I noticed that starting in the last PR update, Google was slapping sites that sell links with a gray PR bar (unranked). In the update that just happened, Google seems to have perfected their algorithm and seems to have penalized most sites that sell links, blog posts, etc. What have others noticed in regards to this? Have you noticed that the penalty affects your rankings, or only the PR of the site? I have several sites of my own, and have seen dozens of others that have been given unranked PR, apparently due to selling links.
I think, if done in a controlled manner, Google will not detect it. I have sold 3-4 links on many sites. None of them got affected. Directories seem to have got hit the hardest.
I have a non-commercial site that got PR4 in April2007. I never sold links on it - but exchanged links with two sites and also linked my commercial sites from it. Most of them are from different IPs. Google made it PR0 (not N/A) just before last October update, it never lost its ranking for all the words, but it has not recovered the green pixels also. So -- yes I have seen many sites losing the toolbar PR completely, but instead of loosing SERP - I have seen most ranking even better than before when they were PR5 or 6.
hmm........ maybe Google considers buying links and selling links as different violations. sites buying links, lose SERPs. sites selling links, lose ability to pass PR.
I dont think that google will penalize the competitor, instead, google will penalize the site where the paid links to the competitor's site are.
Yeh, losing your PR for selling links doesn't seem to be affecting rankings in my opinion. But what about for sites buying links? Does Google just discount the bought links? Or do they penalize the site's rankings?
Not sure if that will work...it seems to me that Google is just discounting the paid links, not penalizing the site the links are bought for.
I have repeatedly mentioned this, here, and on other forums. I totally believe that Google regrets every making PR public. It's a two sided sword. The only plus side I see for it, is they have a cute little toy that other toolbars don't have showing the G's perceived value of a site. The downside of it is huge. Ask anybody that doesn't build websites, if they have the Google toolbar, and if they know what the page rank is for. Most, and I mean 9 out of 10, don't look at it or even use it, let alone know what it is for. So their toy is only good for webmasters, and what have webmasters done with it? Manipulated it, sold it, bought it, and hacked it. So now webmasters influence Google's findings in search results. Whether the influence is good or bad to the results, it exists, and that is bad for Google. So to put out the fire, Google takes on the insane approach of tattle tailing. I guess they didn't go to kindergarten. This combined with obvious changes in the algorithm that are required to fight the webmaster manipulation they find themselves chasing the dragon. If I was the CEO of Google my first action would be to eliminate publicly displaying PR, by toolbar and any other method that PR can be seen. Millions of crappy sites have been built around PR, and it's Google's fault. Buy text links to increase your PR here! I like Google, I just wish they would get rid of the PR.
I don't think that if a site loses their PR, their rankings also will be affected. AFAIK, PR has no direct connection to SERP ranking, and there's no effect in your rankings. I've seen a lot of sites dropping their PR but still their ranking remains the same.
that's the basis of those greedy people who will do anything to just have a link back from them...PR is useless compared to the contents of the site or services it offered...actually, that must be the main reason why certain site want to link with each other, not on PR.