Google Slams Paid Links

I never bought a paid link im weary to do so since Google stepped in""

you think paid links are still a trend any comments

 

Paid links certainly lose a lot of their value because of this. They will still exist - as people are still looking for targeted click-through traffic, but part of their value was the PR juice, and that's gone now.

 

only paid links that are caught. you've got nothing to worry about if you handle it ninja style. You need to be certain that the site selling does so as well.

 

heres more: Google manually penalized some sites selling links and lowered their PR

www.washingtonpost.com/ PR7 to PR5
www.forbes.com/ PR7 to PR5
www.suntimes.com/ PR7 to PR5
www.sfgate.com/ PR7 to PR5
www.autoblog.com/ PR6 to PR4
www.engadget.com/ PR7 to PR5
www.problogger.net/ PR6 to PR4
www.copyblogger.com/ PR6 to PR4
www.joystiq.com/ PR6 to PR4
www.statcounter.com/ PR10 to PR6
www.masternewmedia.org/ PR7 to PR4
www.quickonlinetips.com/ PR6 to PR3
weblogtoolscollection.com/ PR6 to PR4
andybeard.eu/ PR5 to PR3
www.seroundtable.com/ PR7 to PR4
www.tuaw.com/ PR6 to PR4
www.searchengineguide.com/ PR7 to PR4
www.searchenginejournal.com/ PR7 to PR4
www.johnchow.com/ PR6 to PR4
www.blogherald.com/ PR6 to PR4

 

What about sites such as:

BOTW.org
Business.com
Yahoo Directory

Etc...

 

I think its not just the paid links or cross-linking. I think its also that now Google has calibrated pagerank little higher.

 

Why does anyone care anyway?

Stop looking at PageRank, focus on the traffic, and where you rank for your target keywords. Have you noticed a drop in search engine traffic recently? Have you noticed a drop in SERPS? If not, then why are you worrying?

PR is a number, it has little to do with anything these days. The biggest use for it is that it keeps webmasters occupied (I won't go as far as saying scare tactics). Like Alexa, pagerank is not worth looking at in much detail, nor is it worth investing on the basis of PR.

Surely the only real measure a webmaster should care about is the amount and quality of traffic. So, maybe the biggest thing that needs to change is what webmasters value?

 

Ups!

jimkarter, your directory Epitrope, right now is PR5 ....

 

Hmm.. you mean time to change my signature?

 

I agree 100% of this. People have seemed to become obsessed with PR. PR only means anything for link sellers or directories.
Concentrate on SERPS and SEO, which does not only include PR.

 

Yeah, apt to agree that PR means very little these days. Though it was disconcerting to see my sites drop

 

google has dropped most of the web sites but i think they did not loose their serp

 

so what is the new consencis on how to rank well now that links are being devalued

 

Hello,

Some of my sites is good the pages were dropped, for example if I did

site:mysite --> OK
site:www.mysite.com --> OK
search the keyword of my domain ---> OK, ei: search domain name and my domain is domainname.com

Now, trying to search any of my pages ranking top ten, and they are OUT..

Jakomo

 

I've seen a drop of up to 2 in some of my PR, but the SERP traffic hasn't been effected (actually it's increased a little).

Probably a combo of going after paid links and more importantly, making the standards for PR harder to achieve across the board.

 

hi ya daveswashere..with all the penalizing going around by lowering the PR you think trying to get in the paid link submission business is even harder?

 

I was in it not primarily for the page rank but mostly for the backlinks.

 

davewashere lol"
sounds like pr is more of a concern when it comes to Paid Links I mean the paid links are for boosting pr not for selling product I still don't see the real use of such?