PayPerPost Bloggers Beware
November 19, 2007 Posted by Gyutae ParkI know that Tyler has seen good success using the PayPerPost system, but all of that may change in the near future. Last week, Google slapped many bloggers using PayPerPost by decreasing their page rank to zero. That’s right folks, a big fat zero. Although, page rank is becoming less and less of an indication of any value regarding actual search engine rankings and traffic, it is still an important pricing factor in the link and review selling industry. By disrupting link selling, Google tries to increase usage of its own Adsense program, prohibit webmasters from manipulating search rankings by buying links, and instill a sense of fear, uncertainty, and doubt to further dominate the web with its monopoly on search. Is this fair? Nope. But things are unlikely to change until Google looses its stronghold on search, on webmasters, and on the Internet in general.
So what can I do?
First of all, you need to define your goals and your priorities for what is most important for you. If search engine traffic and rankings are a big part of your site, I would suggest staying away from using review services such as PayPerPost and ReviewMe on your blog. If you don’t care about search engines and would rather tell Google to shove it, then continue using these services by all means. However, it may help your cause if you refrain from using terms such as ‘PPP’, ‘PayPerPost’, ‘ReviewMe’, ‘Payu2blog’, and others in the text of your post. You just might be able to sneak by Google’s careful watch.
What do you plan on doing? Are you still going to use services like PPP and ReviewMe?
I don’t know whether or not this is because of PPP usage, but I already see that Tyler has seen a drop in PR to a 3. Has your blog been affected?
This post was guest blogged by Gyutae Park of Winning the Web, an Internet marketing resource. Be sure to enter to win a free blog audit to improve your site and increase exposure.
Instead of using services like ReviewMe or PPP, I actually sell sponsored posts privately and was slapped with the fat PR 0. It does suck, but you shouldn’t be dependent on search engine traffic anyway.
I’m pretty surprised they would slap my blog with a PR 0. The only way I think I could’ve been his with this is for mentioned “[ THIS IS A SPONSORED POST ]” in all of the sponsored posts I create.
Maybe it’s not just if you use certain services, but also by the words you use.
Wow, sorry for that second paragraph. It’s late and I’m tired. I meant to say “The only way I think I could’ve been hit with this is for mentioning”.
Yeah, I assume that this is the case. Google is necessarily after certain companies that sell links and paid reviews. They’re after the whole concept of this practice. It manipulates their search results and they’re after everyone in their way. What you do to combat this is up to you. A real David and Goliath story if you ask me…
wow that’s rough. sorry to hear that. This is the second time I’ve heard of this… I guess it’s new?
We are living in Googles World and have no choice but to abide by their rules and regulations. I agree with you and everything is dependent on your needs and wants. But if your pagerank dropped, your PPP may also suffer.
I can totally understand that Google wants to stop people from buying links for SEO purposes – they want to keep quality sites ranking well, but who says SEO is the only reason you use PPP/ReviewMe?
Google are making site owners scared of linking to other web sites at the risk the getting a PR of 0.
Regardless of whether I sell links for money, isn’t putting a free link to a mate’s site the same? What about blog rolls – will Google penalise you if you don’t have nofollow’s on those links??
There has to be a better way of addressing this – links are what makes the WWW.
Yep I got slapped, google are trying to intimidate you, dont let it happen.
I went from PR5 to PR 0 yo!
wow looks like a lot of you guys got affected. good thing I never used ppp, but then again I’m still making less money than you guys lol.
I cant believe bloggers are still pretending that this is a big google conspiracy.
The truth of the matter is this :
You have links on your site (whether paid or not) that are totally unrelated to your content. Previously this was not accounted for and hence you linking to me and me linking to you brought everyone in the link chain up in Pagerank.
A person talking about God could link to someone talking about motorsport. Yet the pagerank increased. Well – Google realised that the pagerank mechanism was obviously flawed.
Fixing this meant all the little link chains that bloggers depended on collapsed. This is the right thing to do. If you talk about motorsport – then link only to motorsport sites that confirm your topic.
The simple fact is that google cannot determine who paid who for a link – it cannot keep a lookup table with this information – it would be impossible to maintain. Sure – they could list the main culprits – but I could still pay Tyler for a link on this blog and they would never know.
Its reaffirming links that count. So make them mean something.
I was getting ready to use PPP too, and now I’m not so sure…
Have you heard about the new advertising option that just came out for webmasters? Supposedly sponsored by one of the top 5 search engines. They pay you to place 5 second ads on your website, and the affiliate program is 2 levels deep and pays 5% per referral. Link is on my name, let me know what you think. I got a bunch of emails about it and have seen it all over the net, after only a day. Looks like something very big…
oh no!!! That’s not good at all! 🙁 I haven’t gotten it yet, but that’s only because my blog isn’t 90 days old yet. I hope they fix it!
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