Robin Good writes the popular MasterNewMedia blog that enjoys a Google Page Rank of 7 and is also a premium Adsense Publisher. Like most other websites on the planet, this place is monetized by Google Adsense, text links and other direct advertising. Early this week, Robin realized that his site has been pushed out of Google without warning and all the organic search traffic originating from Google suddenly vanished. This could be the worst nightmare for any online publisher since Google has, without doubts, the maximum reach. In Robin's case, Google was responsible for 80% of his site traffic which is now gone. Initially, he thought the corrupt sitemap file for responsible for Google kicking the site out of the top results but soon realized the culprit was something else - paid links. Robin has submitted a re-inclusion requested with Google. He makes over $3k per month from Text Link Ads alone but has decided to remove them from his site because it's an overall loss in the long term. "I do not suggest you take off text links or stop considering them because they pose a risk of Google penalizing your site. I suggest this because if it doesn't start from me the being honest and transparent with the system I use to survive this independent publishing game is not going to last very long." source: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/08/google-bans-pr-7-website-for-selling.html
Hey, if they are premium, why don't they continue to sell links by themselves? It's OK, no need to worry, Google should be digging it's grave if it's facing high traffic sites.
That is really a pathetic situation. When it comes to violation of rules, Google is very tough. It does not discriminate between high & low PR and ordinary and premium publishers. Many of the publishers are dependent on the google traffic and in future they have to follow the rules in both letter and spirit.
Thank goodness Microsoft Yahoo merger seems to be getting through hopefully, hope that some competition will keep Google on their toes.
In my first review I tought they were banned from Adsense. Now I wrote as a whole, OMG, they were banned from "Search?!?" This is barbarism. Google, what happened to "be no devil?"
Wow, it does go to show that Google does rule the world, or at least some people's world. It is also amazing that google reinstated the website. I have a buddy who had his pr5 site banned and Google did not even want to discuss it with him. Could be because they accused him of click fraud, which could put him in a different category.
I think Google is in danger of anti-trust. Banning sites because they use text link ads is a violation of the law.
It looks like Google is the king of "tough love". They love to make money off you but if you cross them, they get tough. lol