Matt Cutts admits Google Nuked PageRank sellers

Matt Cutts was reported to have emailed search engine journal to confirm that the Google update of last week did target sites that sell links, especially when the link is the type that passes PageRank on the buyer.

He was quote as saying ”
The partial update to visible PageRank that went out a few days ago was primarily regarding PageRank selling and the forward links of sites. So paid links that pass PageRank would affect our opinion of a site.  Going forward, I expect that Google will be looking at additional sites that appear to be buying or selling PageRank.”

None of this is really new,  givinen the sites that lost their PR everyone know what what happening, what one would like to know is Google’s reason for this, given the fact that PR has absolutely no effect on SERPs.

Was Google PageRank Algorithm leaked?

According to Patrick Altoft of Blog Storm a reliable Google source leaked part of the Google algorithm code responsible for the Google PR update of a few days ago to Patrick. The code according to Patrick goes as follows:

$spammers=file_get_contents("http://www.45n5.com/top100/");
$pos = strpos($spammers, $domain);
if ($pos === false) {
$newpagerank=rand(0, 10);
} else {
$newpagerank=rand(0, $pagerank);
}

I don't know how reliable Patrick's source... the leaked code is reminicent of the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, where the meaning of the univers and everything in it was found to be 42.

Google PageRank Update 26-27th October 2007

Google long awaited ‘proper’ PR update is finally happening. The previous update before the one in question was not quite the big universal update it usually is, some webmaster saw PR increase or drops in their inner pages and some webmasters did not notice any changes at all.

This update saw a long of big name website seeing drops in PR, this was as a result of penalties imposed by Google for selling and buying links. Quite a few large blog networks and forums say a drop in PageRank as well. This was said to be a penalty imposed for link buying/selling as well.

This site’s PR dropped from 5 to 4.

You can discuss this PR update at UK Webmaster Forums

Google pagerank algo change – Link currency devaluation

For quite sometime now, Google pagerank or PR as its called for short has been one of the main ways to evaluate the quality of a website page. Thought there tons of other factors that can determine how valuable or otherwise a web page is but over time Google pagerank has become the main criteria used by some webmasters. This lead to the websites and web pages with high PR becoming hot commodity, links are bough and sold based on a site PR.

Google does discourage this trade in PR, arguing that artificial link that could directly or indirectly influence a site SERP should not be engaged in. This does not really deter link buyers and sells. Website and webpages with high PR keeps fetching premium price. Since the last few weeks, indeed few months, high profile website that sell links from their website seem to have been penalised for doing so by having their PR reduced by several points.

Some notable previously high PR and high profile sites that seem to have been penalised includes:

* Statcounter (from 10 to 6)
* Engadget (from 7 to 5)
* AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)
* Problogger (from 6 to 4)
* Search Engine Journal (from 7 to 4)
* Quick Online Tips (from 6 to 3)
* Search Engine Roundtable (from 7 to 4)
* Weblog Tools Collection (from 6 to 4)

iWT forums went from PR6 to PR4
Alive Directory went from PR7 to PR4
Haabaa Directory web directory went from PR6 to PR5
Search Engine Journal went from PR7 to PR4
Search Engine Roundtable went from PR7 to PR4

Triple.com – Domain Name Registration Company

What immediately strikes you when you visit Triple.com are the tree main services they offer; domain name registration, SSL certificates and web hosting, offering tree core products and being called triple.com see to tie in nicely.

Of their tree services, the one that stands out from the rest was domain name registration for Triple.com are ICANN accredited domain name registrars. ICANN accreditation is not a kite mark, so this does not mean service wise, they are better thank other domain name registration sites, but it does put then on a higher league than domain name registration companies, who in turn buy in bulk from ICANN accredited registrars like Triple.com.

You can buy a domain name and have it hosted by Triple, for they have a cheap web hosting section where hosting packages price starts from $3.99 . Navigation triple.com is very easy, just like their site design; neat and well planned, so registering and hosting a domain from them is very straightforward.

However, their selection of domain name extension available to register is somehow limited when you think of all the other domain extension larger domain name registration company offer, at present, all Triple.com registers are; .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .name . most webmaster have come to get used to their domain name registration company offering lots of different domain name extension including several popular second level domain name such as .co.uk and .de.

Tiple.com somehow seem to prefer to hide their light under a bushel, the most important information that could sway a skeptical potential domain name buyer is the skills and people behind a company, which is usually available on the “About Us” page. You cannot access Triple.com’s “about us” page from their homepage, its about three click away, first you click on help, FAQ and a little inconspicuous link that invites you to click if you want to know more about Triple.com

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