Falling Google PageRanks Sign of a Crackdown?

[mandy]

The net is abuzz with speculation that Google is cracking down on link farms designed to artificially puff up the placement of websites after bloggers disclosed recent PageRank drops for more than a dozen sites.

They include tuaw.com, which watched its PageRank fall from 6 to 4, and Engadget.com, SFGate.com, Forbes.com and WashingtonPost.com, all of which saw their rankings drop from 7 to 5. Webmasters don't take kindly when the engine that by some estimates handles 60 percent of the world's web searches suddenly deems their sites' content less relevant...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/24/...anks_fall/

[mandy]

A related article:

I don't want to say the recent changes in Google's algo have been a wake up call, but it's certainly been a reminder not to depend on "just one thing." It's time to diversify and take advantage of all the tremendous news, networking, social communities, and search venues springing up. Will any of these niche sites replace the traffic a top ten placement on Google potentially sends? Probably not—but if you've established yourself on enough of them, it's a start.

full article: http://searchengineland.com/071029-074000.php

[mandy]

Google makes it official:

In an update to its Webmaster Guidelines, the world's largest search engine says that any attempt to "pass PageRank" could result in a PageRank plummet.

"Some SEOs [search engine optimizers] and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites," the update reads. "Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."..

full article: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/12...crackdown/