Some site owners woke up today to the watch their hard earned Google Page Rank decrease. There is wide speculation that the search engine has penalized sites for selling text links. My blog was also affected. It went from a PR5 to PR3.
A lot of people believe Google is slapping sites that sell text links or advertising without nofollow related. Darren Rowse at Problogger was a knocked down from a PR6 to PR4. He claims that he hasn’t sold links on either his sites in months. Others have claimed innocent, as well.
Another theory is that the Page Rank parameters have shifted. What use to be a PR5 is a PR3 by the new calculation of factors. If you look at the list of sites below with past and current page rank, notice most of them are decreased by 2. That leads me to believe that the update was a penalty, not realignment.
Some of the major web sites that lost Page Rank are as follows:
- AutoBlog PR6 to PR4
- Copyblogger PR6 to PR4
- Engadget PR7 to PR5
- Forbes.com PR7 to PR5
- Joystiq PR6 to PR4
- Problogger PR6 to PR4
- SFGate.com PR7 to PR5
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog PR6 to PR4
- Washington Post PR7 to PR5
I haven’t seen a decrease in my site traffic, so that’s a bonus. My stats are trending even with the last two days in regards to Google search engine traffic. I have naturally, acquired many IBLs since the receiving a PR5, but I assume all that link authority was negated by this penalty. With quality content, I will continue to link build and hope for the best in the next Page Rank update.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Hi SEO Jason,
Can you comment on the status of your findings? I have been dogged by PageRank as well seen here: http://www.webconsuls.com. An overnight topple from 5 to three. We do not sell links. OR buy them. We have been under a microscope in the past for linking but it all blew over and checked out just fine. (a bit before my time, but I have read some of the drivel that was written by an upset contractor trying to throw WC.com under the bus.)
Any who & and I digress. Looking forward to your reply.
seharness
November 7th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Hello Jason, thanks for commenting. There has been much speculation on how Google determined who was selling links. Some believe it was a hand job and others believe it was algorithmic. Personally, I think Google may have looked at data from the paid link tattle-tale that is found inside of Webmaster Central. In my opinion, I think Text Link Ads’s directory was used a general indicator of who was selling links. If you have never sold or bought links, my best speculation is that someone may have submitted your site to Google for having paid links. It could have been competitors trying to knock down rivals. For my blog, I will be offering more advertising opportunities but they will be in the form of graphical banners, if the Page Rank comes back, so be it. I still receive the same, if not more, organic traffic.
Hope this helps,
Jason
November 27th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I had a PR4 site drop to a PR3. It also took about 40% dive in organic traffic. The site is legit and didn’t sell links.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Actually, I just checked my stats again. It was about a 60% dive. Adsense earnings followed that trend too