Selling Your Page Rank (Full Version)

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Thomas Brunt -> Selling Your Page Rank (10/24/2003 9:48:01)

I just read an article that webmasters with hi Google PR sites can sell links from their site for $250 to $750 per month to Webmasters trying to improve their PRs. Apparently, it doesn't matter if you link to sites with similar content or not.

I would think the folks at Google will find a way to shut this practice down sooner or later. No?

t



_gail -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/24/2003 10:49:21)

Is the article online? I'd like to read it.

gail



Thomas Brunt -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/24/2003 11:26:47)

It came in a newsletter from SitePoint.

"Editor's Perspective
Sell Your Google PR for Big Bucks
With a PR of 8 for our homepage, SitePoint gets approached on a very regular basis by companies looking to buy even the shortest link on our homepage -- no matter where it is. To date, we've turned down every single request due two factors:

1.) We don't want to clutter our homepage with excessive links and distractions, especially as ad sales aren't our main revenue source.

2.) We want to maintain a very high standard of professionalism by serving one particular niche as best as possible. Links to unrelated sites don't help.

However, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea, there are many sites who could use a few thousand dollars per month to hire that extra employee or pay the bandwidth bills. I know of at least one site that is making $12,000 USD a month by selling links to whoever will buy them, whether the purchaser's content is related to the Website, or not.

Depending on your Google PageRank, you can easily charge $250-$750/month per link. Restrict the length of the link to 30 characters or three words, sell 12 spots, and you'll have a very nice revenue stream. "

Matt Mickiewicz, Vancouver BC
tribune@sitepoint.com



erinatkins -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/24/2003 11:52:42)

I am sure Google will not let people continue to do this - when they figure out people are doing this.

However you have to wonder how someone could prove that you are doing this.

I also have to wonder how they could stop this - ban links? How?

Erin



Thomas Brunt -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/24/2003 13:33:10)

I must admit that I don't know what I'm talking about, but I would think google could check to see if a page has certain characteristics that pages that sell links would have in common. The relevancy of the content of the sites you link to could become a factor in your own page rank.

The page rank score for a link could be put on a sliding scale such that a link from a page with lots of external links would be worth less than a link that comes from a page with a few.

I would guess there would be other things like that google could check for?



Mojo -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/24/2003 14:55:01)

Google knows people are doing this, but it is *very* difficult for them to prevent it (at this point in time).

Think about what makes Google unique - Page Rank. How would they prevent PR from sites with dissimilar content using current algo technology - and still keep PR intact for the rest of the web? There has been a lot of talk about G working with various contextual technologies, but that has yet to be proven.

There are *lots* of sites selling PR. Most of them are successful in passing PR. Many of them get caught by jealous competitors reporting them to G, but more often than not that takes some time. Usually, if you get caught G simply prevents your site from passing PR to other sites. This makes your external links worthless to sell. If you were doing some spam techniques to hide your efforts - G may give you a penalty - or worse.

As usual, if you get greedy your chances of getting caught are going to increase. BUT - I have seen sites that had 50 or more paid links hidden with Javascript and CSS. It is designed to look like a normal part of the site... sort of a 'click here to see a list of our site sponcers' type of thing. Click > and the links show themselves. One site has been passing PR for at least 5 months that I am aware of. They have a PR 7 [:)] and they were going to charge me $850 for 3 links for 2 months (2 month minimum).

I passed for a few reasons -
1) I found several PR6 sites where the most I am being charged is $9 per month (PR7 is much better than a PR6, but not *that* much better). It is a safer route to have many PR5/PR6 backlinks than 1 PR7. That said, for the right price I would buy a PR7 in a blink.
2) Most of the players that are willing to pay $100's per month for a link are selling pills, p@rn, loans or male extensions [:o] .
3) If G suddenly blocked the site from passing PR then I would be out $850.



Webwork -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/29/2003 8:47:08)

PageRank is broken and Google can thank itself for accelerating the process by promoting PR to the world. PageRank was conceived of an objective method - link popularity - of ranking the importance of websites. Once webmasters learned its role the profit motive lead people to exploit PageRank. Now, finding and trading links is a business unto itself, with webmasters hiring outsiders to solicit link exchanges. In the process the objective ranking assumption is rapidly being eroded. Perhaps the only solution will be to significantly devalue the role of PageRank. The dance for position will continue with webmasters seeking to exploit remaining insights into the ranking and listing process - leading to the degradation of search and the institutionalization of pay-for-position. When all search engines operate on a pay-for-position platform then the outcome will be that a directory will serve as well as a search engine and in many ways will be a better alternative. This analysis has fueled a little project I have been working on for 4 years.

http://www.directorycompany.com/About-search-engines.htm



magnolia -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/29/2003 10:05:46)

quote:

Apparently, it doesn't matter if you link to sites with similar content or not.


Chances are the only people reading the Sitepoint newsletter are people in the SEO community or closely connected. Therefore it could be a relevant if they were selling text links.


quote:

PageRank is broken and Google can thank itself for accelerating the process by promoting PR to the world.



I don't think Page Rank is broke, dead or on the way out. I think it and eveything else they use as part of their ranking algo's is in a constant state of change.

And I think it's in a constant state of change because people continually try to abuse it. Why people look to find ten ways to spam the engines for better rankings instead of creating high quality sites is beyond me.

And I don't think they've promoted it to the world, unless you are saying the world is a very small niche of people in the SEO community. Because they are the only ones that really know about Page Rank.

Personally, I don't see a problem with selling space on your newsletter, web site or blog. We used to call it advertising! The biggest newsletter in the SEO business, Search Engine Watch, sells ad space on it's front page.

To advertise that you're selling Page Rank is another issue entirely - and not a wise move IMO.



Webwork -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/30/2003 9:54:41)

quote:

And I don't think they've promoted it to the world, unless you are saying the world is a very small niche of people in the SEO community. Because they are the only ones that really know about Page Rank.


Anyone building commercial websites - webmasters, website designers, etc. know about Google's PageRank "Got links"? system.

If that's the "small niche" that matters then Google's PR is broken. Want proof? Search any word or phrase with comercial potential and tell me how many spammy sites, affiliate sites, entry page sites, etc. appear at the top of the SERPs.

Remember: The ONLY search that matters to Google's survival IS commercial search. Only search that has the potential to be commercially exploited pays the salaries of people working at the GooglePlex.

It's an interesting catch-22 for a search engine that built its reputation on its "unbiased" search results. Google won't offer paid listings in its SERPs but, if not, then every webmaster building commercial sites will make that offer - "Pay me and I'll tweak your site until it shows up first for these keywords".

That small niche of people building millions of commercial dot com websites are always hard at work, doing everything they can, to bring about a bias in favor of their little dot com.

quote:

Why people look to find ten ways to spam the engines for better rankings instead of creating high quality sites is beyond me.


Why? Let's see....? Money?

quote:

To advertise that you're selling Page Rank is another issue entirely - and not a wise move IMO.


People don't have to advertise that they are selling PageRank. Most PR is bought without advertising, by webmasters contacting high PR sites and asking for deals.



tinaalice -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (10/31/2003 17:37:07)

I get sitepoint but I've not read it, yet it's much more than just seo btw. Mmmm I had no idea 7/10 was a good ranking because that is what my site has and I don't think I get that many hits - would hits equate to site ranking anyway? I thought it was linkbacks not hits how can one tell the site gets visited enough?.

No wonder I get mounds of emails that look like they were sent from a robot asking for linkbacks ... and nothing to with my subject matter, I just thought it was 'normal' spam.

I think perhaps my ranking is as high as 7 because I made it a practice to link to good sites in my subject matter and ask for them back now and again before google got started with the idea...

Am I wrong in thinking that page rank don't always reflect many hits?

Tina



Mojo -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/2/2003 21:27:29)

quote:

Am I wrong in thinking that page rank don't always reflect many hits?


You are not wrong. PR has nothing to do with hits - It is determined by types of backlinks.

There is some suspicion that G (and other SE's) may give a boost in the rankings for popular sites, but that is not a rule. [:)]



tinaalice -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/3/2003 14:36:12)

In that case ... when you sell space on the homepage for 'sponsers' your going to have to show you get the hits as well as the rank? So I don't think google could prove you were doing this unless you said you were of course...

I should think though the site would fall in ranking because of the off subject info on the homepage depends how they did presented it though.

ah well I suspect the rank does not really matter it's the hits...

Tina



Mojo -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/3/2003 15:12:22)

quote:

ah well I suspect the rank does not really matter it's the hits...


For me (and many others) it is the PR. I don't give a whit about the traffic I can get from a PR7 because I can generate targeted traffic myself. The nice backlinks provide the off-site optimization that Google requires. IMO, off-site optimization is the most important aspect for successfully spamming Google.



tinaalice -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/3/2003 19:35:19)

The nice backlinks provide the off-site optimization that Google requires. IMO, off-site optimization is the most important aspect for successfully spamming Google.

I don't understand what you just said above...

Plus you want the a link from a 7/10 + because that helps your PR? Which gives you a higher standing in google ... which presumbly you want because it gives you more hits and of course sales. That the madness behind the madness? - otherwise I give up trying to understand this.

Tina



burgi82 -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/4/2003 10:27:21)

that is exactly it! It's that simple really!



Mojo -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/4/2003 12:33:50)

quote:

That the madness behind the madness?


Yep! I had a nice reply all written out, but my computer/browser crashed at the post time....

Anyhow - Take a look at the post above by burgi82 [:o] - See the links at the bottom? Notice how they are not simple links like your (tinaalice) links? They are well-formed for Search Optimization (a nice sounding phrase for SE spam [:D]).

Instead of just backlinks... burgi82 has backlinks with the keywords relating to the site they are linking to...

This is much, much better than just links. Most forums don't allow links, but since OF does, you may as well properly form them.

P.S. - I don't list my sites due to the fact that I sell profitable products.... I have no interest in helping to inform future competitors!



tinaalice -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/4/2003 18:18:09)

I have that happen to me soooo many times ... I know exactly how you feel .. I hate it especially when I've done research in order to answer .. now I try to write it in notepad <grin> then cut and paste.

Thank goodness I finally 'got' it:)

I see what you mean about the links - I'll have a think about it.

Tina



burgi82 -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/8/2003 12:54:12)

yes, that is exactly why I have my sites in my sig, and also using the keywords, eventhough I could also use the URL's of the sites, since the contain the keywords, all separated from the other words in the domain by a -.
But, not only PR is important, the anchor text is also important, which is why I have domains that use the targetted keywords in the domain, and why I put the target words in the anchor text, as done in my sig.



Gotzhaus -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/19/2003 4:11:43)

I follow what a PR is and how it works. But I cant help but wounder, are these the "link" pages that I see on other sites?



burgi82 -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/19/2003 10:48:23)

yes, link pages help to get PR. People exchange links, so that they get higher PR.



Reflect -> RE: Selling Your Page Rank (11/19/2003 11:56:29)

quote:

But I cant help but wounder, are these the "link" pages that I see on other sites?


There are link pages and then there are link pages done right. You want some on page content. Also the way the link is structured will make a difference. Use the Google toolbar with I.E. when scouting these out and it will help you decide if basing solely for PR. Also take into account if the off site links are going through a redirect script or using heavy JS as these will stop the PR flow outwards.

I did the last sentence for a site owner last month. They wanted NO PR passed off site. I setup a perl redirect script. I then masked the link with some JS so the status bar would show the link as being a straight non dynamic link. I actually thought about doing this on my sites but if I came across it I would notice in the code so I assumed others would. This would put me off from a link swap so I decided against it.

Brian



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