No one noticed what was really going on while Google was penalizing PageRank

I’ll start this post about paid links with a quote from one of the finest pieces of science fiction ever.

As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition.

-The Vogons at the start of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This of course would cause a reaction on earth since no one had ever had communication with another planet. This prompts the following statement:

There is no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri…so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Blogosphere and Webmaster world, the debate on paid links ended years ago.

Way back when the nofollow tag was introduced. Remember? Oh, yeah, we were supposed to start putting nofollow on affiliate links and stuff like that.  Doing so was supposed to keep your site from being penalized from linking to sites that should not be linked to. At least, that is what we were told.

This was supposed to be a standard for the Web.

Just like <h1> headings and other html code that is standardized. Yep, those same people that check their site to make sure their page code is validated may be the same ones complaining about being penalized for paid links.

We were told to start using nofollow long ago to keep our page’s ranking and reputation in order.

It was added to WordPress comments because it was hoped that this would discourage spam commenters from taking advantage of blogs. It did not work and we now have more effective comment moderation plugins so now we remove the nofollow on comments on blogs.

That was not the only reason for nofollow.

There was a bit of a fuss as major affiliate networks changed their links.

Some complained when Commission Junction switched. Java links are now common because they do not transmit PageRank or link authority. So is flash.

What do you mean, you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri?…I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that’s your lookout.

Energize the demolition beams.

Google has just kind of fired the gun into the air.

As far as I understand, none of the pages hit by the PageRank slap were actually penalized in the search rankings. We could consider it a wake up call. Laying in front of the bulldozer is not going to stop it.

Worse things are coming and may already be here.

I did not realize or remember any of this till I read on a forum that someone found some of his Websites had been removed from MSN/LiveSearch completely. The only thing in common with the delisted sites was use of paid links.

MSN and LiveSearch may already have started to penalize paid links.

I don’t know..

…apathetic, bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all.

-Vogon Leader

While all the focus has been on the Google PageRank slap, MSN and LiveSearch may already be moving farther along. Eventually, Yahoo probably will too. This is the way it was decided long ago.

Many think that soon Google will start to penalize in the search rankings for bad links out from your site.

If you do not have a nofollow tag on a link to a commercial site or affiliate link, you may be looking at a penalty. It is not just Text Link Ads. Microsoft has the patent for link strength cancellation in link lists. It will not just be Google.

What bloggers need to do.

Check your links to see where you are linking to. Should you be promoting that site with a link? Or, should it be a nofollow link? Your link reputation depends on it.

Do I like this?

NO! I think it goes a bit too far. I think it is even possible that some of those who were in on the nofollow tag did not see it as being used in this manner. I have made my feelings clear about the situation on my post about the Google PageRank slap.

However, it is really too late to do anything about it.

Other options to paid links will come out. Good content will still be valuable. We will just have to figure out how to replace the nice income from paid links.

If you found this post useful, please bookmark me at your favorite social site.

Free keyword research has now gotten a lot more difficult to find.

*Edit: It now seems that rumors about the death of the Overture Keyword Research tool have been premature.  It is still running, although at reduced responsiveness.  It is still believed that Yahoo does plan to replace the Overture Keyword Tool.  I have decided to leave this post up because it does look like the Free Overture Keyword Research Tool will eventually be taken down.*

The Yahoo Overture tool that most free keyword research tools used has been taken off-line.

  This makes researching keywords for your articles much more difficult, if not expensive.

There is no cheap or free replacement for developers who develop keyword research tools.

This means there are no longer very many free keyword research tools anymore.  There’s the Google Keyword External Tool, NicheBOT Classic, and the halfway working tool at Digital Point.

Keyword research is a very important part of Internet marketing and website development.

It looks like it is also going to be costly.  Some of the paid keyword research tools are very expensive.  And you will need to do a lot of keyword research with them in order to make them pay for themselves.

If you need to do keyword research I suggest you take a look at NicheBOT.

 With NicheBOT you’ll also get access to Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker, two of the other paid keyword research tools.  NicheBOT also offers a lower price plan.  I believe they have a very inexpensive trial too.  You can watch the NicheBOT Wordtrend video here.

Give NicheBOT a try.  I’m sure you’ll find it one of the most useful keyword tools like I have.

NicheBOT Tour Page for $1 Trial Offer

WordTrend Video

I was getting a little bored with www.photographybyjet.com

Nothing seemed to be happening. As of yesterday, Google still had not indexed it. I think the only people that the Adsense adds were in front of were me and a few friends I had check it out. Www.photographybyjet.com had no traffic. The only addresses in the logs seemed to be bots (the googlebot seemed to be visiting but the googlebot URL’s had no data being downloaded).

I decided I would do something

I found a few directories that I could list the site on for free. I already wrote about the fun I had trying to submit a sitemap to Google. I added another article to the site (no problem updating the sitmap). I added a blank robots.txt file to the site to clear the error that always comes up when the bots cannot find it. In short, I did about as much as I could as I wait for Google to index the site. Still I wanted to try and do more.

Then I remembered the Overture credit that Lunar Pages offered when I signed up for hosting.

I figured I better activate it before it goes away. Overture is a little different than Google. When you create an account, they want you to start with a budget and pay first before you set up the rest of the account. I had to put an additional $30 on my credit card to use the $50 credit from Lunar Pages. Still, I thought I would eventually use it anyway.

I created two ads for www.photographybyjet.com and set them for the minimum bid ($.10).

With a daily budget of $1.00 I figured it would not get out of control and it might send a few viewers to the site. My ads got 13 clicks. Not bad for an amateur.

Not only that, but Google has finally indexed www.photographybyjet.com

Hurrah! Yeah! (insert any generic cheer here)!!

But wait, there’s more!

I decided to check my adsense account. I for the first time, have clicks. I have managed to make a small profit between the Overture (or do I call it Yahoo Search Advertising) and Google Adsense. Not much but it is a first step. I feel like that proud father watching his son take his first step. So what if it is only for a half step – he’s walking!

Interesting?

I brought people to the site with Overture and they left with Adsense. Now if I can get some more traffic without paying for it and increase the amount from Adsense or maybe add some affiliate links, I’ll have a business.

I can’t wait to see what happens when I get the next article up.

Book Review:

Authors:

Peter Kent
Jill K Finlayson

 How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google decribes a 3 way approach to running an online buisness.

 It is divided into 3 parts also:

1. Selling on eBay and running and eBay store
2. Using Yahoo! Merchandiser Services and using a Yahoo! Online Store and yahoo! Shopping
3. Marketing your business primarily with Google Adwords but also other ways.

One of How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo! & Google’s strong points is that Jill Finlayson worked as a category manager at eBay.

 I think this gives extra authority on the forst part of the book dealing with eBay. The authors point out many of the fine points that someone not 100% familiar with selling larger quanties of merchandise on eBay may have thought about. There is a good discussion of scaling our business for larger quantites. How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo! & Google also point out some services that are provided by eBay and 3rd parties to help you out.

The second part of How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo! & Google discusses using Yahoo! Merchandiser Services for an internet store.

 They run through some of the many advantages of using Yahoo! if you want to sell things on the Web. How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo! & Google  also goes through the process of actually setting up your on line store Web page with Yahoo!.

The last section of How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo! & Google  goes throught the ins an outs of using Google Adwords and other pay-per-click advertising to get the word out about your business.

 A good portion of this part of the book is about Google Adwords in particular. This section also talks about search engine optimisaton for your web site. I espescially found this part very helpful.

How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo! & Google is a book probably best for the owner of a brick-and-mortar business wanting to move it onto the internet. While How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo! & Google does talk about finding a product to sell on eBay with Yahoo!, they also point out that many areas of the Web are very price sensitive. This means you will need a very inexpensive source of supply if you want to sell the same thing everyone else is, be competitive, and make a profit. The authors do a good job of bring this up and working with it.

If you make your own product and it is somewhat unique, you will find it a lot easier to make a profit selling on the internet. This book would be an excellent starting place for planning a move to selling a product or group of products online.

Even though I do not have plans to open an online store or sell on eBay, I found it vey useful.

It has some very good short summaries on running Adword campains and on search engine optimization. It is not a guide to Google Cash. It is not a guide to complete Web site design for SEO. But if you are looking to move your business to the internet, it would definately make you much more successful than if you try to do it without a plan.