"Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."

The above quote is from Google's website and clearly states their position on paid links. Don't buy or sell links with the intention of passing PageRank to another site.

As I've read through some other SEO Authority blogs recently, I've been hearing that Google is continuing to penalize sites for participating in the above practice. Some have even mentioned that blogs that pay for others to author posts on their site have been losing PageRank.

Website owners beware. You may have been effected by the Google crackdown already or you may have eluded this round of penalties. In either case, if you have purchased or sell links and pass PageRank, you need to change your strategy in order stay competitive in the search rankings.

Sometimes buying or selling links can be beneficial beyond the PageRank that it can pass. This is especially true when you are buying from a site with a good traffic flow and it attracts visitors that are part of your target audience. How Does Google allow for this type of advertising?

Well Google says you can buy and sell links if you don't pass the PageRank. And how is this done? You have to use the nofollow attribute in the link so that Google's spiders will not count those links. So if you are buying or selling links be sure that the person you are dealing with is properly applying the nofollow attribute.

If you are wanting to improve your PageRank score please contact us and we will be glad to talk with you about our services designed to help build your PageRank.

Labels: Google News, Link Building

As reported by webpronews.com, There were several high profile page rank drops which seems to be a continuation of September's paid directory bash. It appears that sites who sell links are losing visible page rank and they are losing ground on the Google search results.

What Does This Mean To Web Site Owners?

These turn of events can mean several things to web site owners. First, do not go out and pay for links on sites who advertise links for purchase as a means to grow your page rank or boost your position on the search engines. It certainly won't give you any long term results and may not in the short term anymore either. If you currently have paid links it would be worth evaluating those links to consider having them removed if their sole purpose is to boost your page rank.

Secondly it means that developing good quality content on your site and keeping it fresh and current once again grows in importance for those who want to become an "Expert" in Google's eyes. By providing current, quality content on your site you will attract links, bookmark links and other social networking links which will help your site grow in importance, at least in Google's eyes.

Lastly, if you sell links on your web site and want to continue to prosper on Google, you may want to reconsider your strategy. It looks like selling links will put you in the category of spammer for the giant search engine.

In part II of this story we plan to bring you Google's comments and input on what they are trying to say with these page rank drops.

Labels: Google News, Link Building