For the majority of sites including my own this isn't affecting search traffic, but it does affect status and the chance of being looked upon as an authority site on a particular topic.
There are many other methods to make a judgement for blogs with significant subscriber levels, but for many this is like pulling the rug out from under their feet.
You might be interested to know my story was actually buried on Digg, and no story has yet to reach the front page.
I wonder how many Google employees have Digg accounts
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
I'm surprised it's not impacting search traffic. If I search for "marketing" in Google, isn't Page Rank a major influence on which pages show up first?
Jeremy Luebke
· 2 years ago
It used to, but not so anymore. The PageRank you see in the toolbar is nothing more than an arbitrary number that has very little effect on rankings. I can rank a PR1 page over a PR6 page any day of the week.
Jill
· 2 years ago
Why be surprised by that? Toolbar PageRank has never been a factor in the algorithm.
Just because they made the PR APPEAR to be lower, doesn't mean real PR has been affected.
Boris
· 2 years ago
Thanks, Andy, your input is always useful... So none of these sites have lost search ranking... What does that tell us?
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 2 years ago
I knew at one point or another, Google used to change the ranking level and/or the price of the click based upon the quality of the site (which they determined not so much by the quality of the page behind the link but more by how compelling the ad copy is and what sort of clickthru ratio it had).
Perhaps it's time Google made some modifications to their policy!
Ali
· 2 years ago
My search engine traffic levels have remained the same. I actually feel quite honored to be slapped for this "invisible" reason to lower PageRank along with some of the top blogs and sites on the same day. I sell links to make money, shame on me!
Bottom line, the future is clearly not tied together with Google for a lot of bloggers and websites from here on forth.
Michael VanDeMar
· 2 years ago
Adam,
Slight correction to your article. These penalties have nothing to do with linking out to "bad neighborhoods". They are about selling links, period. If Google was dishing out these penalties based on who you linked out to, then the problem would eventually self-correct, and would have nothing to do with whether or not the link was paid. As it is, they are trying to kill the whole link buying industry regardless of any other factors.
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
That is pretty much the conclusion I came to in the article, no? The "bad neighborhoods" quote is direct from Google's policy. Just thought I'd share their side ...
Shane
· 2 years ago
This recent penalty isn't for selling links, nor is it for linking to bad neighborhoods. Google is penalizing sites for selling links and not marking them as paid links. They've been very clear that paid links should be marked with "nofollow."
As Tom writes below, this is an attempt to stop this particular type of search engine manipulation.
aaron
· 2 years ago
I'm fine with the policy changes, but it's very true that they should clean up their own backyard before doing this to webmasters. Maybe Matt Cutts or someone from Google will blog a response to this, because it's rampant within their system.
chaoskaizer
· 2 years ago
maybe google will turn into profitable junk of worthless seo game by next xmas.
BRIX
· 2 years ago
Excellent analyzation of the situation.
me
· 2 years ago
Ouch. From a 7 to a 4?!?! Wow. I'm shocked at that big drop.
Tom
· 2 years ago
Aren't you talking about two separate issues here? I am under the impression that the Google hammer came down on sites that are selling links to influence search engine rankings. I agree with this whole-heartedly - you should not be able to directly buy devices that increase your natural search engine rankings. There should be no device that gives one site an edge over others who publish superior content. And if you do attempt this, you should be penalized.
Now, I agree with you that something needs to be done about the quality of the sites appearing under Google's sponsored results. However, they are clearly labeled "Sponsored Results" and they do not affect those sites' rankings.
Jason
· 2 years ago
The webpage you call spam, is not spam. It's a parked domain that someone is trying to monetize by providing sponsored search results on it's pages. BTW, that's a Yahoo! ad feed, not Google. The owner of the domain is doing PPC with AdSense leading you to that page -- it's an arbitrage play.
Who's to say that the Yahoo! sponsored links aren't better than the Google's organic (*very* loosely defined these days) results? The content of "parked" pages is getting better and more relevant every day...
The PPC campaign was the only way to go, because a domain like that naturally doesn't receive type-in traffic... but the conversions on such a play can't be significant.
Bobby
· 2 years ago
Affect, not effect.. in your article 2 typos.
Boris
· 2 years ago
I have been venting about this for several months... Isn't Google the biggest seller of links in the universe... And making money off all of these referral sites makes me ill... Let's get real folks... The "do no evil" days are over.
Climate change
· 2 years ago
Love this site really good info
Thanks
sksee82
· 1 year ago
This article is already stating the obvious. Honestly, if you were to perform a search would you dig deep enough to go to the third page of your search.
Normally you would probably look at the first page and find what you want. Thats where pagerank comes in. Higher page rank sites would definitely appear at the front page of searches, especially for important keywords.
As for google's integrity, you can raise a thousand questions to them. The fact remains the same, business is business.
As for sites such as CheapAirFareWorld.com, what can I say. There are always and will be individuals out there who wants to make a quick buck or two.
All Comments
There are many other methods to make a judgement for blogs with significant subscriber levels, but for many this is like pulling the rug out from under their feet.
You might be interested to know my story was actually buried on Digg, and no story has yet to reach the front page.
I wonder how many Google employees have Digg accounts
Just because they made the PR APPEAR to be lower, doesn't mean real PR has been affected.
Perhaps it's time Google made some modifications to their policy!
Bottom line, the future is clearly not tied together with Google for a lot of bloggers and websites from here on forth.
Slight correction to your article. These penalties have nothing to do with linking out to "bad neighborhoods". They are about selling links, period. If Google was dishing out these penalties based on who you linked out to, then the problem would eventually self-correct, and would have nothing to do with whether or not the link was paid. As it is, they are trying to kill the whole link buying industry regardless of any other factors.
As Tom writes below, this is an attempt to stop this particular type of search engine manipulation.
Now, I agree with you that something needs to be done about the quality of the sites appearing under Google's sponsored results. However, they are clearly labeled "Sponsored Results" and they do not affect those sites' rankings.
Who's to say that the Yahoo! sponsored links aren't better than the Google's organic (*very* loosely defined these days) results? The content of "parked" pages is getting better and more relevant every day...
The PPC campaign was the only way to go, because a domain like that naturally doesn't receive type-in traffic... but the conversions on such a play can't be significant.
Thanks
Normally you would probably look at the first page and find what you want. Thats where pagerank comes in. Higher page rank sites would definitely appear at the front page of searches, especially for important keywords.
As for google's integrity, you can raise a thousand questions to them. The fact remains the same, business is business.
As for sites such as CheapAirFareWorld.com, what can I say. There are always and will be individuals out there who wants to make a quick buck or two.