Something thats been overlooked regarding the Google PR update?

As it now seems the PR update is well and truly underway, I took some time to reassess what was happening and why so many sites (not just directories) were seeing lower PR values.

Almost all conversation I have seen or been involved in here regarding this has revolved around Google 'penalising' the sites for selling paid links, however, after some thought and going back over Mr Cutts statements of past I came to a different conclusion for the PR drop.

What he said was that links that were obviously paid links would not pass on any PR to the destination site, as far as PR is concerned, paid links would simple be ignored, there was no mention of a penalty being imposed.

What seems to have been missed in all the talk on DP is that all the sites that are now seeing dropped PR have simply dropped to the level of PR appropriate for their level of organic links because the paid links pointing to them no longer count towards their PR value.

Its no mystery, its exaclty what Google said they would do, which is ignore paid links when it comes to passing PR, so all sites have a true and valid organic (not manipulated) PR value.

Moving on from this fact is where it leaves paid links and the site owners (not just directory owners, all site owners that sell links) that make revenue from them.

My guess is it will simply become much more underground and on the face of it we wont be seeing sites obviously selling paid links, they will be much more subtle about their activities, the trick now will be to make paid links look like organic links, and many webmasters will soon become experts at doing so, and so the see-saw with Google will continue.

One thing is for sure, paid links will continue, and if anything, this side of webmaster life will become even more valuable than it is now, I can see businesses springing up offering specialist 'Organic Link' services.

With regard to directories and paid links, I dont see any change, in fact I see directories becoming more important as a method with which to gain organic links, directories will seem, to the naked eye at least, to be offering all free listings and no paid links, some will charge review fee's, but paid links will still be well and truly in business, and we will now see a whole new chapter in the life of directories and the way people sell links on their sites.

I'm done now, sorry for the length

 

great post and i agree with some of your statments..theres alot going on right now to this regard

 

You have it in one wayner new methods will prevail as they always do

 

I will buy links on sites indirectly that are not listed on "paid link" directories and do not have "Buy a link here" "Sponsor this page" or "Advertisers" on their sites.

These links look more natural and true votes for my site. Therefore, I haven't seen a drop in PR.

 

I think u've summed it up kind of nice there.

Tried to add rep

got a msg, 'You must spread some reputation around before giving it to wayner again'

 

Great writeup wayner hope for every webmaster's sake your words are what will become of this industry ...

 

That was so well put that it Almost brought a tear to my eye!!

EXCELLENT THREAD WAYNER!!

 

Excellent post there wayner. Keep it up.

 

So the sky is not falling ? and there will be sunshine ?

Great post

 

They can't catch all paid links, so people will be doing it more now than before.
In my view it will backfire on google, but ofcourse i might be wrong and link sales will go down (woho more for me)

 

Correctly said..

I think they have just decreased PR value or PR juice.. Not penalized though.

 

I like your arguments. Presented in a very logical and reasonable manner. Very good attempt in making sense of all this fiasco that is going on right now. Just some points that I thought is worth discussing further.

That is quite a reasonable guess about what is happening but I wld say it is still a guess. Cause no one really knows for sure the reason for the PR downgrades. There are actually many big sites that I wld expect not to have needed to engage in paid links, but also suffered a PR downgrade. I would hope that your conjecture is right, but unfortunately, I think it is still a conjecture.

I agree. Directories have and always will serve an irreplaceable role of helping to index and sort through the thousand of websites appearing everyday. SE's can never ever depend entirely on their algorithms to determine which websites are better and which are worse off. Human reviewing is and will always be the most optimal way of filtering out the good from the bad. Thus, directories will continue to fulfill this role and I believe that SE's will learn to trust and depend more and more on established and respectable directories to assist them in their SERP computation.

 

very very good post reps added

 

Fantastic post wayner.
I agree with your sentiments entirely

Your right, that no one is sure about the PR downgrades, however the reason for the 'big sites' that one would not expect to drop in PR, could be because a lot of the sites that ORGANICALLY link to them, have had their PR slashed due to selling links

And this drop in PR has effected them negatively....
Take for example statscounter.com

Some of the sites that use this (and have a high PR) could have been penalised for selling links and as a result, the collective PR that was passed on to Statscounter from the link on their stats users homepages would be reduced...
But PR 9 to PR6 is harsh!!

Rep Added for this post wayner

 

you are completely right. i agree with you

 

here is another good perspective to this whole issue by doshdosh that i found:

http://eonte.com/seobuzz/story.php?...quot_Matter-_Can_We_Stop_Talking_about_it_Now

 

I have read the Goog guidelines again and again and I keep going to the first couple of paragraphs in the Google Webmaster Tools FAQs and this is yet another thing that cracks me up so please help me understand this which I copied out of their site:

Webmaster Guidelines



Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise penalized. If a site has been penalized, it may no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites.

Design, content, and technical guidelines
Quality guidelines
When your site is ready:

Have other relevant sites link to yours.
Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
Submit a Sitemap as part of our Google webmaster tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.
Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


They encourage you to HAVE other sites link you but I guess that I mis-understood the PAID part!! You can have them do that as long as you are not paying them!!

And then they encourage you to place your site in the Yahoo directory which last time I checked was 299.00

Am I missing something here???

 

Nice thread, I also agree with what has been said. Rep Added.

I do not think PR is really anything to be concerned with anymore but I am bothered about Google updating backlinks and keep SERPs a little bit more stable.

 

The most logical explanation for all this madness going around. hats off!

 

Great Post!
I agree with you.