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In the current PageRank update, or perhaps “downgrade” seems a more appropriate term, John Chow thought he got slapped by Google for his backlinks projects when he saw his PageRank downgraded from a 6 to a 5.

It seems that Google wasn’t finished with punishing blogs that sell text link ads without “nofollow” tags. John Chow got another downgrade - his blog is now a PR4.

He is not the only one to suffer a 2 point drop. Many other big blogs have also been slapped with a painful 2 point drop.

Engadget (from 7 to 5)
AdesBlog (from 7 to 5)
AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)
Entrepreneurs Journey (from 6 to 4)
Problogger (from 6 to 4)
Copyblogger (from 6 to 4)

Corporate sites are not spared either. Among those penalized are:
Forbes.com (from 7 to 5)
SFGate.com (from 7 to 5)
Washington Post (from 7 to 5)

Punishment Or Adjustment?

There is speculation that not only are paid text links without “nofollow” tags the cause of punishment, Andy Beard suggested that looking at the list of affected blogs, some such as Engadget which do not sell text links were also penalized because they exchanged a large number of links within a huge blog network. Also, since both ProBlogger and CopyBlogger do not sell text links, it could also be that Google is changing its PageRank scale.

Advertising Sites Might Adjust Rates

Since lower PageRanks command lower advertising rates, I think big companies that sell text links and paid reviews such as TextLinkAds and ReviewMe might adjust their rates. Revenue will be affected by the mass drop in high PR blogs which no doubt form a significant portion of commissions earned.

Therefore, to ensure that revenue is not too much affected, they might shift their advertising rates downwards across the board where PR5 blogs now charge the old PR7 rate. A less intrusive way though, is to reduce the importance of PageRank and focus on blog traffic as a main criteria for advertising rates although this would give rise to other problems such as determining a common standard to measure traffic.

PageRank For Some Useless Info

The PageRank for this blog is still unchanged at the time of this post - still at 3. But until it is clear that the update is complete, there is always a possibility of a downgrade. Still, I’m hopeful as I have added “nofollow” tags to my paid links and perhaps I will be spared. No doubt, my earnings will be affected somewhat. Paid reviews from PayPerPost for instance, will be much more competitive now that there are many more downgraded PR3 blogs. However, I still have my direct advertising which is doing quite well for now.

Has your blog been affected by the current PageRank downgrade? What are your views on how this will impact your blogging habits and earnings?