organically. The lady that worked at PPP wrote sponsored posts. I agree that separating the two would prevent the appearance of conflict. However, if I owned Google I wouldn’t go through the hassle to prevent the appearance of anything. The fact here is that it isn’t illegal in any way, so give a good reason why Google should go through the hassle. Google has given sites a way to sell whatever advertising they want in a way that Google will be ok with.
2nd point - Yes this will force it more underground but makes it much harder to do. This won’t cause more in any way - big sites that can actually make a difference with a link won’t be able to do it. If you want to do it, do it. You will be taking a huge risk that could jeopardize your online business.
3rd point - Neither of those ad programs pass any PageRank whatsoever. Both pass through ad servers that kill link value. If you read my post you will find that this is one of the accepted ways to run legitimate advertising. Google is 100% ok with this type of advertising, even though it competes with Adsense.
No matter what you think Google’s intentions are Frank, at some point you’re going to have to accept the fact that Google is within their rights to do this. They can run their ranking system however they want. This means if they want to ban OpTempo for selling links intended to manipulate their search algorithm, no one can stop them.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
You really got at the problem when you said, “I wouldn’t go through the hassle to prevent the appearance of anything.” That’s probably close to what Google management thinks and it’s the same attitude that got Microsoft, AT&T, Standard Oil and some others into trouble with the government. When you get that big, you’re going to have governments in your face, like it or not, and you’ll find what’s “within your rights” curtailed by government fiat. Avoiding excessive government hassle is worth the hassle of not having bad appearances. This is just like you having the hassle of putting nofollow on links to avoid the hassle of being dropped in Google search results.
What really concerns me is that it may be paid links and nofollow today but it may be something else tomorrow. Google could say that it’s “within their rights” to deindex you if you don’t kowtow to them over something else.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Frank if Google does something they don’t have to right to do I will speak up and say that they don’t have the right to do it. I have no problem going against anyone - I have always spoken out against what other people think.
The truth of the matter is that Google right now is operating within their rights. This has nothing to do with what happened to those companies Frank.
PPP and TLA set themselves up for this by setting up businesses that broker PageRank. It’s 100% their own faults.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Actually, two of the developers over at PPP had their blogs knocked to 0 and they never did any sponsored posting. All they did was mention PPP in some of their posts.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Lisa if that happened then they can easily get their PR back by doing a request with Google.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Court,
This incident has apparently made some people paranoid. For example, take a look at the “Zerofying PR continues” Blogging Zoom story from andrewooi.com that’s calling PPP “Pee Pee Pee”. People are actually worried that they’ll get a Google slap for just saying that name that shall not be said.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Nice job Court of finding the silver lining in it. You are right that is may level the playing field for those who were not using paid links to increase ratings.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
I did PPP for all of 2 months. Or maybe not even that long. I have two blogs that did paid posts (one had 14 and the other had 2) and they both lost their PR. Ok,well one was too new for any, but that’s not the point. My third blog has never had any kind of advertising on it at all, was not linked to the other two blogs, and my pseudonym on that blog isn’t even similar and it lost it’s PR. I’m pretty sure Google caught on because they were all on the same Webmaster Tools, but that’s not the point either.
The point is, they are giving bloggers chances to make amends. They’re saying “Hey, you’ll stay in our search engine if you stop this nonsense now.” Still, some bloggers are saying “Well, I’m still getting their traffic, so…” I think the next logical step is delisting.
SocialSpark is going to give the blogger the option of accepting opps with nofollow or not and I think someone would have to be pretty hard-headed to refuse to do nofollow at this point. At the same time, I don’t think most of the advertisers are going to be paying their money for nofollow links anymore either. They were selling PageRank and now…? Check out what an advertiser said on Izea’s blog today.
Here ya go.
Also, can I ask why none of the advertisers are feeling the effects of Google’s ire? Someone went around and checked a few and they haven’t lost their PR. What’s up with that?
November 29th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
P.S.
In case it wasn’t clear, I no longer do PPP.
November 29th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Well I have to say I quite strongly disagree, Court.
I moved from Blogger to Wordpress not long ago (you may recall, I used a theme of yours). All my sponsored posts were on blogger. I did not take them with me to Wordpress. I left them where I had been paid to put them, which was on a blogger URL that did have a PR of 4.
On my wordpress blog it clearly stated (then, I have since changed it because I refuse to be bullied in this way) that any links to advertisers would be made no follow to comply with Google’s terms of service. And on the wordpress blog I stuck to that. There were no paid posts there without the no follow.
Yet, my wordpress blog was penalized. Down to a 0 from a 4.
You say I can ask for reconsideration - why the heck should I? They got it wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong.
Lucky for me Google traffic is only about 1% of what arrives at my site but Court, this is a slippery slope Google have started to make their way down. And yes, in MY country what they have done is illegal. You cannot target another company in the manner that they have targeted PPP and TLA. It is anti-competitive. Google are already being sued by the ACCC over sponsored links. Many of us bloggers have lodged complaints with the ACCC over what Google has done which are being looked into as I type this.
I refuse to be bullied. That is what Google are doing. Do you really think it is ok for them to push people around because they think they own the internet?
The good news for me is, I have not been to a Google site in two weeks now. And I have no intentions of going back to one again. I have discovered ways that I can live without them. Some of the things I found are actually BETTER than Google ever was.
We might have to agree to disagree on this one but consider this for a second Court. What if they next decide to penalize sites who create wordpress themes and link back to their site in the footer?
I give that link back to you because you put time and effort into that template. You deserve that link. But Google could see it as gaming, just like paid links are considered gaming.
Will you then say ok, Google is right, I was wrong to put my link on those templates, I never deserved the link?
Cheers,
Snoskred
November 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
If you don’t care about getting their traffic then do whatever you want Snoskred.
I will always be results oriented Snoskred, always. I will do whatever I need to do to get the most traffic.
You can disagree with me if you want, that’s fine. I can’t make people believe anything. I will say that people that do what I say will over time be able to generate and protect their traffic more than people that get mad and try to stick it to companies they can’t control.
My methods are 100% about getting results. I will choose results over anything and if you’re different than that, I’m fine with that. People always try to argue with me about what Google should and shouldn’t do. I care about what is happening and how I can take advantage of it.
I would expect that over time I will have to change my methods Snoskred. People that are resistant to change in this business fail. The fact that I’m willing to change is why I’m still here and will still be here 15 years from now. I can guarantee that I won’t throw this away because I’m mad at some company.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:35 am
What just kills me is she gets 200 unique hits a day LMAO. mmmmm if there was ever a site that needed Google is her site. I never understood people that have a site for over a year and with 200 unique hits a day they think they have traffic. I just do not get it. Do people understand that a site with 30k unique a day is still not really an established site. A website with 200 unique hits a day is not even a spot on a spot on the wall in the internet.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
You are right, I can’t control it. But I absolutely am within my rights to make a decision not to support a company that chooses to act in this manner.
I believe what they have done is wrong.
And if they truly are ok with no follows, why on earth did my site get penalized? I WAS USING THEM!!!
You bet I’m mad. You bet my decision is to say up yours, Google. And ceasing to rely on them is something that every site owner should be considering now, because they can turn off that tap anytime they like. You have no control over it. I have no control over it.
Why bother trying to rank well in their search engine when they can rip your site out of it anytime they like? Why not instead choose to focus on other engines and other forms of traffic?
We need a reliable search engine that accurately displays the state of the internet, not one that puts splogs and stolen content blogs AHEAD of the original content blogs. Not one that can wake up one morning on the wrong side of the bed and say hey, you know that Court Tuttle blogger?? I don’t think I like what they posted a few weeks ago. Remove them from our results!
We don’t need to support a search engine that bullies people. Bullies are for schoolyards and they truly shouldn’t be welcome there either.
Cheers,
Snoskred
November 30th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Snoskred
You are totally right screw Google please show them who is boss go to Google Webmaster Tools right now and place your site for de-index stick it to the man!
site:snoskred.org
I will monitor your site for the next week it takes the bot to de-index your site after request about 72 hours I am sure in less than a week it will not be showing up anymore. I will then come back here and comment on how you showed Google who is boss.
BTW GOOG went up today 4.74 (0.68%) I am sure as soon as you request a de-index the stock will surely crash.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Noooo! That’s my retirement money. Don’t make it go down.
But, seriously, I don’t want to lose money because the US Justice Department signs on as Google’s personal proctologist either.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:26 am
You absolutely can do whatever you want. You’re saying that you have absolute freedom to do want you want on your site, right? Does Google not have that freedom on theirs?
If you’re going to claim that right on your site, you have to be willing to give it to other sites. Google has not changed one thing that they don’t own.
You’re implying that I rely on Google. The truth is I use every traffic source that’s available to me.
Every search engine bullies people. They all have rules that you have to follow if you want to rank well. Break the rules of any search engine and you won’t rank well. I know of sites that have been banned by Yahoo and MSN so you better get mad at them too.
The difference between Google and the other engines is that Google can actually deliver good amounts of traffic to your site, if you know how to take advantage.
Skoskred, here’s the thing. I personally can understand why this makes you angry. It made me angry! I’m not going to tell you to let it go because that’s your decision. I am going to tell you that you should do what’s best for the long term of your business.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Hey Courtney, just stopped by via the PPP forum (where someone linked to this post) - and I have to say WOW!!! Great site with tons of useful information. I’ve read quite a few of your posts and you’ve inspired me
to work smarter and harder. I hope you don’t mind - I linked to you!
November 30th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Well hello Heather! Welcome and thanks for your very kind words.
Let me know if there’s anything that I can help you with!
November 30th, 2007 at 12:47 am
I currently don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I sell text link ads on my blog for $5, and I don’t have the nofollow enabled on them. Yes, Google will get me eventually, but if I just get down on my hands and knees and do whatever they say I’ll never make any money at all. Google is a tyrant. =|
November 30th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Well Tay I’m glad that you know that you’re taking a risk. I took that risk and got nailed.
The decision is up to you - I think you can probably still sell those links with nofollows on them.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Here’s the thing I don’t get, Court. What is best for my business and everyone else’s business might just be for all of us to say ok, Google, you can do whatever you want but we’re going to use other search engines in the future. We’re not going to use gmail, we’re not going to use adsense, we’re not going to use any of the other things you offer.
Don’t you understand that we the people give them the power they have? If nobody goes to their sites, what good will that do for their company?
I can’t make everyone else do it. I can just make that decision for myself. I can only encourage others to make that decision also.
Is it MY fault - or YOUR fault - that they created page rank in the first place? Is it our fault they made page rank viewable to the internet? Is it our fault they created something which was easily gamed? No, of course not, but now they want to punish US for their mistake?
If they wanted to solve this - and I mean really and truly solve it - they could simply say ok, we’re not going to tell anyone what their page rank number is anymore. That creates a level playing field.
That would have solved the problem without making anyone angry at all. We would have simply accepted the decision, right? So one has to ask why have they chosen to take this route instead?
Punishing sites and giving them a 0 for absolutely no reason is not creating a level playing field.
And Vic, if Google choose to index my site that is their decision. I’ve made the decision not to visit their sites. That’s my stand. It might not hurt them and they might not care, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I am not supporting a company who is acting in a manner I find absolutely disgraceful.
They created the problem. They are not fixing it. They are slapping some people and not others. There is no fairness to it. If they wanted to solve it in a fair way then get rid of page rank numbers for everyone.
Cheers,
Snoskred
November 30th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Snoskred as of now I am sorry you are all talk. If I wrote all the things you write and be as mad as you say, I would not be saying oh I am so mad that I will not support them I will not visit there sites any more LMAO PLEASE!!!! But you receive there traffic right? If you really want to take a stand ask for your site to be de-indexed. You can not be saying Google is a bully and at the same time receive with open arms the traffic they sent you. THIS IS CALLED BEING A HYPOCRITE!
All the people that are whining every day about the evil Google I call them out on getting there site de-indexed and not one takes me up on it. NOT ONE!
Let me ask you this. What if any responsibility do you have in losing your Page Rank?
From your website: “Google only provides 1% of the traffic to this blog, and they do not run things around here.”
I say you are full of it and once again I call you out.
Request a full de-indexing from Google I dare you!
If it is 1% how can this hurt you? After all your site based on the stats on your own website gets maybe max 200 unique hits a day this equals according to you 2 visitors a day from Google. Having your site de-indexed should make no real effect to your website.
Now in my case it would kill me if my site was de-indexed I received from July 17 2007 to Oct 31 2007 581113 Unique Hits from Google this is an avg of 4862 unique hits a day. My site receives 89% of it’s traffic from Google.
You say you will not be bullied please prove it take a real stand dont just talk.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:27 am
[…] Google Makes Paid Link Stance Official by Courtney Tuttle. […]
November 30th, 2007 at 6:31 am
Thanks for clearing up the wording. I hadn’t spotted the sneaky extra couple of words at the top of the piece.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I think since IZEA (PPP) bloggers took the biggest hit (from whatever to 0), the serps for those sites won’t drop until SocialSpark is up and running for about a month. That’ll give the PPP’ers a chance to “nofollow” all the old links.
Erm… I’m one of those by the way.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
[…] Google Makes Paid Link Stance Official - And now it’s […]
November 30th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I don’t know why some people cannot understand Google’s point with the whole paid links fiasco.
At the end of the day Google doesn’t owe me anything.
If I want to follow their guidelines they will more than likely reward me with free traffic.
A more level playing field will certainly help most of us.
Thats goog enough for me.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Amen
November 30th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Ohhhkay Vic, whatever you’re taking there maybe you’d like to share? We could all do with a bit of chemical happiness.
And I don’t know how you’re claiming to have traffic stats for my site, you’re way off.
but whatever.
I don’t accept your dare. They will likely de-list me all on their own, at least that’s the gossip I hear. And I never did anything to deserve that or the drop to 0.
If you wish, you can go through my site and if you find something I did to deserve it feel free to share that with me, mmkay? But you’ll be there a while, there’s 748 posts or so..
Cheers,
Snoskred
November 30th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Snoskred this makes me so sad. I have no problem what so ever debating and issue. More than one time Frank and me have gotten back and forth but it has always been with respect and each others honest view.
Snoskred I just lost any respect I might have for you. Snoskred on your ride side bar top you have a COUNTER!!!!! Where you wrote OVER 70,000 VISITS and todays number is 79904. If we do basic math using your first post August 14th, 2006 to today Nov 30 2007 this would be 473 days or 67 Weeks and 4 Days. If we divide 79,904 in 473 days this would give us 168.9. As you can see it is even lower than I mentioned before, I just wanted to do the math with a rounded number and gave you an extra 21.1 unique users a day LMAO.
But now that you question if I use drugs you force to me to do the exact math and also call you an out right lier.
What is it Snoskred you forgot the counter you have on your side bar? Do you think you really are dealing with idiots here?
“If you wish, you can go through my site and if you find something I did to deserve it feel free to share that with me, mmkay? But you’ll be there a while, there’s 748 posts or so..”
No I do not have to go through your 748 little post all I have to do is read your advertising guidelines.
“You may now choose whether you want links to your site to be do follow or no follow because Snoskred refuses to be bullied by Google. Google only provides 1% of the traffic to this blog, and they do not run things around here.”
Again as all the whiners, I called you out and you end up another one full of crap.
What a Joke.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Do you use the internet at all, Vic? How reliable do you think those counters are?
And did you know that I started out using site meter, and switched to stat counter a lot later than the 14th of August 2006?
My highest visits in one day on that blog is just under 10,000.
Did you note the policy changed on the 18th of November, two days after my page rank was kicked out from under me by Google? That’s when I said what you quoted above. Previous to that it said all links to advertiser sites are no follow to comply with Google’s terms of service.
Assume makes an ass out of you, mate.
And with that, I’m done.
You’re a disturbed individual and I have better things to do with my time. 
November 30th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
LOL another one that ends up being a liar. What a shame. The counter might be wrong but you wrote yourself the title in your side widget again do you think really you are dealing with idiots here.
Your blog has never had a 10k unique hit day and I can easily prove it.
BTW you can delete the sidebar widget but I print screen the widget and also the page source where I can prove you wrote yourself “Over 70,000 visits”
November 30th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
LMAO I just noticed your counter is for page views not unique hits LOL what a JOKE!
November 30th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
The problem with PageRank was that the declaration that “selling” PageRank was “bad” was not obvious to most bloggers; I have a master’s degree and think I’m pretty sharp, but I didn’t think that I was selling page rank by selectively writing posts about products or services that I would have written about otherwise.
I am going through my blog and removing all “sponsored” posts; I’ve added “nofollow” to ALL links and I hope that Google will hear my plea to have my PageRank reinstated.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Ellie be careful with removing sponsored post as Smorty and PPP are already looking at how to deal with the legal issues involved with all there clients that paid for review with DOFOLLOW. I would maybe leave the post and put the NOFOLLOW rule to the link. Ask for a reconsideration right now they are slammed because of all the request but they will get to your site and do a visual inspection. As of now every Blogger that I have chatted privately has had there PR returned it may take a bit till they get to you but eventually the will.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I’ve gone through and nofollowed all of the posts that I’ve been paid for. After I get my last payment it’ll be syonara sister! I’ve also requested reconsideration for my political blog (I mentioned that earlier, I think). We’ll see what happens.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
I made just a few dollars with Smorty, so if they want to penalize me, that’s fine; PPP says it is fine to remove posts after 30 days.
I didn’t get any decent opps from PPP in ages, so it’s not a big deal.
December 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
After all the dust settles down, it is simply a matter of how important the PR is for your blog. If you can generate revenue without depending on PR as a USP, you simply ignore the drop. The most impressive thing about this entire episode is that Google has still not openly tried to communicate with the blog world and I suspect that they will pay a price for this hubris at some point of time.
December 1st, 2007 at 2:40 pm
bottom line is if you grow your website for long term growth you will not be hurt by this. But if you felt you could get long term traffic just by buying links then yes this will hurt you - but then you were building a business on shakey ground to start with.
December 1st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I also read this back months ago. Nothing new there.
What is cause for frustration with me is the fact that I believe I have the right to do with my blog as I see fit. I don’t think that googoo has the right to tell me how to run my blog..ever!!!
They have inflicted their PR on us as if it was a gift and then, when they turned into the babies they are, slapped people and took their ball and went home.
Give me a break. What infantile actions. They didn’t get the whole money pie so now they’re crying and sucking their thumbs. As they do that, they are acting like the internet brats they are and spanking blogs.
What a load of crap. I refuse to bend to what somebody called the net nazis. Some day, they will regret this but it may be too late for them. Here’s hoping the googoo wannabe empire falls soon.
December 1st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Its good to hear an offical report, because previously it was just all hype and romor. So im taking that if its link buying and selling in the same niche then its allowed and for everything else you will be penalised. Nice informative post.
This is good by google as it leads to poor webmasters who work hard to being rewarded. And those rich webmasters also have to work hard. Its not so much about the budget to spend on links which will lead your site to success but is all about hard work now and thats how it should be.
Great news, Thanks again Court.
Regards Andy
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:51 pm
[…] is clear: buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster […]
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 pm
[…] is clear: buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster […]
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I’m actually coming around to Google’s side on this. I don’t sell links, and can understand them not wanting people to manipulate the PR system by selling links.
Let’s keep it more organic, even if Google has to force prople to do it.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
[…] is talking about the death of PageRank advertising (selling links for the purpose of passing on PR). This is because Google has finally decided to […]
December 8th, 2007 at 4:13 am
Very nice blog! Check mine out, any tips? http://www.doronkutash.com
December 8th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
without google, most of us probably wouldn’t even be here. as was mentioned in the post itself, they are just trying to even things out (which may eventually help the little guys).
December 9th, 2007 at 9:53 am
PR is relevant only if they update on a monthly basis, not every season (3 months) or when they like it
December 11th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Intelligent post! actually a good advice for anybody who want to make a living on the net especially for beginners.
IMO Google are trying to provide quality and relevance stuff to the people search queries. most of them are using Google to look for things that can really help them. since the percentage of people who use google search engine is somewhere around 50% so it just show that people find google helpful.
I believe most them not even know what page rank is. as long as these people are happy with the search result i will continue to follow the google’s guideline.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Allowing sites to buy links for increasing their PR is certainly giving the guys with deep pockets unfair advantage.
Having risen to page 1 rank for many of my key phrases — business articles, management articles, free business articles, free management articles, etc.–without having paid anything, I’m happy that google is now bearing down hard on sites that buy/sell links. Right on, Google!
March 19th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I haven’t seen any negative impact from paid links, even though it’s not something we do a ton of… although good directory links, which are paid, only help site rankings.