does Google allow "PageRank For Sale" ads ?

I thought Google frowned on this, yet they accept these ads

[Scarecrow]

I'm confused. About 18 months ago, Google considered it high treason to openly sell PageRank. Now I see ads fed from Google in the Washington Post that explicitly advertise PageRank for sale. Here's a screen <snip> shot[/url].

Is it okay to sell PageRank now?

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 12:41 pm (utc) on June 25, 2004]
[edit reason] no specifics. Please reread the TOS [/edit]

[SlyOldDog]

I guess Google couldn't care less since pagerank is all but worthless these days.

Of course they still need to put on a stern face when they write about it here to make everyone think it is still very important :)

[phrabal]

Hi All - First time as a poster. I wanted to just add that I think Google is saying that if you advertise on a relevant site with a text ad and it also is a high PR site, fine, you benefit two ways. You really can't tell a site not to advertise on another site. But if you scheme with a group of sites to trade links with each other just for a PR boost, that is spam. It's like with email spam, there is a fine line between these things.

[ckc1227]

I think it would be rather hypocritical of Google to punish sites for selling advertising to sites of a theme different from your own considering probably 90 percent of the advertising being bought at Google has nothing to do with search engines. The same for Yahoo. How many of their banners have anything to do with search? Who I sell advertising to is no one's business but mine. But, to blatantly sell PR for the sake of PR may be asking for trouble. So, sell advertising; don't sell PR.

Interestingly, although they frown on PR manipulation, they have no problem selling Adwords ads to those promoting such techniques.

[percentages]

>Interestingly, although they frown on PR manipulation, they have no problem selling Adwords ads to those promoting such techniques.

Agreed.

Also odd that AWA seems to be vigilante and GG needed to step in to make the corporate point of view.

Has Google discovered that too many "important" sites are now selling PR for it to fight with? Banning or downgrading these sites would not only make it look foolish, but would also present it with huge legal problems.

It's nice to see Google between a rock and a hard place. I guess some more devaluation of PR is the best way out of the hole!

[pageoneresults]

What's the best way to identify some of the PageRank Brokers? Let them run AdWords. ;)

If they are actually using terminology that states they are selling links for the benefit of PageRank, then they deserve what may be coming to them.

[bts111]

Google are not idiots. They know who has the page rank and who does not.

If you offer advertising solutions on your site you can provide an advertising solution in the form of a text link. As some of us are aware, text links that are well written and provide the correct call to action, convert very well.

You can script the text link ad that you are offering to a client or provide some type of accountable solution by adding some type of tracking software.

What I am trying to say is don't sell page rank, figure out the needs of the business owner and value to their advertising.

Page rank is useless without a sound business model.

But with the correct business model, a high page rank is one of lifes absolute treasures. ;)

[Spannerworks]

>I guess Google couldn't care less since pagerank is all but worthless these days.

Exactly. ;)

[goodroi]

Pagerank is not worthless. It is worth what the market will bear. Ignorant people still are obsessed with page rank and will pay good money for it. Educated seo people are still interested in pagerank because it guarantees regular visits from the google spider. A PR9 is almost the equivalent to inktomi's paid inclusion. It still is worth something.

[fidibidabah]

Google must be loving this, are you kidding?

Think about it, anyone who's anyone in the business knows about page rank. They know what it is, most of them know how it works, and some of them know what it's worth..

If people sell a text link from their site based PURELY on PR, they are basically selling higher SERPs (or atleast used to be, now that's iffy of course). There's an entire economy based on buying text links that has been built around pagerank, which makes people think GOOGLE. Even if it's meaningless, I still have trouble buying or even just exchanging links with someone who has minimal PR, it's become a status symbol if nothing else. The only other thing that even comes CLOSE is Alexa Ranking, which everyone on the planet knows is BS (I personally got a site I haven't released yet down under 600,000 because I do a lot of work on it, upload it, and check it live, so it's a ton of refreshing).

I think Google must be happy with their position.

There is a big difference, however, between selling PR and selling text links and mentioning that your site has a decent PR. Many of these companies who sell PR are adding your link to 89398539485 link farms, and many of them are adding them to 50 of their own pages, which aren't link farms, but instead a huge cross linking experiement, both of which are bad for the system. Just selling a text link, even if you openly say that you have a decent PR, and it may increase the buyers, in no way will bother google. In fact, it probably gives them a pat on the back.

[fathom]

What's the best way to identify some of the PageRank Brokers? Let them run AdWords.
If they are actually using terminology that states they are selling links for the benefit of PageRank, then they deserve what may be coming to them.

That's a very astute observation there PageOne!

And when that PageRank is gone (or not passed) everyone "should" get there money back... since the link wasn't what was promised!

[HughMungus]

You can buy a website with high PR, a friend can give you a link (even if you're not on topic), and you can get/give reciprocal and circular links to get PR so why wouldn't you be able to sell it?

[Symbios]

Selling page rank is dumb, buying links from sites that give you traffic is not, advertising works just as well on the net as it does in the real word if done properly, page rank is one of many factors to consider, IMHO although the page rank may not always pass it is a good way of assessing the pedigree of the site you are doing business with.

[HughMungus]

Selling page rank is dumb

I'm assuming you think buying it is dumb, too.

What if (for example) you have a site with lots of content that doesn't lend itself to linking (e.g., a shopping site) and your pages are not being crawled because your PR is too low? Wouldn't it then make sense?

[howiejs]

Google has to let these ads run, they can't shut out competitive areas, things they don't "approve of" / same for Cloaking software ads . . . --- same as when you search for Adsense there are competive ads for other contextual programs . . .

[RedWolf]

Actually they can keep whole catagories out that they don't "approve of". Try to set up an ad campaign for a firearms website and see how long it last, or even if it starts.

[rjohara]

Although there may be ambiguity in practice, the technicality of this situation seems pretty clear to me: you can't sell something you don't own, and "the PageRank of your page" isn't something you own, it's just a momentary evaluation of your page made by someone (or something) else. I can sell you *space* on my page, or *advertising* on my page, and I can tell you my page has high PageRank (at the moment), but I can't sell you the PageRank itself since I don't own it. If I advertise "PageRank For Sale" surely I'm being fraudulent (unless I am Google).

[clearvision]

rjohara - Well Said!

[digitalv]

Since PageRank is only a measure of how many sites link to you, and has nothing to do with search results, who cares? People pay way too much attention to that little green bar.

[modyourcar]

Selling PR in theory doesn't make all that much sense as the PR of a site is a snapshop at a particular point of time and in the future the PR of a site will change, whether up the scale or down.

Let's remember people that PR and Alexa ratings are indicators only and yes they can be influenced through a variety of methods which will in turn affect rankings and the like but in the long term the best way to built a good PR is through relevant recipricol links, good content, well designed internal page links etc...

Selling PR, let's get serious... who cares! ;)

[Kirby]

>Although there may be ambiguity in practice, the technicality of this situation seems pretty clear to me: you can't sell something you don't own, and "the PageRank of your page" isn't something you own,

>Selling PR in theory doesn't make all that much sense as the PR of a site is a snapshop at a particular point of time and in the future the PR of a site will change, whether up the scale or down.

So to conform with truth in advertising, perhaps we should refer to this practise as "leasing" page rank.

[Bennie]

It is very clear, if you have decent PR, (or qualified traffic), don't leak it to an unrelated theme, simple.

If your 'selling PR' it is ok provided it is on-topic and of reciprical benefit.

There is no magical rule, only common sense. People build links all the time, just make sure it is on-topic and sell your traffic all you want.

B

[Bennie]

<QUOTE>Since PageRank is only a measure of how many sites link to you, and has nothing to do with search results, who cares? People pay way too much attention to that little green bar.</QUOTE>

Yeah, the same people are yet to work out that there are no shortcuts, and when you find one you are headed in the wrong direction.

Work hard > across the board, not in one area. PageSpank will catch you up eventually. Trick is to forget about it! easy to say...

B

[merlin30]

If PageRank has nothing to do with the SERP ranking of a site why does Google still go to the trouble of implementing PR 0 penalties?

[jweighell]

That's funny, a few sites that I just looked at that claimed to be able to raise your PR actually had either very low or zero PR themselves!