10 replies to this topic

[harpsound]

I think the verdict is not in as to whether the link buyer is being penalised too and not just the seller who is definitely beinging targeted.

I have a page which is lovingly tended and is optimised at a maximum against duplication.
It is my largest cash spinner market so is treated extremely conservatively.
There are zero black hat efforts on either this page or the site in general.
The site is 10 years old and is a stunning performer in its local/global market with less than 5% reciprocal links.
It places very well for difficult global key phrases.

Today this particular page dropped 20 places to 28 and 37 for 2 ultra competitive local phrases.
The smoking gun is that there is an obvious paid link from a #2 position for the same phrase to this exact page URL.
None of my other site pages show a similar drop

This looks like a text book possibility to see if a buyer penalty has been applied to me the buyer of a link from a higher SERP site for the same keyphrase.
The link is on a popular local directory which is 5-10% paid links at each page top and the link is identified as paid without a no-follow.
The directory does not seem to have any penalty at this time.

My site has a minor paid directory link to the homepage too.
I have asked both selling directory webmasters for do a no-follow then intend to ask for a re-inclusion at G Webmaster Tools

Any suggestions or thoughts?
Stephen V

[Haystack]

Stephen, I think Google and other search engines tend to look at things at a market level. At this point, they seem to be focusing their market correction attention on link selling since that's probably one of the easier things to detect and penalize. I get the impression that they'll see what effect that has on the market and look at other approaches as needed.

[Jill]

Stephen, there is certainly a good chance that Google has identified the paid link as such, since it is labeled as one, and therefore are not counting it towards your link popularity anymore. Which is exactly as it should be.

That said, I would be somewhat surprised if the loss of one link could cause such a drastic drop and would therefore be looking at other things, or just assume it's the normal fluctuations in rankings that a page might have at any particular time/day/week/month.

Offtopic

And Haystack? Is it really you??? Long time no see, buddy!

[harpsound]

Stephen, there is certainly a good chance that Google has identified the paid link as such, since it is labeled as one, and therefore are not counting it towards your link popularity anymore. Which is exactly as it should be.

That said, I would be somewhat surprised if the loss of one link could cause such a drastic drop and would therefore be looking at other things, or just assume it's the normal fluctuations in rankings that a page might have at any particular time/day/week/month.

Jill I agree with you - Google should have just "no-followed" the link automatically but the way I read it a human looked at the page to determine this. Adding a minus 20 to the buyer for breaking the guidelines is a distinct possibility and not a big leap in this scenario (only if there is a human involved). They have a big push on in the PR Dept to get people to add no-follows hence my wondering about a change of policy in the trenches. They would carry an additional liability if they did this so maybe only the most blatant get the minus 20.

This page is rock solid and has not been dickered with in 6 months - an overnight drop of 20 places is out of my previous experience. I am awaiting a response from the directoriy for the no-follow then I will decide whether to panic and madly ride off in all directions at once.

S

[Jill]

Adding a minus 20 to the buyer for breaking the guidelines is a distinct possibility and not a big leap in this scenario (only if there is a human involved).

I'd be shocked if they were doing that, but certainly they've been up to shocking things lately.

It doesn't make sense though because there are billions of people buying and selling ads who would not know about this nofollow thing.

MC himself stated recently that when the ads are clearly marked as "sponsor" links, they can easily spot them and not count them towards PageRank, which is why I have a lot of trouble imagining them actually adding a penalty on top of that. It just doesn't make any sense unless they've completely lost their minds!

[harpsound]

Jill I agree with you - Google should have just "no-followed" the link automatically but the way I read it a human looked at the page to determine this.

Did Matt Cutts suggest that there was no additional penalty other than loss of PR on the bought links?

Hmmmm.... Maybe I should ride off madly in all directions

S

[Jill]

Stephen, is your site in the SEO niche? I was assuming it was more to do with harps or music.

For SEO sites, it's another story as SEO folks DO indeed know better (or should). But Google wouldn't (imo) be expecting people in general to know anything about the proper Google coding of their advertisements.

[harpsound]

MC himself stated recently that when the ads are clearly marked as "sponsor" links, they can easily spot them and not count them towards PageRank, which is why I have a lot of trouble imagining them actually adding a penalty on top of that.

It is clearly marked as a "Sponser" link.

Harp site - conservative SEO (ala Hi Rankings) with a small % of non optimisation for alt tags etc to give an "amateur" impression.

One possible oversight
I have a PPC on a 8 website bridal network with the clicks on pages optimised for similar keywords
All the links are "no-followed" to the home page of my site at this time.
If all the no-follows were applied last week en-mass the results could probably just as I see them in the SERPS.
I am asking the network admin when the no-follows were applied.
Google would have found these guys ages ago, however, as they are 100% paid links.

S

Edited by harpsound, 03 December 2007 - 03:51 PM.

[harpsound]

I have a PPC on a 8 website bridal network with the clicks on pages optimised for similar keywords
All the links are "no-followed" to the home page of my site at this time.

The PPC have been no-followed for 8 months as I thought likely.
So why exactly minus 20 for only one page that has a sponsored link?
48 hours and counting.
I still wait contact with the sponsored link directory.

S

[Randy]

I sincerely hope Google are not applying some sort of -20 penalty to the target site for a single paid link, especially one that is clearly marked as such.

If they are, they have just given me (and everyone else who thinks of it) an easy and inexpensive way to sabotage all of my competitors.

[harpsound]

I sincerely hope Google are not applying some sort of -20 penalty to the target site for a single paid link, especially one that is clearly marked as such.

If they are, they have just given me (and everyone else who thinks of it) an easy and inexpensive way to sabotage all of my competitors.

Went +20 overnite
I made zero changes to my site and waited it out.
Asked a few questions on the G discussion list last night.
Google Discussion

Still going to get the "no follows" in place.
It is spooky when an exact minus 20 happens out of the blue to a totally stable page during a no-follow push/ webwide discussion.
A conspiracy theoryist will have great fodder for both the minus 20 and the plus 20 afterwards.

Thanks everybody
Stephen V