Did you know that many bloggers who get paid to blog are suffering from dramatic page rank drops? Do you know why? It is because of Google’s rules about “passing page rank” through paid links.
Payperpost is a great way for bloggers to get paid for writing but questions have been raised about whether or not they are asking you to break google’s “passing page rank” rules. Some payperpost writers claim that using “rel=nofollow” in the html for sponsored links is against the payperpost terms of service. Not using it will surely impact your page rank and may even get your sites removed from google so what decision will you make? Which one is more ethical? Are you looking to make money or to provide helpful content to web users, do you have to choose one or the other?
I thought the goal of payperpost was to create internet “buzz” for advertisers and to refer readers to opportunities that were relevant and useful to the target audience. I didn’t think payperpost was a round-about way for advertisers to buy page rank and optimal search engine placement.
Yes, I know that many people are saying that google page rank means nothing anymore and that they are “a soft monopoly” that is loosing respect and creditability over all this. I am just not sure if I believe it just yet. Google is my preferred search engine and they do have many users who believe their results are the best, besides I do get over half of my traffic from their search results!
I guess it all goes back to what we believe is the best type of search results. Do you like your results to be free of paid results and do you think paid results are often irrelevant, do you care? Do you think that advertisers who pay for publicity should also benefit from preferred search engine placement?
Shouldn’t their be a way for the small businesses and the “great content” producers to get into the search engines without having to pay and arm and a leg for publicity? What are your thoughts about all this and where do you think the coin will fall?
Their are some great debates going on about the google/ payperpost saga that you can read about on the payperpost forums. This is a very controversial topic and each blogger has to decide which way they will go.
Additionally, any site owner that chooses to place advertisements on their site for personal gain should consider the pros and cons very carefully! For more reading on the paid links/ page rank issue check out these sites:
I too thought it was a way to create ‘buzz’, and advertisers that paid for higher pr did so because they thought the sites with higher pr have more visitors. Too bad Payperpost did nothing to discourage gaming pr and even encouraged it because now everyone is suffering from it. If Payperpost would’ve said that blogrolls aren’t allowed and that everyone can only build pr with good links then I don’t think google would’ve come down so hard on paid blogging. But instead, there were bad blogs with no visitors and high pr just because they signed up for the Payperpost blogroll. The advertisers paid their money but were never told how the Payperpost bloggers got their high pr score. If you have been part of Payperpost for awhile, you will know that most advertisers do not come back. That’s because they didn’t get the buzz or traffic they wanted, and if an advertiser is looking for better page rank then there are much better ways to improve your pr than by Payperpost.
What does pay per post mean for the end consumer? If I go to google and search for something and only find a bunch of blogs with paid reviews guess what? I am going to a different search engine. I want non biased reviews written by people with no motivation to earn a commission or being paid to write it.
Now, I am not saying that people doing pay per post are writing biased reviews, however, it’s not about what I think or what you think. It is about the perception of the consumer who uses the internet.
David’s last blog post..#8 On Google But No Money
David »
I totally agree with you, I just wish other people would see it from that perspective. I want to be able to write paid posts with the rel=”nofollow” tag but advertisers and some paid blogging companies wont let you.. It’ doesn’t make sense!