Why the Recent Google Pagerank Bitch Slap Was Just a Warning of Things to Come
Posted on October 31, 2007
Filed Under Blogging advice
As you probably know, the recent Google Toolbar pagerank update showed that many prominent websites have lost their visible pagerank. But this is only the beginning and here’s why.
None of the websites or blogs witnessed any loss in traffic from Google. This means that their real pagerank is still there; it has not been penalized.
It’s only the green bar that now shows fewer green pixels.
Darren Rowse, in this update, has found out that Google has been after the paid links; Google wants to prevent buying and selling links based on the pagerank of the website.
Are we supposed to believe that this is all?
That Google just removed some of the green pixels on the Toolbar, even though you may have gotten high rankings in Google, for violating their webmaster guidelines about link schemes?
I sincerely doubt it.
I also noticed something else while checking some of my sites, some of my link partners and other established websites.
Most of them lost toolbar pagerank typically by one or even two points, and I know that my sites and some of the other websites have never sold or bought links from anywhere.
But there is something else that these sites all have in common: the reciprocal links pages.
Some are called “links,” “resources,” “partners” or even “blogroll” pages. And all these pages contain an invitation like:
- “If you would like to exchange links…”
- “If you want to be listed in our resources section…”
- “If you are interested in reciprocal linking, please paste this code first on your site and then email us with…”
If you even mention “reciprocal links” or “link exchanges,” you may be in danger of violating Google’s webmaster guidelines:
…some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.
Google clearly states that building partner pages is in violation of their webmaster guidelines.
It’s now pretty clear why Google was so “late” with its latest update. They were busy identifying paid links and websites that were even moderately involved in reciprocal linking.
And by the way, doing that is really easy.
Anyone can set up an account in Text-Link-Ads (and other link selling/buying sites) and check the websites that are selling links. Once you identify them, you can also see all the websites that are buying links from them.
Anyone can set up an account in Linkmetro (and other reciprocal links services) and identify the websites that engage in link exchanges.
All you need is a lot of time to manually check and penalize the sites with their Toolbar pagerank.
So what are the things to come in the future?
I think Google is playing the waiting game right now.
Even Google cannot predict the consequences and the uproar they would cause if they would actually were to penalize sites and their rankings (i.e., penalize their real pagerank) and create a loss of traffic instead of just showing fewer green pixels in the Google toolbar.
Google wants to see what you are going to do about it. They just gave you a second chance.
And then they’ll make their next move. And believe me: the next move will hurt a lot.
So what are you going to do about it? Play the Google game or not?
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6 Responses to “Why the Recent Google Pagerank Bitch Slap Was Just a Warning of Things to Come”
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Hm…
Interesting…
Never thought about that…
But thanks for the heads up on not offering for reciprocal links. I never had, nor had plans of doing so… but even so, thanks for the heads up!
Good post!
Good article. I find myself on the edge of selling text links since my website went to a PR4 which is great.
But I won’t do it since google is a friend
The compelling thing about it is how easy money can be made when you have a relatively high PR.
Thanks Henri,
Yes, you can make some money with selling links but I don’t think you can make a lot with PR4. Maybe a few hundred dollars per month.
Although you can be grateful for that amount, it shouldn’t be your goal. If I think of all the hours and money I’ve invested in this online business, I expect at least $1500 per month from each website that I build. Selling links is a drop in a bucket compared to that and it puts at risk everything I’ve worked for.
You’ll never see a sold link on my websites nor recommendation to Text-Link-Ads or other link buying / selling services. (As you see I don’t even give them a link.
)
I definitely agree with you that Google is waiting for the their next move. I didn’t see any increase or decrease for all my websites traffic even though Google PageRank have change.
The next storm will be coming soon.
By the way, I’m going to links to your blog and content since we share almost the same value of making money online:)
Hey Ken,
Good to hear from you! Yes, Google is probably planning something.
There’s nothing I need to do with this blog since I don’t sell ot buy links but I have some niche websites where I am slowly cleaning up my links / resources pages and moving all the good links into the content.
Eventually the sites will have no partner pages and I think that’s a much safer path.
The other alternative would be to write a short review of each site and link to them and keep the links page.
By the way, I tried subscribing to your RSS with My Yahoo and I get an error. You might want to check what’s going on…
Hi Tomaz,
It’s now been over two years since you posted this article, so I was just wondering how this page-rank business ended up panning out?
Cheers
Derek