Paid Links Don’t Hurt Your PageRank Right? Matt Cutts?
Written by Pablo Palatnik on October 24, 2007
OK, so if you’re in tune with the blogosphere and what’s going on around the industry with the whole paid link and pagerank situation, everyone seems to be talking about it and at the end of the day, really not sure.
I’ll break this story down into a few other stories to illustrate my point. Loren Baker at SEJ wrote a post on Aug. 9th titled, “Goodbye Google PageRank?†where he quotes:
• “Toolbar PageRank numbers can be 3 months out of date or more.
• Some “PR Updates†have been buggy enough to seriously misrepresent a page’s real PR.
• Matt Cutts has blogged that PR Updates are considered pretty much a non-event around Google.
• PageRank has started a flawed econonmy of link building and trading in an effort to raise or distribute these scores.
In webmaster radio’s show, The Pulse episode “The Pulse October 2007 Paid Link Debate,†they say Matt Cutts says “hey, buying links will hurt your PageRank.†Ok, well if that’s the case, WHO CARES?
If Google considers the pagerank update or maybe just pagerank for that reason a “non-event†when it actually updates then maybe they just don’t really care too much in the tool or don’t believe it to be relevant.
Here are my thoughts: 1) PageRank is irrelevant and using it as a way to stop SEOs from purchasing links threatening to lower their scores or 2) PageRank is a relevant factor and underrated by Google on purpose to try and stop SEOs from manipulating their sites, link buying, etc…to raise the score.
What about purchasing links for ranking purposes in Yahoo and MSN?
2 Responses to “Paid Links Don’t Hurt Your PageRank Right? Matt Cutts?”
I think a websites TBPR and its rankings in Googles SERP’s are not directly associated.
So its only of concern to people who are selling links of their pages.
Links should be for traffic and not for additional green pixels in a toolbar..
Regards Aidan
By Aidan on Oct 29, 2007
No, you are right, they are not directly associated. Pagerank has just become a factor in how Google weighs a website but as you see, there are many debates about how relevant page rank really is.
I honestly think PR will hurt only those sites selling links on their site based on PR which could mean better deals for advertisers since rankings haven’t changed…or now a PR of 4 is the new 6. I think within the next few months it’ll be a bit more sorted out.
By Pablo Palatnik on Oct 29, 2007