Any website that have gained a significant portion of their pagerank from directory listings will experience a drop in its pr if majority of the directories it is listed in drops in pr. Every good webmaster should know this and issues about pr. Websites that will not have a drop in pr gained enough pagerank from other sources. Why are people even debating about something so simple?
Just as it will be a lose-lose situation if directory links are devalued for the purpose of determining the serp's. Google hasn't de-indexed these directories yet but are the listings still being counted as a credible back link?
its not just directories. johnchow.com is also down I am sure there are plenty of other sites. Amazingly text-link-ads.com is still pr7
2 types of google penalties have been mentioned. Site A buys links to boost his PR, and gets dropped for the own name, like many of us have. We still have the power to pass PR and give a backlink, like popotalk just showed with that example. Site B Sells text links, like matt cutts mentioned, the sites SERPs dont get punished, they just loose their ability to pass PR juice. I would say most directories got hit like Site A did, which is exactly why dirsensei still shows as a credible link passer, like v7n and joeant which arnt penalised in any way.
There is a difference. You have gone on record and are looking for solutions. How many others are following your lead?
Sure, and the big winners in this scenario are the sites that have an IBL profile rich in links from non-directory, relevant sites. It will be interesting to compare Google's SERPs to Ask.com's SERPs when the dust clears (ask.com's algo heavily favors IBLs from related sites).
mikey1090 no one really knows if just because a backlink is listed, if it passes PR or even counts for SERPs, Google could easily hide this and probably would to avoid any lawsuits. Also those penalties are still not proven, what kind of penatly makes me not show up for my domain name yet allows me to move up the SERPs for competitive keywords, that just makes no sense to me. How does Googel know if a text link was sold? What kind of proof do they need and do you seriously think they have the manpower to implement this sort of penalty on a site-by-site basis? I don't.
Ask minstrel, i've seen him answering that all over the google forum on DP. They search for commond words. Paid links, sponsored links, adverts etc. I think matt cutts has said it before.
haha nice. I think jay is talking about the high PR backlinks that are bought to manipulate SERPs. Not my traffic boosting sig link
Yes, of course but most sites don't list it that way so how come they are being penalized? If Google starts penalizing sites because it 'thinks' they are selling links then it is opening a pretty nastly can of worms. Even the reporting feature could be so easily abused, someone posts on DP or on a throw-away forum account that they are selling links on these 10 competitors websites then reports the post to Google so all their competitors can be penalized? The only way for Google to know for sure, unless it is being advertised on the site would be through sting operations where they actually went through with a purchase themselves, and that is likely not ever going to happen. I could even see some great new business for hackers, getting 'buy a link' text added to your competitors sites to get them penalized!
I agree. This is why yahoo and MSN must be laughing right now. They made the sensibe choice to not reveal a sites backlink power.
So basically Google become the first Internet Secret Service, a sort of Online Police searching the forums, sites and blogs to discover paid links and the connection between them...hmm I wonder how would it be if ...let's presume 99% of the wesites out there will stop google crawling their pages?
I'm finding this all very interesting. My directory, www.IndieCoffeehouse.com, has stayed at 5 so far. I own or maintain a couple dozen other sites too and none of them have changed PR this time around, either. And new pages on those sites still don't have PR. My sites are listed in many directories, but I've never paid for any links. Just free (non-reciprocal) ones. So maybe the current PR issue is indeed a paid links thing. Or, maybe I'll see negative changes to the PR on my sites if I wait a little longer. I'm crossing my fingers that's not the case! Don't know for sure but that's my 2 cents ~~ cheers ~ Denise
They don't need manpower. All they need to do is what they have just done. Its got us all in a flutter and running in square circles but my guess is that you have to be really dumb to go out looking for PR in this market. Bet there are some fire sales where you can pick up huge value at rock bottom prices.
Hello Un-Official Google boy. Everybody knows who is DUMB. Everybody also knows what Google is upto. If not- you would been ruling the directory world than them. Accept the fact. As I see it, its not only DIRECTORIES - that have massively lost PR, but other great sites like Stat-counter and phpBB also lot it massively. So - why are you making a fool of yourself by blaming other directory owners where-as this is an over-all Google algo change?