ortelius - 4:51 pm on Nov 20, 2007 (gmt 0)

I have a blog that I only sell image ads on -- no text links sold. It dropped from PR 4 to PR 3. No noticeable difference in the SERPs however.

The strangest one was a site that used to have PR 5 -- it first got downgraded to PR 3, then a few days ago, to PR 0. On this site, I used to sell TLA,s but stopped selling at least six months ago, because I saw the handwriting on the wall. Maybe Google is using an out of date list? Since the broker I was using to sell ads through made the selling sites easily visible at that time, it would have been simple for a Google spy to manually scoop up every site selling ads through that broker.

I admit the site did not deserve PR 5 -- it's an old site, and hasn't been updated in years. Still, PR 0 is equally stupid. Oh, and it doesn't seem to have affected the serps for that site.

In conclusion -- I agree with whoever said Google is having a lot of fun spreading fear and confusion. And I believe they will go a long way to achieving their goal. (I have just made all the image ads on my blog into "no-follow" links).

Ort