Google Punished My Site For Selling Links - NOT!
Posted Thursday, September 27th, 2007. Filed under Google.
The Cool Aid is running thick, and the Google FUD Campaign is doing a great job at letting SEOs and bloggers spread the paranoia.
In a post by graphic designer David Airey, originally titled "Google Search Ranking Penalty," David showed how his site had lost rankings for his name as well as some other phrases he once ranked high on. David consulted some other SEOs and guessed that the reason could be that he had sold a few link ads on his site, and that Google was penalizing his rankings because of it.
The story got Sphinn'd, hit the front page, and the paranoia ensued. But the real truth came out later: it turned out David had a 302 redirect from his .co.uk domain toward his .com domain, likely meant to address geo-targeting issues, which was pointed out as the more likely culprit. David corrected the temporary 302 redirect to a permanent 301, unaware that had been the issue. By that point, thousands of bloggers had drunk the Cool Aid and were spreading Google's FUD. In my experience, the only effect I've ever seen from Google regarding selling links is that Google may block your site from passing Pagerank. It doesn't hurt your site's own rankings one bit, Google just doesn't count the link love you give to other sites.
In the Sphinn comments of that story I was conversing with Danny Sullivan, who said he'd yet to see anything convincing him that Google is banning sites for paid links. If Google were whacking rankings from sites that sell links, all the weather sites, traffic counters, hundreds of major newspapers and tech sites that sell text links in obvious places would be seeing their rankings drop like rocks. It isn't going to happen.
It's in Google's best interest to just try to identify a paid link and not count it, a PR block. That's why I'm all about getting our own links from virgin sites that aren't selling links in above-the-radar places or in networks. Tell me you're not drinking this Cool Aid, are you?
September 28th, 2007 at 3:39 am
So whats your theory on what happened to johnchow.com, Text Link Ads and the web directories?
September 28th, 2007 at 5:07 am
I agree with avoiding the big networks in favor of quiet little ones, for good links. And I would suggest John Chow was a targeted, manual penalty to promote the FUD, because he is so vocal and visible. Similar to the effect of David’s situation. Except that John really did get a “slap”. (Not that it has done him any great harm.. if anything it has raised his profile..)
September 28th, 2007 at 6:04 am
Thanks for picking up on this, Jim.
There’s certainly a heck of a lot of differing opinion, and when I sift through it all, I’ve learnt a decent amount of SEO good practice (though still just a drop in the ocean on what I could learn).
There’s also the duplicate content issue that crept up, following my $4,000 prize giveaway. I found that many of the entrants were simply copying and pasting my sponsor list into their own blog posts, which doesn’t seem a great idea at all for my own site.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Excellent article Jim. Too many times the world runs crazy with the first plausible, though often improbable, idea they encounter.
Being a mod at http://www.searchengineforums.com has taught me one thing over and over again - rarely, if ever, does someone post a question with all the relevant information needed for YOU to make an accurate analysis of the situation for them.
Thus, I tend to approach every “The Sky Is Falling” sign with a level of skepticism. Sure, I’ll duck when I witness some others truely get flattened - but why duck before that?
Sadly, Google’s mantra of “Do No Evil” seems to have some gray areas that allow them to comfortably spread some “disinformation” - or at least tacitly approve it’s spread via silence and ambiguity in some cases.
Whatever - the bottom line STILL remains as it always has been:
Build good, useful, unique content, and the users and engines will love you. How you monetize it is beyond anyone’s control except your own - be sensible and it’s all good.
Duane
September 28th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I am pretty new to the SEO arena in comparison to guys like Jim, Aaron Wall, Duane, and others, but one thing I have learned quite quickly is to sprinkle a little salt on “Chicken Little” posts before consuming them.
@Duane: The last paragraph in your reply is like the Golden Rule of SEO and marketing from what I have learned so far. Seems to be the one “real insider secret” that a lot of folks ignore.
Thanks for the insightful post Jim.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:30 am
You may be right about selling links but from the perspective of sites wanting to buy links things have changed and its fairly obvious. Just don’t have a “sponsored” links section..
September 28th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I’ve never seen any hard evidence that Google is banning sites for selling links. Most people have no clue what’s going on with their site. They only hear bits and pieces of SEO information and draw very small conclusions. Before crying wolf, you should consult an SEO profession who has been around the block and seen every type of filter under the sun and can pinpont the reasoning.
After listening to people in forums like Digitalpoint for years, you see that most people jump to conclusions way too fast and do absolutely no research to back up their claims.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Great post Jim, and bang on! How tasty Cool Aid is before we realize its no good for us. I’d also argue to avoid site-wide links since this has a unique tell tale signature as well.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Yes it is not the link seller that gets punished it is the link buyer that gets punished by purchasing worthless links they think will help them. Stay away from sites that oversell links or openly advertise they sell links.
Although, at this time it seems all links help as Google seems to removed their garbage link filter for some reason.
–Jazz
September 29th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
If Google would only get rid of pagerank, then webmasters would not waste their time in chasing links from websites with high PR instead focus on better content and usability. Nor would anyone pay for something that cannot be quantified.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Hey Jim,
Will you join my hand to form new SE?
Google cannt overcome this all. Can he stop webmasters from joning hands and Play with SERP. Link Buying He can’t. Hey who is laughing thr.
September 30th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
From Jim’s linked in article: It’s my guess that someone then reported me to Google, using the ‘report paid links’ page in their webmaster tools. Of course I can’t be sure of this, but I think it’s a resonable assumption.
Didn’t it get posted somewhere that Google said they only use these reports for overall analysis but ignore them individually? I could stand to be corrected on that.
Google’s getting it’s asshole reamed out right now by paid links. As far as I’m concerned, getting rankings right now is easier than it’s ever been. Buy up a whack of paid links from readily available systems, and you rank. End of story. And I’ve not seen anyone getting whacked by this.
And for the life of me, I don’t see how they’re going to pick up some of these systems. I don’t see this changing any time soon.
Let me tell you what the real problem is. Paid links work. A ton of people use them, a bunch more bitch about them. Six months pass. A few more people figure out that in fact paid links aren’t getting hammered because Google can’t detect them when done properly.
Two years later, Google’s serps are complete crap. Google is owned by SEO’ers. Everyone’s in on the party. THEN the public figures this out…it makes the press. Google looks like an idiot and there’s NO FIX IN SIGHT!. End result, Google is the next Yahoo!.
That’s what’s coming. Google’s got very bright visionaries and they know this is coming. So how do you fix a problem you can’t fix? Make the other guys look like the bad guys. Spread fear. Isn’t that what they’re doing? They’re certainly not fixing it via algorithm, lol.
October 1st, 2007 at 3:49 am
I’m just wondering who there coming after next.
October 1st, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I can image Matt Cutts coming to you and say “Option a) I drop your rankings for some mistake you made; option b)I drop your rankings for some month, you say OMG-it-was-because-i-sold-links, and I will make your site rank again” What would you choose? ;D
October 1st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
don’t drink the cool aid.
October 1st, 2007 at 10:06 pm
quote: …….In my experience the only thing I’ve ever seen from google, as far as effect of selling links, is that Google may block your site from passing Pagerank. Doesn’t hurt your site one bit, you’ll rank the way you always would….Google just don’t count your link love you give to other sites. (Pagerank Block beyond your site). The ironic thing is that if you’re wanting to sells links, go ahead. The person buying them will probably never know if that links passes link juice…….
what I’m reading is that sites that sell links may not be able to pass link juice but the buyer won’t know it?
there’s an seo out there selling paid links through a text link network. 1,000 for every 25 links. So, theoretically, some of those links may not be able to pass link juice, but the people ponying up the cash for them wouldn’t know that, right?
Makes me wonder if Cutts is the FUD so many seem to think he is. I know I wouldn’t be happy to be paying for a link that’s not passing any juice. Would you?
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 am
Very reasonable article, Jim. Google is on the same boat as web publishers selling links. They are in the same business so they won’t penalize everybody around but they will warn to use the best practice (nofollow etc.) and may put a PR Block on your site. They will also pick a few “big heads” and penalize their sites (David, John) to show the SEO community to be careful.
You have a few paid links, some affiliates, moneymakers? All right. But if you go massive with your actions then don’t be surprised. I am not surprised with David’s site ban. “Please link to me with … anchor text”. It is similar like putting in an H1 “I buy links - penalize me, Google”.
Let’s be gentle in our SEO practices and don’t make Google knock to your door!
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:00 am
Hi Paul M.,
Not sure what you mean by “big head”, but I know I’ve done wrong. Hopefully it’s not too late to reverse my mistakes, and I’ve sent an email to all 250 entrants of my prize draw, asking them to remove their links to my site.
I sent the email yesterday, and so far around 50 people have responded saying the links are gone. I’m hoping the others follow suit, to diffuse my stupid Google bomb.
October 8th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I read these stories and all the original posts. What gives this tool the right to cry wolf when he was trying to game the system? It happens to thousands of people everyday who genuinely has just messed up but this guy knew all to well what he was doing.
And tool if your reading, thats not a compliment
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 am
Nope. Just the same old paranoia that pops up when anything changes. And when nothing changes, paranoia pops up anyway.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
From what I understood site dropped not because of “selling links”, but simply because the ratio - incoming, outgoing link went closer.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I like the way you explained the whole problem and it’s very re-assuring, but how do you explain page rank drops for blogs like Andy Beard’s?
November 29th, 2007 at 3:25 am
i hav a website which page rank was good before 2 months…suddenly it had a drastic changes in page rank ..i was confused why google penalised me……my friend said this is due to duplicate content….Is ther any way to protect contents of my site….
December 25th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Google never like anything related to link trading, but he can not stop someone to do it. One thing is for sure, Google penalize link farms.
To jack,
You can put copyright notice on your website and can report to hosting for copyright violation.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I’m not sure what to believe now. I’ve deleted all my payment processes in the light of Google’s pr drop and some links have gone as well. Did Google punish via pr drop or not, and is it safe to sell advertising?. I have noticed a major drop in sales, like 0 since the drop. My index page dropped anyway, i guess because of lack of content or other. But i lost pr on internal pages for reasons unknown…
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Who ever else participates in link trade will be penalised by google, so many sites have been lost page rank its affected most of big product sites..