Next Google PageRank Update
Are you ready for the next Google PageRank Update? Once again, I see people scrambling around at the last minute, trying to get as many backlinks to their site, etc… in an attempt to gain a higher PageRank. I am getting a lot of pings from this new viral link blog meme that is spreading like wildfire in the blogosphere. This new blog meme is blasting its way into the home page of hundreds of blogs.
…the basic concept is to increase the number of backlinks to your blog which, in turn, will have a positive effect on your future Google page rank.
- RugJeff
I am sorry to say, but this is the last thing you would want to do before a Google PageRank update. You are cheating the system. Not only that, but you are publicly admitting to it. Google isn’t stupid. And Google doesn’t like viral linking blog memes. I am sure I will get bashed and trashed for taking a stand and speaking up. But It doesn’t seem like anyone else is going to do it. So, I feel I have no choice but to publish this article as a warning.
The reason why others haven’t done so, is because they know its bad and they don’t say anything about it because it keeps their competition low. If you are an A Lister and have 1000’s of emerging blogs in the blogosphere competing with you, why in your right mind would you tell people, “Hey, don’t do that… it’s bad for your blog!”
Viral Link Blog Memes Are Bad!
* Note: The JohnChow Link… ‘ah, he just got banned from Google. If increasing PageRank is your goal and getting a better presence in the search engines, then do you really want your site affiliated with his?
*screenshot from The Next Big Thing .tv
No one who you compete with is going to tell you that viral link exchange blogs memes are bad. Well, two people will, and neither are competing with you, both want to help. Google for one, is very clear on their quality guidelines. In fact, I am not trying to be rude, but they have written their guidelines so clearly that my 9 year old son can understand it.
The second person who is telling you about it is me! Do not participate in programs that are designed to trick the system. Do not link to other sites unless there is a certain level of relevancy and quality in their content. If you participate in programs like this, you are sentencing your blog to a slow and painful death.
Here is a copy of a portion of Google’s Quality Guidelines. Ironically, the section is titled, “Basic Principles”. And if a site author can’t comply with basic principles, or in other words, no brainer guidelines, then why would Google include your blog in their index? I would imagine that Google feels like if people who can’t follow basic rules are a liability or a hazard. Therefore, they don’t want to have anything to do with folks who can’t understand or follow simple rules.
Quality guidelines – basic principles
- Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
- Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
- Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Goldâ„¢ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
Source: Google Webmaster Guidelines
How much more clear do they have to be? Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank! HELLO!!!!
If you want traffic to your blog, if you want to rank well in Google, if you want your posts to appear on the first page of their results page, if you want to have an increase in PageRank, etc…. etc… etc…
Visit this little page here and memorize it.
I am not trying to make enemies, I am not trying to burn any bridges, I am trying to protect people who are interested in running a healthy and successful blog. Most importantly, I am protecting the people who read my site on a regular basis. The longer I blog, the more I take in. I have experience with viral link memes and they do not work. They only cause harm. No one else wants to ‘man up’ and communicate this, so I will.
If you want a healthy and successful blog. Do what you have been doing. Be different, be unique and write original content. Don’t copy and paste from Wikipedia. Don’t copy content from other blogs, and don’t try to cheat the systems that major search engines have developed and designed towards making “Search” a wonderful experience by purposely and publicly trying to alter the number of links that point to your site. Make use of the rel=nofollow tag. Make use of the robots.txt file. Make use of article discovery using sitemap.xml. That is the key to success! If people like what you write and if people like your content, they will voluntarily link to it. And that my friends, is what Google looks for.
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26 comments
Dear Gary
Thank you for publishing my web site as an example of how not to blog! Many of my posts are about quantity over quality. Have a read of the Cult of Blog at http://www.thecultofblog.com and you’ll get an idea of my angle. I know many of the people on the list and they are great bloggers and have the best intentions in the world. Many of the blogs are “thinking” blogs with some very good writing. My motive in publishing this is to see what the result is in terms of traffic. Best Blogs Ever http://www.bestblogsever.com will be reviewing each site individually to see if those I don’t already know are worthy of inclusion.
I’m sure we all know the google rules, many on the list didn’t ask to be included they just were by other fans. We all blog to be read, can you or google blame people for trying to reach an audience?
Jonathan,
You know, if I can go one day pissing off just one person, then my life would be cake. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I am not attacking you as a person. But I am pointing out that viral linking and blog memes of this nature are bad.
When you say, “Many of my posts are about quantity over quality”, what do you mean by that? Do you mean to say that you favor harvesting a link farm over producing quality content? If so, then do you also expect to rank well in Google?
Your post is an example of how to NOT blog if you are interested in ranking well in Google. If you care less about Google and ranking well in their search engine, carry on and keep posting viral blog memes.
I have just visited The Cult of Blog dot Com. This site looks great. You are blogging about tons of things. Nothing wrong there… but again, I just skimmed over it. The first post has that viral link scheme though, and that isn’t good. I don’t judge you. I could care less what you blog about. That’s what blogs are for.
My concern again is this:
This is misleading, this is harmful and it will not help your blog one bit with increasing PageRank.
I couldn’t agree more… and that is why I am taking a stand. Because I want to see these blogs all be successful.
I am even on the list! Jonathan, if you are a thinker… you need to think about what I am saying.
There is no doubt in my mind that you will get a lot of direct referral traffic from this. The amount of traffic I am getting today from this viral link meme is what lead me to write the article. But, what would you rather have… 100 visits from a viral link blog meme that could potentially get your penalized or banned from Google, or would you rather see 1000’s of visits delivered from Google?
Further explanations and justifications doesn’t change Google’s guidelines. I feel for you. Your beef shouldn’t be with me. I didn’t write the Google Webmaster Guidelines… I am just here to remind my friends about them.
Actually, many people don’t know the rules… otherwise we wouldn’t be having thousands of blogs participate in these viral link exchanges and memes and Matt Cutt’s wouldn’t have a day job. The people that are on the list will not be affected by this… as Google understands that an author can’t control who links to them… but the people who could be affected are the ones who contribute and participate in these type of memes.
Nope! And there is a right way and a wrong way going about it. Viral linking blog memes are not the route you want to take if you are also trying to rank well in Google. Again, if you could careless about search engine marketing, then by all means… Viral it up! It’s a great way to get traffic. No mystery there… but again, the point I am communicating is the fact that blog memes like this don’t mix well with your SEO efforts.
Thanx for the great info! So the Google guys actually delete a blog from their index huh? Scary.
The guys at Google do oversee that sites they include in their index are within their quality guidelines. I would believe that they can make adjustments towards dropping your site lower in their search results page as well as deleting your site from their index completely.
Check out these links to learn more about a very famous blogger who recently experienced the sh?# hitting the fan:
http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/john-chow-vs-google-guess-whos-winning34383.html
http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/why-we-rank-1-for-john-chow-and-why-you-shouldnt-mess-with-google.html
then to keep things fair here are John Chow’s smooth talking cover up and brainwashing responses:
http://www.johnchow.com/feeling-the-power-of-google-pagerank-6/
http://www.johnchow.com/google-updating-algorithm/
http://www.johnchow.com/taking-back-the-number-1-for-make-money-online/
http://www.johnchow.com/its-all-about-pushing-the-limit/
http://www.johnchow.com/live-by-the-google-die-by-the-google/
http://www.johnchow.com/live-by-the-google-die-by-the-google-part-2/
In summary, he gained a PR6. The power went to his head. He bloated about how much traffic he got from Google and how well he was doing because of Google… a few weeks later, Google made an adjustment and he was no longer ranked for his precious “Make Money Online” keyword, which later he admits he only got about 100 hits per day from. Two days later, he bounced back up and took over the spot again and then a week later he was <-{SPANKED}-> so bad that he currently doesn’t even pull up when some one types his freaking own personal name! But now, his is down playing it… acting as if it’s not such a big deal. Which who cares… maybe it isn’t. But then if that’s the case, then why go preaching about it for a month and then pretend like it was no big deal. John Chow made mistakes, and he has covered them up like a cat covers up it’s own crap in a kitty liter box … not very well.
Sorry for the big ramble… Yes, you can get banned from Google.
Hi Gary
Hey you know I don’t have a beef at all. I just find it interesting that you promote My Blog Log and Blog Catalog. In both cases the major discussion and actually the sites themselves are rife with viral links and self promotion. Lets ban stumble upon and technorati while we are at it. Oh and you know any advertising featuring women in bikinis is the devils work.
Try this
http://www.15blogs.com
Jonathan,
If you are referring to my sidebar widgets, they are written in Javascript… and they are not machine readable. So when search engine bots such as, Googlebot, comes to my site to crawl for new content, they can not see the MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog widgets. And also for that matter, any link that is machine readable that I have up on my site that is questionable, I slap a rel=nofollow to it. As far as Stumble, Digg, and Technorati? Man, you are now comparing apples to oranges. I am talking about individual blogs who want to rank well in Google and whom also feel that participating in blog memes will help their PageRank. As far as sex and bikinis, i am not quite sure what you mean by that. Please explain.
As always the shortcut do not work. But usually helping each other has been a good way to get better. It is sad but brand new blog like mine, wants to get notice on Google the soonest. Viral train are helpful to start, at list I think one way or the other you get noticed. Site like yours are more likely to get penalized but new blogs I do not think, it is better 1% of something than 100% of nothing.
Francesco
Francesco,
Blog memes do work… they work fine. But what I am saying is that they don’t work for increasing PageRank. They don’t help you with SEO they harm your SEO efforts.
If you want to participate in viral link exchanges, that is fine. I am not judging anyone that participates. People have paths to choose. You can choose to get traffic from search engines or you can choose to get traffic from blog memes. I choose search engines. And I choose voluntary word of mouth… or direct referral. Meaning, if someone enjoys my site and they add my site to their blogroll, nothing wrong with that!
But slapping 100+ external links within on post is like harvesting a link farm… and those 100 sites that this one page links to, each of these individual pages also link to 100+ external links… It’s no good for SEO. No good at all. Does it give you traffic? I think so… but in the long run you are cheating yourself out of a lot more that can be given to you via the search engines.
Good work my friend. I love when someone has the guts to open up and say what nobody else will. I love posts and topics that bring forth controversy and disagreements.
Blogging is meant to be fun, exciting and informative. I have very little problem playing games like these or linking to other blogs that ask. And to tell you the truth, I could give a hoot what Google thinks. It’s my blog and I will continue running it like I see fit, good or bad in the eyes of the almighty Google.
I appreciate your honesty and helpful SEO insight. And even though you are completely correct, I will continue to play along just because I can.
before the last page rank update, BAYB was mentioned in a huge meme train where we got tons of backlinks. Im pretty sure thats the reason why we didnt increase and stayed at a pr4
Gary, thanks for the response, now I am more conscious about it. I definitely like search engine traffic rather than fake viral, I will try to stick with your good advise to increase the SEO result.
Francesco
Rugjeff,
Great comment man, you are a total class act! Now, that’s taking a stand. You know, there is nothing wrong with blog memes. But unfortunately, this is a situation where you don’t get to have the cake and eat it too. If you do, you put yourself at a risk with the Google gods. But that doesn’t matter with folks who focus on other means of gaining traffic. Can you get away with participating? Sure! How many times? Not sure… Every time instance adds to the risk. Just curious, what % of your total traffic comes from Google? It appears that you do well in the SERPs.
@ Matthew,
You are fine. Your blog does everything you would want it to in regards to Google search engine marketing. When you or someone writes a post on your site they pull up in Google. Your blog has a PR4 and that is enough weight towards getting your articles sitting nicely in Google.
Would it be cool to have a PR5 or even PR6? Sure!
Is it needed for SEM? Not really, your site does fine in the SERSP.
You or I or anyone else, except Google, will know the answer to that one. But there is nothing wrong with a PR4. I will take that any day! PR4 seems to be the breaking threshold measurement where articles start appearing well in Google.
@ Francesco,
No problem. If you are aiming to do well in search engines, then creating posts that have over 100 external links to random different blogs (related or unrelated to your own) isn’t the best thing to do. However, if you don’t care about search engines and want to channel traffic on you own, then by all means, participate in viral linking blog memes. If you have a healthy blog and it is in a good standing order with the search engines, at the close of the day, I think one would find more traffic coming from the search engines than the viral linking blog memes.
Good points Garry. I have been in the meme’s you participated too and for a beginner it was a tremendous help to get noticed by other bloggers. I have found a lot of bloggers I am friends with now through those.
But, now that I understand what those memes can translate to for a search engine, I have stopped. I would rather gain backlinks because someone thinks my content is useful.
Off topic, why did you change your theme man? I thought you a lot of effort in designing the other theme and I loved it! This one isn’t bad either and I’m sure coming from Dosh Dosh it is probably highly tuned for Adsense.
It’s a very nice theme to work with. I don’t have a lot of time anymore to troubleshoot errors in programming and poorly written code. This new theme as it does look a little standardized, it does offer a lot of stability, it is very easy for me to maintain, and the colors are pretty cool. They offer a total of three css color formats. I was getting script errors, bounced or lost comments, etc… my last theme was just way too unstable. It had the look but not the bite!
Hey Gary,
Great article.
I’ve got two blogs that I post on frequently. One of them is strictly for business purposes, and I stay away from the meme’s and link trains.
The other one is strictly for fun and that’s where I participate in the link trains. Personally, it really doesn’t matter to me if this one gets updated by Google or not. That’s what the first one is for.
I’m finding that it’s like going from the job, to the party. One is for professionalism, the other is for cutting loose and having fun.
Thanks for the information.
Which site is your business blog?
The fact that you had to ask that question tells me I need to work a little harder. LOL
The Sapheyerblu Review is the one I consider my professional blog. Redhead Rants is my fun blog.
Of course I think I need to go back and work on the first one a little more.
Oh no… I didn’t mean any disrespect, I just don’t know your history.. I didn’t know if the blog your name links to was your personal one or not?
Opps… I guess in my last comment, I stuck my foot in my mouth!
Sorry about that!
It’s ok, don’t sweat it. I’m used to constructive critizism.
I know I’ve got a long way to go, and I’ll be the first one to admit it. That’s why I read the blogs of those who have more experience, like yours.
I can see that viral links kinda cheat the system but I also see that, in my eye, google ads do the same.
I find it strange that searching google for john chow doesn’t bring up his home page, no matter how google figures things I would have thought that if I want to find john chows website and I don’t know the name, just typing john chow into google should give me some idea or link. To me this means that Google isn’t so great at finding info. I am talking about just a person using Google to find a site not SEO or anything like that.
– GoldCoaster
[...] life than having a site that is optimized for search engine traffic. Now, I still hold my ground on blog linking memes, but where I am evolving with my mission to continuously grow and maintain a popular blog is the [...]
GoldCoaster,
John Chow not pulling up for his own name is a result of the activity he chose to do on his site. But I’ll tell you this… I am moving on to bigger and better fish in the sea. Something that could eventually equal up to the exposure that search engines give me, maybe even more… granted all this is on an individual site basis. Meaning I don’t have time to do this across the board for 100 sites. But, if I choose one site, which I have… this one, and roll a presence into many difference communities and use my site here as a hub or connector between all these various communities I participate in, then ultimately I think that is the key towards gaining a lot of traffic… Search engines have always been very kind to me. And I think with these newly added realizations I can take things even further without causing harm with my ’search engine friendly’ relationship I have with all the search companies. Check out my most recent post here:
http://www.garryconn.com/next-google-pagerank-update.php
As someone just finding out about improving Page Rank, I might have been tempted to do a “scheme” like you mention. Thanks for educating me about what they are and why one shouldn’t do it. I appreciate your writing!
Bob,
You are welcome. I want to point out that there is nothing “unlawful” nothing “wrong” per say with blog linking memes. I am not a judge, but I am just here to say that if it’s a person’s strategy to gain traffic from search engines, then blog linking memes can put a damper on your ability to rank well and show up in the SERPs. If it’s a person’s strategy to gain traffic by means other than search engines, then participating in blog linking memes don’t matter.
I choose to rank well in the search engines. It’s hard work at first… but the pay off is much better.
I don’t frown upon anyone who does these link memes, I have plenty of friends that do, and still continue to do so. I just don’t participate in them anymore. If someone likes me as a person and likes what I write, they will voluntarily add my link to their pages. If I like someone and feel their content is something that will interest my readers then I add their link to my site regardless of reciprocation or not. The past 3 months have been a huge learning process for me.
[...] these are like chain-letters and Google is more likely to punish you because of it than not. Even Gary agrees with [...]
I really admire you for speaking up and providing this information. The whole Google Page rank thing is a learning experience for most new bloggers like me.
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