Google Punishes Sites Selling Paid Links with PR Drop
The rumors are true: Google is, indeed, penalizing sites selling links with significant PR drops.
One site I know to be selling links through Text Link Ads was dropped from PR6 to 2.
I highly suspect that Google had a team go through the TLA inventory and identify every site selling links. These sites, and others reported to Google, were then slammed with PR drops that effectively eliminate the value of a paid link.
In an earlier post, I suggested that Google should just eliminate PR from the toolbar. But after the post it occurred to me that by doing so, Google would be creating the opportunity for a competitor to become the value-maker of links.
The paid link battle is now brought to a new level. Brokers are responding by creating new products that they believe are impossible to detect as paid links (ie: text links in content).
November 19th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Interesting, I’d read the forum headlines but not the details as you’ve clearly laid them out (thanks).
I wonder if there’s anyway to figure out the broader economic impact:
a) how many PR6’s are there in the world, what % use TLA’s, and what’s the % traffic drop when a PR6 goes to PR2. What’s your guess?
b) what types of companies use TLA’s? Traffic arbitrageurs, regular websites (non-arb) or ‘legit’ ad-driven content sites?
c) what % of the total TLA user base was affected by this? 5? 20? 50?