Just last Thursday, Google decided to drop the PR of selected PayPerPost blogs to zero. PayPerPost also acquired insider information that other similar networks will be affected. Here’s an excerpt from Ted Murphy’s post at the IZEA community blog:
We now know from some of our friends inside of Google (thanks “bob”) that they are now looking for phrases such as PPP, PayPerPost,ReviewMe, Payu2blog, etc. in the text of your post. For that reason I would suggest refraining from using any type of this text in the body of your posts, sponsored or not. When you disclose thank the sponsor, not PPP.
At one point in the post, Murphy criticizes Google for not taking out on blogs like TechCrunch . Of course, TechCrunch responds here. But what really caught my eye was this part of their reply:
I can’t see a lot of bloggers being happy with losing Pagerank so we should see an exodus of bloggers out of PayPerPost (particularly ones with traffic) over the next few months. This will leave PayPerPost with inventory deficiencies that will result in diminished revenues making the PayPerPost business model unsustainable going forward.
So what should the average blogger do?
If you read my post on the previous Google PR update, you’ll see that I’m a big fan of marching to your own drum rather than following Google’s because you’re afraid to lose PR. Doing so has yielded positive results for some bloggers, like that guy who made $1500 out of the last PR update.
Don’t move out of PayPerPost immediately. That is, if it’s been working well for you. Some scared bloggers might move out, and if the number of advertisers doesn’t drop, you’ll have less to compete with. Wait it out a little, unless Google PR is something incredibly valuable to you.
Alternatively, you can sell paid posts (or links, for that matter) independently. You don’t have to be part of a network like PayPerPost to do that. The disadvantage is that you won’t be easily accessible to advertisers as you would be in the PayPerPost (or any advertising) network. This means more work for you, especially if you’re going to be sneaky about it.
Instead of Google PageRank, use alternative statistics to measure the worth of your blog to advertisers. There are other ways you can show this, like disclosing unique pageviews, RSS subscribers, etc. Some people use figures from Alexa, but doing so is as accurate as a monkey counting bananas with a calculator. Izea is coming up with RealRank, which should be interesting because the formulae, etc. will be disclosed publicly.
John Chow also wrote a post about how to sell links in a Nazi Google controlled internet. Something you should check out, especially if you use Text Link Ads.
Any PayPerPost users among our readers? What do you have to say about this issue?
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[...] the hit list for Google. I haven’t read to much about the issue quite yet, but the article, Use PayPerPost? Watch your blog PR drop to ZERO explains it pretty [...]
Thanks for you information. Last PR update google was eliminated Widget Bucks.. and now against paid post… Seems like Google doesn’t encourage blogger write paid post on their blog. Then what for they want to make an PR algorithm?
To be fair, I think that Google’s side has to do with providing the most relevant results for people using their search engine. They think that linking efforts such as paid text links and paid posts hamper their efforts. But they’re quite naive if they think bloggers shouldn’t/can’t monetize their sites in that way. They’re also hypocritical, esp. for penalizing TLA and bloggers who sell paid text links. What they need is a better algorithm, rather than being the bully in the internet playground.
[...] the hit list for Google. I haven’t read to much about the issue quite yet, but the article, Use PayPerPost? Watch your blog PR drop to ZERO explains it pretty [...]
its on hit list
Its a tough business on the web. A company can pursue a line of reasoning and have their entire efforts go down the tube. Thanks for the article.
[...] the hit list for Google. I haven’t read to much about the issue quite yet, but the article, Use PayPerPost? Watch your blog PR drop to ZERO explains it pretty [...]