This post is not going to go well with a large segment of the blogging community.
Sites that have been using the services of payperpost have been seeing their pagerank dropping like flies for the past few days. It appears that most are dropping all way back down to a PR0. Needless to say there is a new round of Google bashing going on and you can check out the payperpost forum ( I'm not linking to it with a ten foot pole ) for a sense of what the populace thinks. I also noticed several posts on Blogging Zoom this morning that touch on this new round of woes.
The general concensus seems to be that everyone wants to stick their head in the sand and pout.
Here are a few of the comments I've read this morning;
"Really, I don't care about PR. I'll sell links and reviews on my blog even if it remains a PR 0 for the rest of its life..."
"It's all about networking. That's where 95% of my traffic comes from anyway."
"I think you have the right idea. We can't worry too much about something we have no control over. Besides, if we crawl back out of this hole they'll probably just smack us back down again."
These are completely natural reactions - a lot of small blogs have just lost their main source of income. I sympathize with them and I know one day I will do something to get slammed by Google as well. When it happens I will lose a big chunk of my income. I will be mad too - the only difference is that I will be mad at myself and not Google.
People are trying to convince themselves that Google is a big heartless monster out to take away income from the people who need it most. They act like this was unexpected and Google is only doing it to reduce competition in the advertising market. They are convinced that Google is going to get sued for anti-trust violations and it serves them right.
People are mad and want revenge.
People are also saying that they don't care about PR, it's meaningless and they will keep on doing what they have been doing.
This is great news to you if you are smart.
A different viewpoint on Google.
First let me say that my opinion is based on my motives online. I am online to make money. So are most of you or you probably wouldn't be reading an article on a blog that exists for the purpose of explaining how to make money online. I have no view on the moral/ethical questions posed about Google. People can debate whether Google is evil until the cows come home - I don't care. I only care about how Google works because knowing this allows you to make money while all the competition drowns in their sorrows.
Google was not wrong in what they did. It is true that they have effectively eliminated a source of competition but the competition wasn't really selling advertising - it was selling paid links for the purpose of passing PR on to buyers.
Google states very clearly that you can sell paid reviews and advertising on your site. You just have to add the no-follow tag. They aren't eliminating the competition, you can have all the paid ads you want and you won't be penalized. You are not allowed to sell your pagerank. This is the simplest way to put it. Selling pagerank is gaming the system - lesser sites can buy their way to the top of the serp's. Do you want Google to start spitting out crappy, spammy sites on the front page of the listings again? If they hadn't put a stop to paid links this is what would eventually happen. Believe me when I say you don't want this to happen because honest bloggers like you will never make it to the top of the serp's - the black hatters would take over, again.
I'm not a lawyer but as far as anti-trust goes Google isn't violating my understanding of it. They own a proprietary software and can use it and tinker with it all they want. They aren't stopping competition. If you want to be listed on their index then you have to follow the rules. They have the right to make the rules and you have the right not to use them or care about them.
I have the right to make rules on my own blog. If I run a contest I can say that only 1 vote will count and you will be eliminated if you vote more than once. Oh and you are not allowed to pay someone for their vote. This would make the votes meaningless as the biggest spender will win. If I catch you selling votes you will be banned.
This is what Google is doing. They offer a search engine. They rank sites on the basis of who is most relevant to your query. They use a system of votes to help determine who the most relevant site is for each query. Each vote you get from others increases your authority. You are not allowed to buy those votes or sell your votes.
If you sell or buy votes (links) then Google has the right to drop your PR or even de-index you. They can list who they want for any reason they want. They can ignore anyone they want too. You can ignore them too and not care if they index you.
So, did Google do anything wrong? Nope. They warned people not to sell links. They warn people not to game the system. Payperpost exists solely to broker link sales between buyers and sellers. The higher your PR the more money you get for a link. This was all disguised (poorly) by claiming that the buyer was getting paid advertising for his money and that a link would be included so the reader could click through to the source. The only problem with this is that PPP wouldn't allow users to use the no-follow tag on the links. This wouldn't be a problem for PPP if the buyers were actually just buying advertising. They wouldn't allow the no-follow tag used because they knew that the only way they could get buyers was by offering the passing of pagerank. No one will pay for a review on a PR5 blog that has no traffic unless they get a link out of the deal.
For everyone that is upset with Google you should really think about this. You only made money by taking advantage of a system that was set up to game Google. Google caught you and the system gaming them and stopped you from doing more of it. They weren't in the wrong and have once again offered the rest of us a less competitive playing field.
If you say that you don't care about Google then you are a noble soul but you are going to have a hard time making money online. Sure you can turn to the social sites and work on getting traffic. This traffic won't make you money but it will increase your alexa ranking and as flawed as alexa is it will be the new measurement used to determine who can sell paid reviews. PPP will be unveiling a new ratings system shortly based entirely on traffic. Instead of PR you will be offered better paying reviews based on how much traffic you have. This will mean that most low traffic sites won't make a dime. It will also mean that people will start Gaming Alexa to increase their traffic stats - it's easy to do. Advertisers will quickly complain that they aren't getting their money's worth and stop buying. Depending on this type of model to make money online is unsustainable and a waste of your time.
You should care about Google because if you follow the rules you do get rewarded. PR is far from dead. PR is necessary in order to drive search engine traffic to your site. Search engine traffic is more profitable than social network traffic. If people really do stop caring about pleasing Google then the rest of us have a lot less competition to worry about.
For the past week I have been posting on ways you can make money with adsense. I have talked about how content and learning how to target keywords can increase your adsense earnings. I may have downplayed the importance of PR but make no mistake - the higher your PR the more you can make. You don't need a lot of PR to make money with Adsense but the more you get the better. You should concern yourself with PR - follow Googles rules and you will get it.
Grizzly
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