Matt Cutts 1 - DaveN 0

Not that I would ever actually keep score..(and if I was Matt would still be winning

Yesterday I posted reinclusion request indigo clothing

Today I have to issues an apology to Google… SORRY !

Matt Cutts Said :

and add to the list of Questions : DID YOU SELL LINKS IN THE PAST 6 MONTHS !

Re-examine your assumptions? E.g. http://web.archive.org/web/20070817163057/http://www.indigoclothing.com/blog/ is a link that shows when they were selling links. Later versions of their site were selling even more links, e.g. “sexy underwear” links.

Google has been very clear about how we feel about selling/buying links. If indigoclothing.com has dropped their text link ads and remove the links that they sold, they could do a reconsideration request. According to the data I looked at, the site has never done a reconsideration request.

And yes he is Bang on the Money, and has I said SES NYC and say again Buying and Selling links is just not worth the risk !

DaveN

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23 Comments | Leave a comment »

  1. 1. Joost de Valk | March 26th 2008 @ 11:39 am

    ok, cool, and now for Dell…

  2. 2. Andreas Voniatis | March 26th 2008 @ 11:43 am

    That makes sense, I remember on one particular site I own, my PR got zeroed as i had a tech that automated reciprocal link requests - months after I removed it - I got my PR back. The rankings didn’t change much thankfully, but I didn’t appreciate not being able to pass any votes. The site certainly didn’t offer to sell links, but I’m sure my tech didn’t help either.

  3. 3. JLH | March 26th 2008 @ 12:24 pm

    That’s a big difference than the meaningless slap on the wrist that reducing some people’s PageRank earlier was. Thanks for sharing.

  4. 4. DaveN | March 26th 2008 @ 12:48 pm

    JLH, this has been happening for months sites just bomb out of the serps, for buying or selling links, it’s very random and Human ( unless it’s on the TLA network )

    Dave

  5. 5. Matt Cutts | March 26th 2008 @ 4:06 pm

    Don’t give me too much credit; I just relayed the message. :)

  6. 6. Matt Cutts | March 26th 2008 @ 4:07 pm

    P.S. The bright side of this is that indigoclothing.com has a clear way forward if they want to use it.

  7. 7. DaveN | March 26th 2008 @ 4:09 pm

    yer for sure .. simple plead your case .. list all the abc’s and send in a reclusion request via webmastercentral..

    Dave

  8. 8. IndigoClothing | March 26th 2008 @ 4:18 pm

    My apologies too - I did mention to Dave yesterday we had used TLA in the past but cancelled our account about six month ago when I realised there was a conflict of interest with Google’s policy. Hence when hit by a penalty six months later I failed to put the two things together.

    I appreciate Dave sticking his neck out to help me with this and everyone who commented. We’ll submit a RR now.

  9. 9. sem4u | March 26th 2008 @ 4:58 pm

    Interesting…I used to do some work for a site in the same industry…still ranking well BTW :)

  10. 10. Michael VanDeMar | March 27th 2008 @ 4:35 am

    Ok, so… Matt, just to be clear, you are stating that the site was penalized for selling links 6 months after they stopped doing so? Not, they were penalized, you looked, saw the links, and decided to mention that might be the reason why… but rather that you know for a fact that Google penalized the site based on something that they fixed over half a year ago? Is that exactly what you are asserting here?

  11. 11. Kevin Newcomb | March 27th 2008 @ 6:28 pm

    I posted about this on Search Engine Watch (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080327-075716), and Matt e-mailed me to say it was not a retroactive punishment, but that “We first took action on this site months and months ago, back in 2007.” Does that fit with what you and Alex are seeing?

  12. 12. DaveN | March 27th 2008 @ 6:33 pm

    @Kevin Newcomb dunno I got asked about the site recently, so I can’t make comment on that

  13. 13. BobJones | March 27th 2008 @ 6:39 pm

    make sure you don’t publish my email address I thought the last spot was a space for email :)

  14. 14. DaveN | March 27th 2008 @ 7:03 pm

    Fixed lol

  15. 15. Anonymous | March 27th 2008 @ 7:16 pm

    Here is where Google’s position makes no logical sense.
    Check out this page:
    http://sports-ak.espn.go.com/mlb/clubhouse?team=nyy
    -see the ad and text link for StubHub “New York Yankees Tickets”:

    Check out this press release:
    ESPN and StubHub Team Up to Provide Tickets to Sports Fans
    http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=789288

    Here is my question:
    Did ESPN/Disney/ABC just “sell” a backlink to StubHub/Ebay? Should ESPN and StubHub lose all of their organic listings now?

  16. 16. webdiggr | March 27th 2008 @ 8:22 pm

    Hey Anonymous… those links are Javascript… its like basically putting a nofollow. According to Google, advertising links can be nofollowed, Javascript or numerous other link-types that will not pass “page rank.” So even though I love to burn Google on occasion, this particular case is just not one of the ones to bring against them ;)

  17. 17. webdiggr | March 27th 2008 @ 8:39 pm

    Again anonymous, just to make it clear I had a little chat with the advertisers for ESPN, here’s what they said:

    Please wait for a site operator to respond.
    You are now chatting with ‘Jason’

    Jason: Hi, how can I help you?

    you: hey jason…. are all the ad links you sell javascript?
    you: or can we buy non nofollowed text links too

    Jason: All our links are followed. We track every time that they appear on a site, as well as everytime they are clicked on.
    Jason: And the ad links are java script.

    you: no I mean the html attribute rel=nofollow on a text link. Javascript links aren’t followed by search engine spiders

    Jason: Yes, that is correct.

    you: uh ok thx!

    Jason: Are you looking to place an ad?

    you: I’m looking to buy non nofollowed text links. not Javascript links. so that they can affect search engine rankings as well as serve as ads

    Jason: Our ads have no effect on search engine rankings, however out system allows advertisers to bid on placements of their choice, such as CNNMoney, ESPN, Fox News, and AOL

    Jason: We also have a number of contextual offerings.

    you: contextual offerings? like within a sponsored article?
    you: straight html links?

    Jason: Contextual topics are like keywords. Certain sites on our network have their own sets of conextual topics.
    you: ahh but the ads there would be the same Js type links, like you have elsewhere except its presented with relevant content on the page right?
    you: like google sponsored ads

    Jason: Yes, you choose where your links will show up.
    Jason: the difference between our network and yahoo’s or google’s is the quality of the placements, and the ability for the advertisers to specifically choose the placements they want

    you: Thanks Jason you’ve been very helpful!
    you: have a great day

    Jason: You’re welcome.
    Jason: Is there anything else I can help with?

    you: Im good thx!

    So as you can see they dont sell linkjuice.

  18. 18. Tyler | March 27th 2008 @ 10:08 pm

    Yeah.. credit.com, paypal.com, need I go on?

  19. […] the punishments Google is handing down for paid links appear to be retroactive. On his blog, Naylor outlines the case of a site that was recently penalized for selling paid links more than six months ago. According to […]

  20. 20. IndigoClothing | March 29th 2008 @ 1:22 am

    Just to clarify, negative change in rankings happened this week only.

    Alex

  21. 21. Michael VanDeMar | March 30th 2008 @ 6:42 am

    Just to clarify, negative change in rankings happened this week only.

    Alex

    Alex, were you PageRank penalized already…?

  22. 22. IndigoClothing | March 30th 2008 @ 5:01 pm

    @Michael: yes, pr dropped from 5 to 3 about 3 months ago.

  23. 23. Brian | April 13th 2008 @ 6:21 pm

    @ webdiggr

    Actually you are wrong. Those links are valid. Either you work for stubhub OR you just started learning SEO. I am going to go with you work for stubhub…

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