Looks like Google came down harsh today on link farmers and those it suspects to do something similar (think “Search Engine Optimizers”).
TechCrunch reports that some Weblogs Inc. sites were hit especially hard:
AOL owned Weblogs Inc was not immune, with leading Gadget blog Engadget dropping from PR 7 to PR5, Autoblog (6 to 4) and DownloadSquad (5 to 4).
Problogger (and there is some irony in this) is now also Pagerank 4 (just like the Last Podcast).
Some say that this shows you that Google isn’t just a benevolent big brother (Mathew Ingram points this out), but is in it for the money. I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise to people.
However, if Google attacks people for doing something that is against Google’s (known) rules, what’s the big deal?
In many ways, this news makes me pretty happy, because it means that Google tries to be fair and won’t have SEOs mess with it. Maybe it is just a happy coincidence, but according to this list on TechVat (Update: also check out Andy Beard’s list and explanations), the sites hit the hardest by this update are focused on the dark art of SEO.
I always thought that was a sleazy business, so if they go down crying, it’s better for everybody else.
But at the same time, this is going to shake a lot of people up. Monocultures are a bad thing, whether in agriculture or on the web. Right now, with Google being the only game in town, we might just have become to depended on it.
Interesting point that - “the sites hit the hardest by this update are focused on the dark art of SEO.”
But did you notice that blogs with NoFollow tags havent been hit too hard?
I got hit by the Page Rank — from PR5 to PR4 — and I don’t sell or buy paid links. I’m looking for paid advertising, though, although nobody has taken me up on that yet. I also use Adsense, but they can hardly penalize me for that so what happened?
I heard that PR might drop as well because if other sites get a lower PR who link to your site, it will affect your PR as well. Is this true? Hope so because otherwise I’m furious with Google.
Moreover, if anyone can report a site for malicious reasons and Google mistakingly listens to them, what can we do to get them to correct their error?
Thanks in advance.
Why people so care about their PR? For ads. bargaining? For fame? For Google donation? … Just ignore this irrelevant thing! Concentrate on your own contents and concentrate on your businesses (selling or selling links)! Your efforts will be reflected in the future.
Google really became harsh on SERP..
they give not high but not so low PR to sites having good performance.
really google i think has tighten up it's standards in giving PR.