[skyhawk133]

About a year ago, Google started a publicity campaign to crack down on buying and selling links. A couple weeks ago, a lot of sites (dream.in.code included) took a PR hit (5/10 to 4/10). Today, some HUGE sites, again dream.in.code included, took another hit (4/10 to 3/10). I'm seeing over 25 sites that I visit daily also took hits in PR. Many aren't involved in any sort of link selling.

Here are some threads and articles talking about it:

http://www.dailyblog...rank-algorithm/
http://forums.digita...ad.php?t=526851
http://www.webmaster...gle/3472449.htm

[angelsgeek]

Google again today did release a new change to their algorithm affecting PageRank based upon paid links. While Google states that these changes only affect sites with Paid links, it is clear that this new algorithm is also affecting other sites.
Head over to http://searchenginel...1024-093938.php for a list of some of the biggest changes in sites, as well as more information.

[no2pencil]

How does Google know if they link is paid?

[skyhawk133]

Welcome to the angry debate.

They can't.

But they can see patterns. And I imagine they also have some inside info with some of the big companies who broker links.

[angelsgeek]

While Google does not say how they determine if a link is paid, they do look at several things. First, the most obvious is if the link states it is a sponsored link.
Second if a link redirects to a url that is forbidden by robots.txt, that tells Google something. As they state in their webmaster guidelines, make websites for humans not robots. Even though this may not be a paid link, Google does flag it for review.
Their are several other theories, but as many SEO professionals are currently discussing, if Google wants to penalize paid links, they need to start with their own site and their use of Ad words, but that is a whole debate on its own.

[skyhawk133]

Google actually says any sponsored link (basically any link that's not inside your content [paid links, link trades, etc.]) should be nofollowed, routed through a nofollowed redirect, or done using javascript. Matt Cutts has several blog entries about this on his site.

[captainhampton]

Damn Google (Shakes fist angrily)

[MarkoDaGeek]

My PR just dropped in the last few days, I don't have any paid linkage in or out.

I've been making a lot of SEO changes lately, I think maybe it was too much shock for Google and I shot myself in the foot.