Sphinn - Google Doesn't Penalize your Rankings if you Sell Links!

138
Sphinn It!

Google Doesn't Penalize your Rankings if you Sell Links! - by Jim Boykin

Went Hot: September 28, 2007 - 3:48 am
Posted By: webuildpages 645 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.jimboykin.com)
Category: Link Building

A few days ago the Cool Aid and FUD was passed around here about a site that was penalized in rankings because they sold a few links. Jim believes Google doesn't, nor ever will, penalize sites for selling links. Find out why!

14 Comments

Who Desphunn This (0)

Comments

from MattMcGee 645 days ago # - show/hide this comment

Votes: -1 | Vote:

+ -

Good stuff, Jim (as usual). Can you imagine what the SERPs would look like if all these sites got banned? Holy [beep].......

from Sebastian 645 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Well put Jim.

from NickWilsdon 644 days ago # - show/hide this comment

Votes: -1 | Vote:

+ -

Good article Jim, as you say, Matt must be over the moon with the FUD this topic is creating. No offence to him, I think he's played Google's position excellently. There are times I think he's the best marketer of us all! ;-)

from SamIWas 644 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Great post. In addition, the one example Matt Cutts has given for a site supposedly penalized for paid links turned out to be a question of cloaking. Cloaking, totally nothing to do with paid links.

Add to the list the many examples of SEO sites that clearly sell text links AND are visited by Matt Cutts (seroundtable for example) and there is essentially more evidence that they don't penalize than that they do. I doubt it's the 302 though but that's another topic.

from Jill 644 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

This kind of thing has been happening for years. Someone changes a technical thing on their site, does it wrong, Google can't index it anymore, and site owner thinks its a penalty.

When in reality, true SE penalties are extremely rare. People need to remember that!

Thanks, Jim, for the great post!

from europa 644 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Jim....another great blog post. Although my favorite of yours is still you co-citation post.

from robwatts 644 days ago #

Votes: 1 | Vote:

+ -

I'm gonna break with tradition and say that every now and then google make an example of someone and say nothing.

Johnchow.com being a recent example.

from wwip 644 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Great post Jim!

from IncrediBILL 644 days ago #

Votes: 3 | Vote:

+ -

The site still has a penalty applied to it and just because it's probably not a paid links penalty doesn't mean it's not SOME sort of penalty.

Easy way to tell is when you just search Google for the domain name without the .com/.net/.co.uk etc. is that is should return a result with that domain name on top.

For example search "jimboykin" all one word and it comes up with jimboykin.com but search for a site known to be penalized like the "avivadirectory" and it doesn't show up unless you search for "avivadirectory.com" expressly.

I could give you tons of examples and it's always the same for a penalized site that you have to add the DOT COM before they show up.

This is obviously a clue but we don't know what symptoms invoke this clue, such as any penalty or just specific penalties, but it's certainly a problem with "davidairey"'s site.

from Harith 642 days ago # - show/hide this comment

Votes: -3 | Vote:

+ -

Just wish to mention that I have posted my remarks about Jim Boykin's article in this thread on a separate post:

Jim Boykin's & Aaron Wall's Unethical Approach to Paid Links

http://sphinn.com/story/7623

from adityasfs 641 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

I completely agree with you :)

from Skitzzo 634 days ago #

Votes: 1 | Vote:

+ -

I'd be interested to hear Jim's take on Danny's report over the weekend that in fact Google will be penalizing your rankings for selling links. Is this just more FUD or is there substance to their claim? Or is it a bit of both (as things usually are with Google)?