If you engage in large scale link buying or your website sells text link advertisements it is likely that you lost Google Page Rank yesterday. The PR update on October 23 has wreaked havoc on the green line, and many website owners are forgoing green peace for green war on google.
Google has given webmasters and bloggers an October surprise that will likely generate as much controversy in the SEO community as past Google updates such as Florida and Jagger.
From Andy Beard:
I certainly don’t intend to be whipped by Google for 9 reviews or “public consultation” pieces I have written over the last 12 months, and as I gave the links in an editorial matter of my choosing, I didn’t use Nofollow.
Aaron from B5 Media:
At b5media, we are weighing how we want to respond to this. Either we give in to Google and let them dictate what we do and have the unenviable position of losing pagerank and possibly advertising dollars, or we take the stand that quality content is quality content regardless of Google and that our content will speak for itself.
Does Google Want PageRank To Be Irrelevant? If they do, they’re doing a fine job. Seriously who cares anymore? I’m done worrying about it because Google hasn’t even said what they want people to change.
Jim Kukral on buying links:
So how can TextLinkAds survive in it’s current business model if the rumors are true? Furthermore, would you buy a text link from them if they had a “nofollow” in it? I like the guys at Text Link Ads, but personally, I never did like the model of “passing Google juice” for cash. It always seemed very gamey to me.
Even the Scobelizer has some refreshing honesty about PageRank:
Google Page Rank is dead and has been for quite some time. I don’t get bloggers sometimes. They get all huffy about their Page Rank going down as if it’s something that they are entitled to. Now, normally I’d be front and center on all these ego games but here the real truth is that Page Rank has been dead for years. That’s why I never even looked at it anymore.
Some notable sites that have lost Page Rank:
* http://www.statcounter.com/ PR10 to PR6
* http://www.searchengineguide.com/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.washingtonpost.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.forbes.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.suntimes.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.sfgate.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.copyblogger.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.masternewmedia.org/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.autoblog.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.engadget.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.problogger.net/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.joystiq.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.tuaw.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.searchenginejournal.com/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.quickonlinetips.com/ PR6 to PR3
* http://weblogtoolscollection.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://andybeard.eu/ PR5 to PR3
* http://www.seroundtable.com/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.blogherald.com/ PR6 to PR4
