google’s official stance on paid links
The powers that be at Google posted two interesting blog entries this week about their official stance on paid links, or links that pass pagerank. The first contains details about buying and selling links, and the second is a follow up by Matt Cutts on selling links that pass Google juice. With the new platform from IZEA / PayPerPost, dubbed SocialSpark, not set to debut until at least January, this leaves bloggers who have accepted payment for posts in a pickle.
The way I see it, we’ve got two options, if we wish to continue blogging for money:
- Change nothing. Continue to accept money for links, and accept that your pagerank will continue to be low, or zero. Blogging income will be drastically reduced, as the majority of advertisers on PayPerPost / IZEA right now are still buying pagerank. (I’d like to note that while IZEA did introduce “RealRank” this week, and advertisers ARE using it, most are using a RealRank / Pagerank combo that leaves a lot of people out in the cold.)
- Change all of the links you’ve posted for $$ to rel=”nofollow” and request reinclusion from Google. Get your PR back. But wait! You’ve basically agreed with Google that you won’t sell any more pagerank, so you can’t take any opps in the PayPerPost marketplace. You’ve got to wait until SocialSpark comes out, and only accept links for money that allow you to do “no follow”. (SocialSpark will offer advertisers two choices - a required “no follow” link, or optional links that must pass pagerank.)
The other side of this coin is that if you decide to add no follow to your old posts, and you’ve worked with other paid blogging companies, you may be violating their terms of service. PayPerPost pays you based on 30 days, and after that, you are free to edit, or even delete the paid links. Doing so may get you banned or benched by an advertiser, but you’re not violating the TOS for PayPerPost. Other companies are not as flexible, and expect that the links will stay up, passing PR, for the life of your blog.
So what’s it going to be for you - grovel to Google for the sake of your PR, or continue making money with the limited pagerank you’ve got now, in hopes that SocialSpark will fix what ails you?
I’m in the do nothing camp. I didn’t know or care what page rank was until I started PPP. I still blog for me and the money is just gravy. If I were trying to pay the bills with my paid links, then I would probably give it more thought.
I’ve done some work for other companies, but the bulk of the posts are PPP. So, I’d follow their lead. However, advertisers are buying pagerank, regardless of how we wish they would buy off on RR, WOM advertising, etc. So, I have my doubts as to whether Socialspark will get those high-paying opps back. I’m doing very few posts, because I’m down to $5 opps, mostly. At this point, if I don’t see compensation rise back up to the $15-$25 level, I’ll stop doing paid posts and apply for reinclusion.
Then I’d go back to private deals, which are easier to integrate into a blog anyway.
How can I make sure that I am not flagged by google.. and if they ban me will they contact us via mail? I have heard like that… Anyway I never purchased any links or sold one…… I dont want to risk my SE traffic for few pennies…
I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. If I continue to make money with paid blogging, that would be great, but if not, well that’s something I’ll have to think about if and when I can’t make any more money doing paid blogging.
I’m in the don’t let Google get me down section. I’m not changing a thing because I don’t really care what Google thinks anymore.
Honestly I’ve made more $$ from paid blogging since my PR dropped to 0 on two of my blogs. I’ve also had a huge increase in private offers made directly through my advertising page.
I choose “change nothing”. I beleive that IZEA will come up with something that will make bloggers and advertisers become not dependent on PR.
Change nothing. No groveling here. I believe RealRank will catch on soon, and we won’t be waiting for long.
I’m hoping that Real Rank will prevail. But, for now I will not change anything. I don’t bring in a lot of money with my posts, but for what I do, it’s just pocket change. I believe that advertisers will realize that if they stick with PR, their pool of quality bloggers that qualify, will dwindle to a trickle. They will be forced to use something else. Lucky for me, my PR went up when they did the update, but that was because I didn’t have a PR prior to the update.
I’m changing nothing. The only reason I cared about PR was because it put me in for higher paying opps with PPP. Since PR doesn’t equal good blogging or even readership, I don’t care.