Matt Cutts 1 - DaveN 0
- 26th Mar 2008
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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
23 Comments | Leave a comment »
ok, cool, and now for Dell…
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.
That’s a big difference than the meaningless slap on the wrist that reducing some people’s PageRank earlier was. Thanks for sharing.
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
Don’t give me too much credit; I just relayed the message. :)
P.S. The bright side of this is that indigoclothing.com has a clear way forward if they want to use it.
yer for sure .. simple plead your case .. list all the abc’s and send in a reclusion request via webmastercentral..
Dave
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.
Interesting…I used to do some work for a site in the same industry…still ranking well BTW :)
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?
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?
@Kevin Newcomb dunno I got asked about the site recently, so I can’t make comment on that
make sure you don’t publish my email address I thought the last spot was a space for email :)
Fixed lol
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?
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 ;)
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.
Yeah.. credit.com, paypal.com, need I go on?
[…] 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 […]
Just to clarify, negative change in rankings happened this week only.
Alex
Alex, were you PageRank penalized already…?
@Michael: yes, pr dropped from 5 to 3 about 3 months ago.
@ 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…