SE-optimization Updates

Google Updated their technology for Paid Link Directory:

Seems like there is a PageRank update taking place now that seems to be impacting sites that sell links. Can’t say that we were not warned about this. Danny Sullivan wrote Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google over two weeks ago, and now it appears many sites are getting hit with a drop in PageRank.

Here is a list of some sites decreased their page rank because of selling links:

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.forbes.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.suntimes.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.sfgate.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.statcounter.com/ PR10 to PR6
* http://www.masternewmedia.org/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.autoblog.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.engadget.com/ PR7 to PR5
* http://www.problogger.net/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.copyblogger.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.joystiq.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.tuaw.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.searchengineguide.com/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.searchenginejournal.com/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.johnchow.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://www.quickonlinetips.com/ PR6 to PR3
* http://weblogtoolscollection.com/ PR6 to PR4
* http://andybeard.eu/ PR5 to PR3
* http://www.seroundtable.com/ PR7 to PR4
* http://www.blogherald.com/ PR6 to PR4

There have been whisperings across the web about a new update, which actually comes less than one month after the last one. The May 2009 update took place on May 27th while it is reported that this current update started as early as June 23rd.

Many publishers tend to use PageRank as a metric for judging the quality of their site. Also the PR score can give a good indication of the level of traffic you will receive from Google. The higher your ranking, then most likely the more traffic you will receive.

At this stage the whispers are just hearsay, as there has been no official word from Google on the update.