Online Money Dot.com

Yes, this time it´s for real, Google is finally updating the PageRank, but apparently to the downside. It all started with JohnChow.com when his PageRank fell from 6 to 5, but it has spread to other blogs, including CourtneyTuttle.com, NetBusinessBlog.com (where I have a Text Link Ad), and Sabahan.com (where I also purchased a “Earn 10k a month…” link).

The blogs being hit are some of the most popular on the internet and this is Google´s way of sending a message to everyone. To date I have not heard of anyone getting an increase in PageRank or having it attributed.

The blogs that are being penalized are the one selling links and/or doing lots of paid reviews. Google´s argument is that they want the “nofollow” tag on the links. I have to admit that this causes me some confusion. Since PageRank (created by Google founders), is suppose to measure the quality and quantity of incoming links, I don´t see how it is related to the fact that a blog sells links or does reviews. One could ask if a blog stops being relevant to Google, and the content loses quality if the blog sells links?

Paid reviews also don´t necessarily have anything to do with PageRank, but could be used to launch a product, find new customers, or sell something. PageRank could be just an added bonus and not the reason for a paid post. The same could be said of link buying which is also used to get visitors. Aside from the links already mentioned above, I also purchased a link on JohnCow.com using Text Link Ads and it wasn´t for PageRank, I didn´t even use any specific anchor text (it says “Make 10K per month on the net”). The sole purpose was to receive visitors, and with 6 days left I received about 86, not bad for a $20 investment. So does JohnCow.com deserve to be penalized for sending visitors to my blog? Maybe Google would just prefer I spend $100 buying Adsense ads on John Cow so Google can turn around and give a few dollars worth of change to the blog.

So if Google wants “nofollow” on paid links we can do that, but what if I just make a post and happen to mention Google Lady in it? How is Google (the company ) going to know she didn´t pay me? Or maybe she took that top off for me Would that be a paid link? And how would Google know?

For now this is a non-issue for most bloggers, because, just like me, I can only “sell” visitors and not PageRank. But if Google thinks they can reduce our money making options to mostly Adsense than they are also mistaken. Companies like Text Link Ads and advertisers will adapt, and instead of paying for PageRank advertisers will only pay for actual visitors or clicks. The worst that can happen is that the A-list bloggers will make a little less money because they can no longer sell link juice, but can still be able to “sell” visitors. For the rest of us it this doesn´t have any impact.

It seems to me that Google is confusing the “Google search engine” with the “Google advertising company”, and this in the medium to long term can be bad for everyone. When we do a search on Google we want to see the most relevant results, and we could care less if the sites sell links or not.

As far as I am concerned, if a good Pagerank doesn´t allow me to earn a few extra dollars a month, than Google can keep their stupid PageRank because no one gives a shit!