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Sell Paid Links? Google’s Latest Penalty
In the war between Google and the paid links industry, it seems that Google’s latest attack could be a cause for concern.
In the past, Google only threatened to penalize websites for selling links. However, as of recent, it seems that Google has found a way around removing sites from the search engines for selling links. The search engine instead has implemented a “decrease page rank” punishment.
Popular websites sell links according to the amount of traffic that goes to the site as well as the page rank score on the bottom of the page. Page Rank is a scoring system used by Google that rates the relevancy of the website in terms of its topic. The system takes incoming and outgoing links into account when scoring a website.
Typically, the higher page rank you have, the higher rank you occupy in a search engine, and the higher value links are worth on your page. By decreasing PageRank, Google makes links in a website less valuable and therefore less appealing to advertisers. This all leads to a significant decrease in profits made by the website. Google has confirmed that some websites PageRanks are being decreased, specifically those sites that are well known for selling links.
The obvious connection to make is that if you want to do well in Google, then your page shouldn’t sell links. This statement comes packed with mounds of argument and controversy. SEO marketers around the globe have been fighting Google over the paid link tactic. It seems as though Google is experimenting with penalties by simply decreasing PageRank, however they have been known to threaten removing sites from the search engine entirely.
As of now, the websites are being punished via human review rather than the typical automatic review. The websites targeted are those which are specifically known for selling links. Interestingly enough, Google itself is known for selling ads on its own website, one of the main reasons there is such a battle between the search engine and those trying to use the same money making tactics.
In general, Google has come up with a new weapon against the link selling business. However, the question is, can they really detect natural, organic links that reveal no footprint?
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