Ooooh, Did Nasty Google Smack Your Blog?

The latest round of anti-Google wailing emanated from ‘pro’ bloggers who had their PageRank smacked down. The reason touted was because they were selling links.

Curiously, some were not affected.

Want to know why?

My guess is that those affected had ‘footprints’ all over their site:

1. Mentions of P@yPerP0st and T3xtLinkAd5;
2. Links to these two sites;
3. Backlink profile consisting of links from and to other blogs;
4. Using phrases like ‘Sp0nsored by’ and ‘Paid R3view’ , but most of all …;
5. Just linking out to too much crap!

I had reason to look at a lot of blogs in one session, recently; about 300 of them.

Many had 0 PR, and I thought they deserved it. Too many ‘paid r3view’, ‘working Mom’ and ‘blogging about blogging’ sites larded up with items 1-5 above. They looked like affiliate sites from 1998.

I got the impression that yet more internet apprentices are realising that relying solely for their income on a benevolent monopoly like Google may not be in their long-term best interests.

Related: Keep on Google’s good side with these WordPress themes.