Remember the "good old days" when EVERYBODY hated Microsoft, and Bill Gates was the devil in (geek) disguise???

Well, guess what? In Redmond, they're laughing their heads off these days, because the heat is off them and onto Google!

Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer must be quietly thrilled that Page & Brin are now public enemy # 1…

..or so it seems!

Poor Google are now in trouble 'cause everyone thinks they're out to get 'them' if you sell advertising on your sites designed to pass link popularity to the buyer's site/s.

Hardest hit seems to be sites using Text Link Ads (and similar), as well as those sites which seem to be a part of a network (blog networks such as b5 Media are an excellent example).

The screaming (and conspiracy theories) has arisen due to a page rank drop in some of the more well known and popular sites, and Google is once again the devil incarnate!

It's really become rather tiresome to hear everyone carry on like they just lost a limb, when their page rank went down, but it's not like Google didn't warn them this was going to happen!

Heck, Matt Cutts (Google's golden haired anti-spam poster child) has made more than 1 post to his blog discussing Google's dissatisfaction with people trying to manipulate their search engine results by purchasing text links designed to build link popularity.

Here's his comments on Text Links and PageRank, followed up by a post about How to Report Paid Links !

People…if this wasn't a HUGE big warning to you that Google aint gonna stand for this stuff, then all I can say is that you deserve all the lost pagerank you got!

Folks, whether you like it or not, it's Google's search engine, and if they don't want you gaming their system, then that's their choice! Besides, you should be smart enough to not totally rely on Google for all your traffic - that's my 1st lesson from all this, and the other takeaway is that if you stick to Google's basic rules (ie. don't try and scam their search engine results), you'll be less effected by these internet seismic eruptions and the fall-out that ALWAYS happens after such an event!

If you build your business on a single pillar (eg. just Google/Search Engine Traffic), you'll take a tumble ONE DAY, so you should get started NOW building MULTIPLE sources of traffic to your site. I might even explain how to do that one day … soon. :-)

Finally, here's some commentary on the web about this Page Rank update & Google Shake Out:

Search Engine Land talks about Google going after paid links

Google Page Rank Crash Affects Dozens of Websites, www.labnol.org

Google Slapping Entire Internet Marketing Industry, courtneytuttle.com

2nd Google PageRank in October 2007, Search Engine Roundtable

PR Update Today - Many Sink, The SEO Scoop

Digg Favorites Slapped By Google, andybeard.eu

ProBlogger - PageRank 4, ProBlogger

Thanks Google!, Copyblogger

Google Changing the PageRank Algorithm?, www.dailyblogtips.com

Google PageRank As Good As Dead, Everybody Go To

Google PR October 2007, danielctw.com

Google attacks its competitors with PR meltdown, Syntagma Media

If the SEOs Go, Does Google Go Too?, CenterNetworks

Google Drops PageRank For Many Sites: Paid Links or New Algorithm?, Search Engine Journal

The Great Google Bitch Slap, www.twentysteps.com

PageRank Drops for Many Sites, Google Blogoscoped

Google Pagerank Penalties A TextLinkAds Killer?, Jim Kukral

Google uses the PageRank hammer, mathewingram.com

Google Declares Jihad On Blog Link Farms, TechCrunch

Google PageRank Penalties For Network Blogs, technosailor.com

Google hammers web sites, perhaps for paid links — who knows?, The Guardian

The Ongoing PageRank Massacre Hits Big Players, Fantomaster

Three Clicks to Spam: Google's Hypocritical Link Selling Policy, mashable.com

Time to pay the Page Rank Piper, TechWag

Google PageRank Update and It's All Down, John Chow dot Com

Search: Is Google punishing dirty linkwhores?, Valleywag

Is Google's PageRank algorithm changing?, News.com

The Randomness of Google PageRank, Dan Blank

Google: Journalistopia as important as Washington Post, LA Times, Journalistopia

At Last, Google Declares War on Parasitic Link Farms and Feed Scraping Blogs, B.L. Ochman's weblog

Taken Down a Peg (or 2) as Google Page Rank Drops for Many, the Constant Observer

Google Changing the PageRank Algorithm?, Crenk

How's Your PageRank? Mine's Still an 8, Ryan Stewart

Anyone Have Some Boots I Could Borrow?, Search Engine Guide

Google's PageRank Shuffle: Big Sites Say Bye-bye, Traffic, Silicon Alley Insider

Is Google's PageRank algorithm changing?, Webware

(Thanks to Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land for the above list)

To finish this discussion, here's some wise words from a wise man - Mr Pro Blogger himself (Darren Rowse). Read, learn, enjoy AND put into practise!

Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog

Get building QUALITY content folks, and let Google worry about Page Rank. Stop trying to scam the system and you've got a much better chance of succeeding in the long term.

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