ZeroRank - More PageRank Carnage (Round 5)

I have been receiving emails and comments today about yet another PageRank downturn for multiple sites.

Andrew Ooi has compiled a short list of Malaysian sites, many were as much as a PR5 previously, and currently show a PageRank of zero (a white bar)

Examples include:-

Colleen’s Simple Kind of Life and 5xmom

The numbers seem to be stable across multiple data centers

There doesn’t seen to be any change in prominent Search Marketing sites such as Search Engine Round Table and Search Engine Journal, and other popular bloggers such as Emom and Yaro still seem to have their degraded but still “head above water” rankings.

Meanwhile Matt Cutts is playing around with $200 PCs and the negative views of the blogosphere regarding Google.

Meaning Of PageRank Unchanged

Google have had more than a month to change the description of PageRank on their website.

I haven’t seen any change to Search Engine Rankings and there is still no way to request reconsideration without admitting guilt.

The Webmaster Help Center also doesn’t give an option to report that you think Google is making a mistake in their manual evaluation.

How do I request reconsideration of my site?

If your site has previously violated our webmaster guidelines, and you’ve made changes to it so that it now meets our guidelines, you can ask Google to reconsider your site for inclusion in the index.

In addition, if you recently purchased a domain that you think may have violated our guidelines before you owned it, you can use the reconsideration request form to let us know that you recently acquired the site and that it now adheres to the guidelines.

To request reconsideration of your site:

1. Sign in to Google webmaster tools. The webmaster tools Dashboard opens.
2. Under Tools, click Request reconsideration and follow the steps.

Google do now call this reconsideration, not just reinclusion, and Matt notes that you can still be in the index even though you have a penalty, which he updated November 4th 2007

I did find something cool though which I hadn’t seen before, maybe I missed it being reported, or didn’t pay much notice.

I am still being crawled frequently and there are some interesting spikes. It is a pity that the graph doesn’t line up with the scale.

From January people using PayPerPost will be able to use SocialSpark.

SocialSpark Alpha screenshots do still have PageRank listed, and that will likely be removed totally unless Google change their stance.

I still don’t sell PageRank, but traffic hasn’t changed, if anything it has increased as I write more content that people want to read and link to, and it even brings in some search traffic.

Google is making huge mistakes with these updates. I know many people receiving penalties sell links, and I am not trying to defend them.

When you get someone like regular reader Rob, a real expert in SEO, who based on the links he receives should be a comfortable PR4, or possibly a PR5, currently a PR0, because he wrote one paid review using nofollow on the links.

Then you get affiliate marketers like Vlad who may have written a couple of high quality reviews, and sold some advertising.
At the same time he also is an affiliate with some affiliate services which offer SEO friendly “clean links” for their merchants.
For a website owner they are still links from which they will be making money, though the money from affiliate marketing is variable - the links still affect search engines, as do many other affiliate links which feature 301 redirects.

Now whilst Aaron’s issues might be appeased as a result of the recent interchange with Matt, that is really just the tip of the iceberg. Aaron hasn’t been lynched.

To finish I am just going to steal the words of Michael VanDeMar which he posted as a comment on Matt’s Reporting On Paid Links post.

Honestly, Matt… and if your legal team won’t let you answer this, then I understand, but if you are allowed to answer then I (and I’m sure others) would really, really like to know… as the G algo stands now, exactly how much off balance would you say it is due to the insidious act of buying and selling text link ads? How many man hours have you spent combating this crime against humanity, and at what cost? And is it seriously skewing the results that much, that all the efforts spent on it were, and continue to be, justified? Is the algo that fragile?

The other main reason that I disagree with this idea is that you think (or appear to be implying, anyways) that Paid Link === No Human Review. This not the case 9 times out of 10. You should know that.

Update - Official Statement From Izea (PayPerPost)

An official statement finally from Izea (PayPerPost) on their blog regarding Google PageRank Updates.

We now know from some of our friends inside of Google (thanks “bob”) that they are now looking for phrases such as PPP, PayPerPost,ReviewMe, Payu2blog, etc. in the text of your post. For that reason I would suggest refraining from using any type of this text in the body of your posts, sponsored or not. When you disclose thank the sponsor, not PPP.

I would like to thank Ted (CEO of Izea) for having the courage to say something about this in public, something it seems Google so far have not managed to do, and rarely do so on an official company blog.

Lisa Stewart of Bigfoot Web Marketing also has an excellent writeup of the decision process on the PayPerPost boards that ultimately led to Ted Murphy making a statement.

How to Make Money off of Accidental Rankings

Since Google largely tends to favor ranking informational websites over commercial websites, some authoritative blogs tend to rank for valuable queries based on posts they make in passing.

Even if you had no intent to monetize a post, it just became easier to monetize accidental rankings. If you use analytics to track your stats and notice that you start ranking for some good keywords you can use Triggit to embed links to merchant products directly in the text of your blog post.

Shoemoney created this quick video to show how Triggit works

Unlike the automated ad solutions like intellitxt or AdSense, these Triggit ads

• look like other regular links on the page (so they should get a high CTR)
• can easily be applied on a page by page level (so you do not have to clutter up every page to monetize the few pages that can make a lot of money)
• link to products recommended by the editor (to preserve editorial integrity)
• can link to merchants that pay via affiliate payout or CPC (offering multiple monetization models)
• allow you to keep your pages clean (and easy to link at) until they rank, then have you add monetization after you have a leading market position for related keywords

Triggit ads are easy to set up and should require little maintenance on the end user’s side, but they are still a small start up, so if you start doing well with them make sure you remember which pages do well so you can keep monetizing the pages if the Triggit partnership stops working, and so you can track which pages you should try to monetize more aggressively and/or build links to.

As blended semi-editorial in content ad networks like these evolve, the distinction between optimization and spam blurs. And since Google has a similar product, it is going to be hard to view this in a negative light without looking hypocritical in the process. From Google’s pay per action page:

Text links are hyperlinked brief text descriptions that take on the characteristics of a publisher’s page. Publishers can place them in line with other text to better blend the ad and promote your product.

For example, you might see the following text link embedded in a publisher’s recommendatory text: “Widgets are fun! I encourage all my friends to Buy a high-quality widget today.” (Mousing over the link will display “Ads by Google” to identify these as pay-per-action ads).

Though the maximum length of a text link is 90 characters, we’ve found that shorter links perform better because they allow the publisher use the link in more places on her/his site and in different context. The maximum length is 90 characters but less than 5 words is best. Even better, just use your brand name to offer maximum flexibility to the publisher.

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My Gaming News Cheats 999

Xbox Live gamers frustrated by more service interruptions

XBOX Live gamers have reported being unable to download a free game offered as compensation for network service interruptions – due to more service interruptions.

Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, which allows Xbox gamers to play against each other and download content over the internet, suffered ongoing problems over the holiday period.

This week Microsoft released a free downloadable copy of the game Undertow to Xbox Live users as compensation for the interruptions. But when gamers went to download it, they found that the service was out again.

“Can’t retrieve information from Xbox Live. Please try again later,” read a screenshot posted to the Opposable Thumbs blog on technology website Ars Technica.

Gamers posting on the blog reported a range of experiences. Some had no difficulty downloading the game, while others said they had received the error message several times.

The Xbox Live service requires a subscription to use. In Australia subscriptions cost about $100 per year.

After widespread interruptions to the service in December, three gamers in Texas launched a class action against Microsoft on behalf of Xbox Live users worldwide.

“In December 2007, Xbox Live crashed and prevented plaintiffs around the world from accessing online play for several weeks,” the gamers claimed in a document filed by Texas lawyer Jason A Gibson.

“Xbox Live continues to deny subscribers access and has even issued apologies for their failure to correct server problems.”

The gamers – Shannon Smith, Keith Kay and Orlando Perez – claimed Xbox Live’s 8 million users had suffered damages in excess of $US5 million and accused Microsoft of breach of contract, breach of warranty and negligent misrepresentation.

IT lawyer Erhan Karabardak said it was unlikely a similar action could be launched against Microsoft by Xbox Live users in Australia, but that they would potentially be included in any outcome of the US case.

Microsoft has not yet responded to the suit.

Local Xbox lounges, where gamers can rent time on an Xbox 360 console and play online or locally with their friends, said they had noticed the outages but were not seriously affected.

Staff at Game On in Sydney said the disruptions had been “minor inconveniences” and the company had not suffered a downturn in customers over the holiday period.

Callan Black, director of Players Lounge in Sydney, said customers and staff had experienced “massive problems” with the Xbox Live service in December but had weathered the storm without significant losses.

“Most customers settled for playing offline or locally-networked games to replace the crippled (Xbox) Live servers, but not happily and we had to refund a few customers,” he said.

“We did not suffer any significant losses or noticeable drop in customers, it was more just a nuisance that is still being remembered and joked about with many a religious pun due to its timing.

Tags: MSN, Microsoft, Microsoft+Live, XBOX

Google is Becoming Wikipedia Without the Talk Page

 

In a recent post about paid links, Danny Sullivan wrote about how Google’s army of engineers are going to start hand editing PageRank scores if they think you are selling links, which is a move that wreaks of desperation.

Whoops! Ask.com complaint to FTC is an EPIC mistake

Posted by Declan McCullagh

A afire bandage of pro-regulation aloofness groups fabricated a adventurous accomplishment a few canicule ago to argue the Feds to forcibly cull the bung on a new affection on the Ask.com chase engine.

The groups, which accommodate the Electronic Aloofness Advice Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, told the Federal Barter Commission on Saturday that that a academic admonition was all-important to arrest some allegedly pernicious practices on the allotment of Ask.com.

The alone problem? Those allegedly pernicious practices don’t absolutely exist.

Ask.com already had voluntarily afflicted the way it handled its new aloofness affection weeks earlier. This self-appointed aggregation of advanced nonprofits, which additionally includes Customer Action, was benumbed to accompany to amends a botheration that had continued back vanished (and that’s bold it existed in the aboriginal place).

By way of background, this accurate aggregation disagreed with the way Ask.com implemented a aloofness affection declared AskEraser. The abstraction is that instead of recording your chase agreement for a year or two the way added chase engines do (see our analysis from August), Ask.com was alms never to save them at all.

AskEraser is angry on or off by a articulation on Ask.com that changes the amount of a cookie titled, analytic enough, “askeraser.” Originally, back AskEraser launched aftermost month, the amount of the cookie was set to the time that the account was activated.

Instead of applauding the abstraction as conceivably awry but bigger than the cachet quo, EPIC et al. formed themselves into a accompaniment of aerial dudgeon. (These are the aforementioned groups that already claimed Google’s Gmail account was illegal.) They beatific a letter to Ask.com on December 19 adage the timestamp–down to the second, but not a atom of a second–could be acclimated as a affectionate of different tracking number.

They had a point. If Ask.com encounters a thousand bodies signing up for AskEraser per second, the abeyant aloofness advance is basal (everyone has the aforementioned timestamp). If alone one being per additional signs up for AskEraser, however, the abeyant aloofness advance is college (the timestamp is unique).

Which is why Ask.com afflicted the cookie amount in aboriginal January to be aloof “off” or “on”–meaning there’s no best the aforementioned affectionate of aloofness issue. Unfortunately for the pro-regulatory aloofness activists, they never absolutely arrested afore battlefront off their this-illegal-practice-must-be-halted cannonball on Saturday. It said that the FTC must:

- Order Ask.com to abjure AskEraser from the marketplace.

- Order Ask.com to cease agreeable in and arbitrary ambiguous barter practices.

- Require Ask.com, as a action of alms AskEraser in the approaching to:

a) Cease application the opt-out cookie

b) Cease creating a Persistent Identifier on customers

c) Provide allusive apprehension if the account will be disabled…

- Order Ask.com to annul all ahead retained information, afore the accomplishing of AskEraser.

- Order Ask.com to acquaint all accepted users of AskEraser, by arresting apprehension displayed on the Ask.com Web site, that they should annul the Ask.com AskEraser cookie.

And so on. Now, I accept that anyone can err. And in actuality I’ve accepted the association at EPIC to be careful, honest, and principled, alike if I may disagree with them from time to time. I anticipate this is an honest mistake.

But this adventure is advantageous to agenda because it exposes how the Washington convenance of advancement groups application federal agencies to demolition political enemies can be beggared of facts and logic. (From EPIC’s perspective, this was declared to be a no-lose situation: it’s a win if AskEraser is taken off the market, and if the Republican-led FTC refuses to do so, the FTC and the Republican appointees can be airtight as comparatively acute to “privacy interests.”)

For his part, Ask.com agent Nicholas Graham told me on Tuesday:

EPIC’s weekend filing apropos AskEraser is both awry and unfortunate. It’s adverse in the faculty that Ask.com approved to appoint in a effective chat with the accumulation aftermost week, and was rebuffed. Aloofness is an affair that demands accord and affiliation amid online companies and advocates, for the account of all consumers. Ask.com’s accord with the Center for Democracy & Technology is proof-positive of that.

EPIC’s filing is awry in the faculty that the certificate they filed is absolutely inaccurate, and artlessly shows a axiological confounding of the functionality of our product. In addition, abounding of the issues they accession are outdated, while others are absolutely bearded from the outset, and others accord with changes that Ask.com already fabricated to AskEraser weeks ago, and were after acquaint about on our website.

EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg replied to me in e-mail on Tuesday evening:

If Ask has now anchored the problem, (1) that agency we were right, (2) they should accept responded to our letter. But that doesn’t break the botheration with opt-out cookies, which I anticipate you will accede is a absurd access that does not scale, i.e. it requires users to accumulate accolade for all the companies they don’t appetite to be tracked by. Alike the FTC should be able to see the problem.

Rotenberg is appropriate that application opt-out accolade may not be the cleanest architecture technique. If I were coding it, I’d accept created a appropriate “ask.com/eraser” site–the aforementioned way Google set up its google.com/unclesam government chase — or a private.ask.com subdomain. No accolade would be needed.

Then again, I’m not buried to how Ask.com’s software is advised and the trade-offs that would be involved. Added to the point, probably, companies should accept adaptability in how they try to action new aloofness features–and it’s hardly bright that a agglomeration of abiding Washington assembly or FTC bureaucrats apperceive added about scalable software engineering than, well, absolute software engineers. As continued as Ask.com is honest about what it’s doing, and it seems to be in its FAQ, it should be accustomed to accumulate on alms new features.

There’s one added catechism account asking: if EPIC and CDD and their brainy allies believed they had such a able case, why not book an absolute accusation instead of allurement the FTC to undertake an analysis that would acceptable booty bisected a year or added to complete?

After all, EPIC is staffed by attorneys, and their complaint to the FTC alleges that AskEraser is, above any doubt, “an arbitrary business practice.” If true, that would breach accompaniment customer aegis laws, including California’s area 17200, which says clandestine attorneys may sue a aggregation agreeable in “unfair” business practices.

I anticipate I apperceive what the acknowledgment is. Judges accept little backbone for plaintiffs that decay their time. If this had been a lawsuit, a adjudicator ability able-bodied accept fined EPIC et al. for crumbling his time with barmy claims, and its agents attorneys ability alike accept been accountable to alone sanctions.

Lawsuits, in added words, accept risks. Battlefront off an inaccurate letter to the federal bureaucracy, on the added hand, alone after-effects in the sender attractive a little silly. The abutting time you see them accusatory to the FTC about some declared wrongdoing, bethink these attorneys’ odd abhorrence to litigate.

Angry Blogging Times - Yahoo News

Crazy Aussie!!!

Google vs Text Link Ads

By WebGrafix

Google has reached a monopolistic milestone with its recent changes to the treatment of paid links. While I believe they are still operating within reason, they are edging ever closer to the danger zone, after which I will not be surprised to see regulatory intervention.

Recent changes to Google’s index have been focused around the treatment of paid links. Since Google’s PageRank algorithm relies on the quality and quantity of links between sites, paid links can potentially skew the index. In an effort to reduce the effect of paid links on their index, Google has recommended that webmasters either use “rel=nofollow” for these links, or not have paid links at all. As for enforcing these rules, Google has recently begun punishing sites by manually reducing the PageRank for sites involved in the buying and selling of links, most notably Text Link Ads.

Google and Text Link Ads have similar revenue streams; both companies make their money selling paid links. In Google’s case, these links are displayed on their own web site, which features a free and extremely popular search engine. Google also distributes these ads on other web sites, aka the Content Network, who’s site owners receive a percentage of the ad revenue from Google. Text Link Ads does not have content of their own for displaying advertising, but they do have the equivalent of their own Content Network, where advertisers can pick and choose web pages that they want their ads displayed on.

Google knows where and how it has placed advertising throughout the web, so they have no problem ignoring these ads when they crawl the Internet. But links placed through companies like Text Link Ads are more difficult for Google to discern, and can thereby affect how Google calculates PageRank for the sites involved. Google’s solution for this is the “rel=nofollow” attribute. Of course, one of the advantages of being an advertiser on Text Link Ads is that you may get the added benefit of PageRank juice. But now that Google is punishing paid linkers, customers of Text Link Ads are themselves at risk.

From one perspective, you have Google and Text Link Ads as direct competitors. Each sells advertising, in the form of text links, which are displayed throughout the web, and link back to the advertiser. But Google, with its majority share of search traffic, has begun punishing web site owners for being customers of Text Link Ads. If you want to use Text Link Ads, they tell us, you risk losing your place in our index. Considering the amount of referring traffic that Google is responsible for, most web sites can not afford this tradeoff.

From the other perspective, Text Links Ads just needs to add “rel=nofollow” to all the links they sell. Their advertisers still get their links, placed exactly where they want, and the resultant traffic. They no longer get any PageRank benefit, but it’s not really our place to tell Google how to run their search engine. There’s a reason they are #1.

Tags: text+link+ads, google, page+rank, link+bait, link+juice, text+link+ads