Further to the decision by Google to clamp down on the sale of advertising links, I am going to remove my promotion of adwords from all of my sites. Would you do the same?? If Google wants to bite the hand that feeds it, all I can do is my little bit. If Yahoo can hurry up and get YPN to the UK, I will switch that too.
I removed my google toolbar especially now that they are wanting to track EVERYTHING you do online. F"#$ That!
If you look at it from Google's perspective, it's pretty clear why they would want to pursue the sale of links, as it hits the core of they're concept heavily link based algo concept. I think people are freaking out for no reason at all. Like it has been said countless times, at most the sites that are selling the links will be "neutralized" and prevented from passing PR. But hey, it's just a risk that you will have to assume if your selling links.
If you buy links you can make a bad website, mfa, no-content, or something like this to rank well in google. 3-4 years ago, every search on google returned a lot of links to other search engines, searching for the same term, in most cases, i got "no results found", or irrelevant results. I started to hate searching. Now, the ones which show top in rankings are MFA websites, same shit, i'm starting to hate searching again. Google must do something to prevent this. How you can get links for a MFA site: buying them. Because naturally no-one will link to a website with no content. What google do is good for searchers. For the webmasters, apparently it suck, because most webmaster are used to buy some links, then to wait results. Webmaster are encouraged to make MFA websites, they are cheap, no content needed, no administrating, and webmaster are discouraged to write good content, or make a good website, which people will like. Why to lose the time to write content, when you know you will rank after MFA websites.
If you have a website about mobile homes and you buy links with the term "milkshake" you won't rank very well. If you get links with the term "mobile homes" you will rank better.... Make those links not count and who will rank first?? links ARE the Google algo. Duh!. We can't rank sites just from the words on the page, we did that already, it was called keyword stuffing. @TheDark As you mentioned MFA sites, Google cannot control these at all, they cannot control click fraud and therefore they probably won't be able to control link sales either, but that is not the point, it's what they actually have the nerve to propose that is just probably the most arrogant thing ever posted in history! "let's just go ahead and knock everyone who creates revenue by selling links."
i have removed the google toolbar, started using live! instead of google search am using text link ads, in place of adsense![check out my blog, from the feed if you don't belive me!] i don't use adwords! this is all i can do! but then perhaps it is right to stop the monopoly now, else we will get in more problems in future!
Well only because you think "people are freaking out for no reason at all" I feel that Google trying to influence how people can make money online puts my (and a lot of others) lifestyle in jeopardy, and that is good reason to freak out. Personally I would be happy if Google went 100% ads and got rid of search all together.. then we could all just switch to Yahoo
Google isn't telling you that you can't sell links nor are they telling you how to run your site. They are just trying to tweak their algo so that these links don't affect their search results. Google isn't required to list your site and they are free to run it how ever they want. Of course it's Google's fault in the first place that this is even an issue. The minute they invented that little green bar and placed such a high importance to what it represents, the selling of links was just a natural progression. Is it hypocritical of them now to be targeting an industry they are responsible for spawning in the first place? Of course, but all they care about is keeping their search results relevant (which isn't the case at the moment) because if they don't, sooner or later someone else will take their place at the top. Will Google be able to effectively distinguish between natural and paid links anytime in the near future? Probably not but what Matt Cutts' post has done is start a mass panic among many webmaster's and maybe caused a few to rethink their linking strategy which is just what they wanted to happen.
I'm going to continue as I have until there is evidence of a penalty for sponsored links. But Matt Cutts and Google have earned a lot of distrust in the community by asking Google Users to rat out webmasters. Their algo is only as useful as the content people create to be analyzed. If they want to penalize someone who makes great content but has to sell links to make it financially viable, they are retarding the web, not making it better. Eliminate visible PR and a lot of these problems would be solved.
I don't want to say much-- just told Matt on his BLOG that -- the person who proposed this policy to Google board will get a Golden Handshake from Google in few months time as nobody likes to keep a failure. I posted 4 comments there-- Matt replied to one and ignored 3 where I challenged him. On the one he replied -- I said that due to this policy Google will loose its importance. And he replied " G loves Competition" I don't run any Google ads on any of my sites. We should show Google that --its us on whom they depend --not them on whom we depend. Webmasters are the BOSS --not Google
What if they do track everything you do online, that information's purpose is to bring you more targeted relevant ads. Google has proven over and over again that they are willing to go to great extents in order to protect their clients/users data.