Hello all Seen lots of directory advertisements on various websites with text such as: Submit your site to a PR* directory Strong back link from a PR* directory What are your thoughts on such advertising methods? Would search engines like Google allow this or class this as buying links for PR? Thanks
Mostly link farms and should be avoided. No decent directory would advertise in a method that suggests selling links for page rank.
Google says they frown on that sort of thing yet they had someone spending big bucks on an Adwords campaign who was obviously selling PR. Despite numerous reports and complaints, the campaign ran for months; it even was featured quite frequently on DP. Personally, if the only reason a directory owner can give to submit to their site is their PR score, I generally don't bother even looking at it.
There are lots of directories who use this method, have done so for a long time and not been penalised by Google. Agreed, there are lots of directories using adwords advertising their PR and getting away with it for months. If each ad is reviewed before being approved, such ads should not have been approved.