Comments on: Forgive Me Google For I Have Sold Links

By: Live Stream

Live Stream — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:06:02 +0000

This is so great. I always find such interesting stuff when I stumble onto this site again and again! .Iâ€™m going to be sharing this. Facebook here we come!

By: Lea Charlton

Lea Charlton — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:44:33 +0000

You sure told them! LOL. Especially when you said, “Strange thing though, my text link customers did not go away. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Mr Cutts!” – I have not had this happen yet, though I am with the same sentiment. They don’t want anyone to make a decent living any more. Once would think that they would have some consideration for the smaller companies (in competitive regions & terms – like Los Angeles Limousine) that really need the organic seo because they cannot afford to pay those lousy PPC rates their up to. Some one needs to tell them that even Bill Gates changed his evil ways and went philanthropist – do you think that Google had something to do with that, too? :)

By: Content Writer

Content Writer — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:55:24 +0000

I have been reading about the PR penalizing since quite some time. Who Is google to command on how I want to stream my Income , by using their Adsense or selling links on my sites.
But I am afraid these penalizing does not effect ORganic Search Rankings.

By: T1 quotes Integrated T1 Lines

T1 quotes Integrated T1 Lines — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:35:03 +0000

Google = Monopoly = Bad for the internet!

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:38:48 +0000

I hope they don’t penalize for do-follow but you never know with the big-G

By: Mark from Bloglyne

Mark from Bloglyne — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:21:12 +0000

Does this mean we will need to turn off dofollow, as well? Do they penalize us for that too?

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:34:24 +0000

Thanks for the comments everyone. Unfortunately if I am going to auction the blog I need to make sure it looks 100% clean, nobody will take my word for it, that means having green pixels. The offers that have been made are only speculative (until a contract is drawn up or the money is in the bank it’s not a done deal, right?) so that means seeing what interest there will be. TLA to their credit have been very helpful.

Once TLA delete my account I will head over to Google webmaster tools and request they take another look at my site. Should get my green back as I never did paid posts, just sold some links in the sidebar.

By: brettbum

brettbum — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:59:24 +0000

It strikes me that getting a website appraisal before and after the google gestapo handjob would be a good way of determining an amount for damages caused by Google.

By: Sam Stevens

Sam Stevens — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:12:01 +0000

SEOMoz has a good post from today on this topic as well, from the buyers’ side of the issue: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/i-dont-buy-links

By: Sam Stevens

Sam Stevens — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:54:03 +0000

I had a couple of sites stripped of PageRank, presumably because I am selling Text-Link-Ads space on them. My traffic was not affected, and I think I only lost one or two link buyers.

Frankly, I’m baffled as to why Google would have a problem with this. I only sell text links to websites that are completely related to my content. Why should we be penalized for selling advertising? After all, Google is built on advertising dollars, and they created the culture of link buying to begin with.

I’m not taking down advertising space just because Google suggests I should by stripping my sites of PageRank. As long as traffic remains steady, I’ll just ignore that little meaningless green bar. Smart advertisers also know that PageRank is not particularly important.

By: posties

posties — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:31:53 +0000

I’ve been rather shocked nobody has taken to suing Google yet. I’ve seen a PR6 drop to PR3, two PR4′s drop to PR0. All this during the time the FTC saw no problem with Google’s DoubleClick acquisition.

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:45:10 +0000

Chris, I had one blog up to PR4 and the rest were from PR 1 to PR3. Now, they’re all at 0. I’m tired of G telling bloggers what makes good content or a quality blog. It’s insane that anyone even pays attention to that particular ranking system anymore.

By: Abe Olandres

Abe Olandres — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:37:01 +0000

Hi Chris. How about telling the potential buyer that once they bought it from you, they can remove the link ads and then request for a reconsideration/reinclusion?

By: Ebony

Ebony — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:47:23 +0000

Excellent post.

Funny too.

Yeah, I’ve been slapped and penalized by Google and recovered as well.

Some of my sites lost PR, a few are back to 4 and 3s.

One still sits at zero.

We’ll see when the Big G blesses me with that PR7 someday.

And I ain’t talkin’ about Google

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:07:17 +0000

Same boat here. I was a pr 6, now have a 0. :(

I have removed the text link ads, and will only use the almighty google ads, and whatever banner ads I have in the queue. But will I ever see a pagerank increase again?

Oh well, at least I’m mostly doing it for the fun, and not the profit so it doesn’t effect me as much as it has other people I am sure.

By: Rom @ PR4 Link Directory

Rom @ PR4 Link Directory — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:03:16 +0000

Have been in your shoes already :(

I learned it the hard way that seeling links or ads should be for traffic concern only…

By: Andrew G.R.

Andrew G.R. — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:57:21 +0000

I was spanked from a PR5 to a ZERO. Despite months of “good behavior,” will my blog ever recover? Or is this blacklist a lifelong punishment?

By: Trench Reynolds

Trench Reynolds — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:43:45 +0000

I was running text link ads at two of my sites and was then banned from using Google Adsense on those sites.

By: Guilherme Zühlke O'Connor

Guilherme Zühlke O'Connor — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:00:58 +0000

Timely enough for commenting on this post, this week I was called by clients who received a google email saying they were blacklisted for at least 30 days because they had too many keywords on their pages. While it is true there were many, any closer look would reveal that they were legit. Not a good design option, but nothing dishonest either. I'm starting to worry about google's influence on the democratic nature of the web