You are right its not a penalty, why because Mr G are not the custodians of the Internet they have policies and processes, but they cannot determine or qualify what goes on outside their own site, their focus is on one issue only that is revenue and profit for Mr G. Call it what you like the business goes on and the action continues
Indeed, the price of PR has certainly just increased, the worst drop I have seen so far is Jalbum.net they have dropped by 4 points from 9/10 to 5/10. This is definitely a link selling penalty, other sites seem to have been hit for being part of blog networks. Non of the "important" sites rankings have been effected, one site although it has been dropped from 6/10 to 3/10 seems to be ranking higher then ever, undeservingly (with hardly any links) taking a top place on google.co.uk for a very competitive phrase with a lame article, so although most of these are not ranking or trustrank penalties they are PageRank penalties which makes them Google penalties. Other "less important" sites like http://womenmumbles.com have been hit with ranking penalties similar to the one my directory has been hit with.
I'm seeing PR4 for sejournal too. Maybe this will make people think twice about buying high PR links. They are fairly easy to spot, but for now.. I think high-profile sites will be hit hard!
I find it so amusing that Google have inadvertently created probably the best linkbait campaign I've ever seen for the sites they've penalised! SEO Roundtable even got a big mention on Forbes! Google created this culture by making links so damn important. They created a commodity. Every commodity is bought and sold. I just wish Google would forget about paid links and start looking at better ways to rank sites. It is their flawed algo which has forced ppl to try and get the upperhand by buying links. Since Google can make or break a business and Adwords is getting stupidly expensive, is it any wonder so many marketers are out there buying links. I'm just waiting for the day Google starts penalising sites for advertising with it's competitors! Before long the only way to advertise online will be with Google.
That day is here already but Google will never admit to it, that is why they do it secretly. I can see a big anti-trust case brewing on the horizon.
Hehehe...The Forbes piece referenced my article too so thanks Big G Mind you, I'll probably get slapped now for getting too many inbound links
I can just see the websites that got penalized going to the online media to beg for a mention in an article about Google's PR Massacre. They'll end up with more traffic than they ever did before, regardless of PR.
I think the fact that there are no visible changes in SERPs despite these many PageRank changes suggests one of the following: Either the change has only been made to the visible PageRank as a warning, or this is a visible export of changes that have been made earlier. Now the question is which?
In my opinion this update just means that google pagerank has lost all credibility. It also means that people buying links can no longer use pagerank as an indicator of site quality (I mean it was never the best indicator, but it was one, now it's demoted totally). I mean, seriously, who would believe that se roundtable only has an internal pagerank of 4? one would have to be an absolute nitwit in the SE industry to believe that one. It's an old and trusted site within the industry that a gazillion people must be linking to.
40 or 50 places in the rankings for their own names Yep some of my sites have gone from the rankings but they never had pr as the sites where new but after 2 weeks where ranked 3 for the sites name now gone i have never paid for links i have not even tryed to promot these sites as i still am add pages ever day or 3 as i am updateing the content and lok of the sites. So is it just because my sites are new or is it they dont like my sites ?? or is it just the update this time is makeing thinks seam a bit strange
Thank you Google! I've been waiting a very long timr for something like this. If some people want to be smarter than Google they should get punished.
If he is not selling links then it doesn't matter how many green dots he sees on Google toolbar, right? p.l.u.r.
Most blogs and directories rank no more than PR5 after the update which means that Google scaled the PR base on the type of site. Not a bad idea afterall since most backlinks are created from blogs and directories.
The same is true for any site, right? Should Google then go and drop every website's PR? IMHO PageRank is now even less of a metric to use when evaluating the worth of a website.
I've read that nobody has actually seen adverse effects on rankings since this PR slap on the wrists from Google. Why would Google want to drop some of these authority sites in the SERPS when it will simply make their results less relevant. Personally I think this is just a stunt from Google to get ppl to stand up and listen to them ranting on about paid links. However, I would be far more interested to know if rankings for the sites who paid for the links have changed. To the link seller it does them no favours in terms of ranking, but the link buyer is attempting to manipulate Google's SERPS. Anybody know if some of the sites who bought links from these guys have dropped in rankings? The way Google has gone about this clearly shows that they want to make a fuss about it. Google could easily have just targeted these sites known to be selling links by merely devaluing the links, rather than dropping their PR. We've played right into Google's hands because this song and dance about the PR drop will inevitably mean everyone talks about it at PubCon and this allows Google to talk about paid links being bad!