Has Google Changed The Most Basic Main Rule ?

After seeeing the results of this recent update I have to ask has google Changed one of the most basic rules ?

What I have allways understood to be correct is

"A Site can not be penalized for having another site linking to it"

Due to the fact we have no control over who links to us obviously


After Watching this update & seeing PR drop to zero on some fairly serious sites the only reason I can see for it is Google has penalized the site because of the links that link to it, A site that has maintained a PR5 for many years
Can not logicaly loose all of its links overnight a few maybe but not all of them hence the assumption that google has now taken to penalizing a site because of the links leading to it.

 

Please give some examples ...

I have seen sites that are less then a few months old get PR6 with hardly any links to it.
While some that i expected to be High PR sites, get average or below average scores.

thanks
malcolm

 

I think that's a pretty silly idea.. definatley a site can be penalized for linking to particular websites....

just my opinion

 

are we witnessing another "Katherina" ?

 

That's just silly...

 

I can confirm one things from my side: google has done something significant against link sales and exchanges. I am still studying this in my sites and other sites that I keep an eye on.

 

Terry,

The way I read the post, that is not what was said. I read it as can site A be penalized because site B links to it?

Site A has NO control over site B linking to site A, however site A definately has control over who site A links to.

Hopper

 

Sorry about if my post was confusing

Basically, if i link my site to a 'bad neighbourhood' my site will get penalized, what i was trying to say is it's a pretty silly idea thinking that Google will penalize my site if the 'bad neighbourhood' site links to mine..

this is getting abit confusing

 

That would be bad if they had. And stupid, too - after all, how can a computer really, TRULY determine whether a site is "good" or "bad". Anyway, I'm holding off my judgment of this update until my sites are changed. From what I've heard so far, though, I don't expect good news.

 

I doubt it. If a site could be that easily penalised for sites linking to it, then people would be hiring SEO's to link to their competitors from dubious sites.

 

^^ Heh, maybe there'll be a new market then!

 

I doubt it, but that's the reason it won't happen

 

Thanks for all your input, I hear you all the idea that site A can get penalized
cause their competitor links to it from a so called "bad site" is Insane

What bothers me is all this hype over google looking down on link sales & not so much penalizing a site for buying a link but giving no credit for the link
as it relates to the serps & toolbar button, after seeing the results of this update it appears Google has possibly started to impliment the above.

But as we are all seeing it is a complete & utter failure obviously the way they are Identifying a so called bought link is not working.

If They are taking credit away for bought links it is logical to assume on a site that had PR5 That now has PR0 Google is now seeing all the links pointing to that site as paid links Hence the site would be PR0 With no Links this could be the reason for so many sites losing all their PR.

Hopefully this will be just some glitch in the algo & all will return to normal soon cause as it stands now Google has proved beyond doubt it has not got a clue when it comes to identifying a paid link if thats what they are trying to do

 

Not at all Bro

Once again this is a TBPR update... NOT a PR update.. so, you have no idea WHEN the site in question lost it's PR and thus can't easily assess what caused it - it could have happened 3 monhts ago.... drawing any sort of conclusion based on TBPR is tough...

What you should be watching are rankings.. those will show you a site's health much better. Did the ranking drop off some time over hte last 3 months? This is where the investigation should begin

So as always Back links can't 'technically' hurt you.. it is almost certain the causes of your PR drop lie elsewhere

 

The first Rule about Google is You DONT talk about Google!!!!

 

The toolbar update is not done.

Google Webmaster Tools tells me that my highest rated page is my homepage, but it still shows up as PR 0. However, my internal pages have been updated to as high as PR 3. If my homepage is higher, then it cannot be PR 0.

 

i thinks no problem with google adsense rule

 

not a chance. Google would have to be insane to start penalizing for incoming links. All one would have to do to kick the competition is build some automated spamming tools and fire them away at teh competition.

 

Hi gypsy dam good point

All these sites that have had a total loss of TBPR would have seen a drastic
drop in traffic before the total loss of TBPR at some time previously in the last few months & you would have heard it here in the forums but no

Making me think Google has not implimented something to do with paid links
Just a glitch in updating the of TBPR

 

Dude you just don't get it do you

It was posted above but I will repeat it to try and explain it better. Firstly however I will explain that there are 2 sets of PR.
1. Toolbar Pr which is out of date the moment you see it.

2. LIVE Pr. Live Pr is updated on a rolling basis, and is ONLY available to view from INSIDE Google. It is not available to the general public. This PR value is constalntly changing as pages are spidered, added/removed from the index and the values re-calculated. This is everflux.


YOU are checking Toolbar PR. TOOLBAR PR is not live it is a snapshot in time of the Pr at THAT MOMENT IN TIME. Now my guess is that this PR comes from somewhere around Mid Sept to Mid Oct, so what you are seeing in the TBPR is the PR shown THEN , not the PR NOW!

Webmaster tools is LIVE PR, it is talking about back end PR, so if google says your homepage has the highest pr then it is telling the truth. FORGET what that dumb green bar says.