Thank god that stuff isnt over here yet. One thing is for sure - Google does not want the likes of me working that stuff out.
Ok, but what about the backlinks that come from DP? That is links in our signature? If linking to DP is harmful then I guess links from DP to our site also should be harmful right?
That thought has occurred to me, too. Yet, DP has a PR of 7. That is very strong. So, how can they be considered a "bad neighborhood"? And a great Alexa rank of 1,578. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/digitalpoint.com And a great rank on compete - 1,736. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/digitalpoint.com/?metric=uv And a good rank on quantcast - 5,085. http://www.quantcast.com/digitalpoint.com Can we now be penalized for trying to improve our PR? Is any attempt at this now considered "manipulation"? Has it gotten to the point where just talking about PR is taboo? And punishable? Is it conceivable that signature links are now becoming "the kiss of death"? After all, these are links we GIVE TO OURSELVES (through the good graces of DP) - so, they could be considered spam! Google hates paid links - how about self-awarded links payed for by posting? All we can do is wonder, since Google hasn't told us. Has anyone seen Google mention this anywhere? Matt Cutts? It's getting harder to keep up with all this stuff. You work hard, try your best, and you STILL get blind-sided. And don't get to know why. <edit>Uh, oh. I googled Matt Cutts signature links - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=matt+cutts+signature+links . .
Google love dp. I make a thread @ proxy section and 3 minute already indexed by google and position 1 Check 'traffic bot software' Good forum
WOW! You are right. I just found my UPDATED post above in the Google results! Google now updates within MINUTES! Amazing! . . 1. Matt Cutts HATES signature links. 2. In my AW report, DP is number one for "Links from an external site". Lots of juice for me, but not at Google? 3. I just had my Google Page Rank demoted last week. 4. So, I just now removed all my DP signature links. We shall see. I want to try and regain my old high Page Rank. Right now, this is the best first step I can think of. The second step will be removing my links to DP. I really don't want to do this. But you know the mantra - test, test, test. This is a new concept - being penalized for linking to a PR7 site. I will put them back as soon as my PR goes up again. If. And watch carefully. Let's see. For the next PR update, all I have to do now is wait for . . . 3 months? Great. Too bad that Google Webmaster Tools can't just tell us where we screwed up. A lot of time could be saved. .
good post surf dude and your thoughts are what I am wondering about alot too I have seen pr go up for some of my sites that have less than 50 backlinks, and then I have seen zero pr for some of my sites that have a few hundred backlinks..... it is all so confusing, like we are scared to go either way I am trying not to run a sig link anymore because I am worried about this stuff
I think google these days doesn't give much importance to backlinks from dp (as is evident from the latest PR update) and the number of backlinks counted for a site also drastically comedown (change in algo?). Hence diversify your link building strategies
Wow, that is an interesting idea lol. Google always changes their algorithms every couple of months. That is solely to keep the SEO people on their toes and reducing the chance of manipulation. They also said (Matt Cutt's Blog) that they were releasing old restrictions on some things that would penalize you. So, who knows, that could have had an effect too.
I want to apologize to Dave E. I entered this thread with a negative opinion. I have now ended up doing exactly as he originally suggested. Why? I have spent hours reading all the SERPs for a certain search - all the way through page 7. I have found around 4 or 5 third-party posts which independently suggest the same thing - also, some other very convincing anecdotal evidence about this. If true, this affects my income. I have no choice. I must test, even though I feel dumb (logically) about doing it. A buck is a buck, and I have no desire to lose page rank, for ANY reason. I may be paranoid, but I must know. Some evidence and reports are very convincing. The footprint? A page rank loss of 1 point.
Well I'm testing this too...Google diversifies their algorithm...why we don't too diversify our link building sites