WebFusion - 12:26 pm on Jun 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

If those are purchased links, it's not out of the question that you've received a manual penalty. If google know that certain sites are selling links, it's very very easy to find out who bought them.

Again...this implies that a site can/would be penalized because it is linked to by a site that sells text links. If that's the case, and we can verify, by all means, let us know. It would be worth several thousand dollars per day for me to get my competitors knocked off if all I have to do to do it is buy a few links to their site.

Cmon folks...I can't believe google would go that route, as it would mean they've taken a factor that is completely out of the webmaster's hands and said "Let's penalized any site we "think" has bought a link."

What would stop thousands of site from getting dropped because a deep pocketed competior bougt a bunch of links on unrelated sites and then reported their site for link buying? Does that make any sense?

Again....the only responsible way for google to apply a "penalty" would be to stop the passing of PR from a site to external sites.

Further....let's not forget that there are plenty of legit reasons to buy a text link ad from another website. We get dozens of orders a day from a site we purchased a link on. The site has nothing in common with our subject matter, but does appeal to the exact demographic that our products appeal to. Should we be "penalized" for purchasing advertising there simply because they link directly to us as oppsoed to using a redirect? Give me a break.

I think google should just get rid of the green bar in the tool bar and let all these PR maniacs find something else to sweat about.