Google has decided that it can’t take the heat, but doesn’t have the sense to stay out of the kitchen. Instead, it’s bitch slapping everyone else – namely, anyone who uses any type of money paying service that Google feels is somehow a threat. These money paying services include PayPerPost, PayU2Blog, Text Link Ads, and many others, I’m sure.
Over the last few days, thousands of blogs that were previously ranked at 2, 3, 4, even 5 and 6, have been dropped to zero, for no explainable reason, other then the oh-so-obvious fact that Google doesn’t know how to play nice.
For what it’s worth, while right now a huge stink has been kicked up, and bloggers and companies are scrambling to find quick solutions while they work on long term changes, I’m relieved that it’s come to this. I never truly understood why Google should be the end-all be-all decider of what site is worthy and what site isn’t. Google ranks sites in the same way many middle schoolers choose their friends. “Well, you’re friends with A, B and C, so you’re in!” or “Well, you’re friends with those losers X, Y and Z, so you’re out. Here is your zero, or if you’re lucky, a 1, you are the weakest link, goodbye!” or even “I don’t know you, or anything about you, but I’ve decided that I don’t like you, so take your zero and fuck off!”
And honestly, I never felt that Google’s assessment of websites was consistent. Take jenn.nu, for example. Despite archives dating back to 2001, blog entries almost every day, commenters, exposure on many websites and message boards, and an average of 1000 unique hits per day, Google decided that it wasn’t worth squat. I have been sporting a big, fat zero for jenn.nu since its registration on January 1st, 2007.
And then there’s kitty.nu. Granted, it is a year older than jenn.nu, but it never had the hits that jenn.nu does (less than half!), nor the exposure, yet, until Google’s latest stunt, it had a page rank of 3.
So, what can you do to help yourself and anyone else who has been hit by Google? First, drop AdSense. Second, quit using their search engine. Third, ditch GMail. Fourth, sell your Google stocks, if you have them. As a matter of fact, stop using ALL of their services! And finally, SPREAD THE WORD.
(In doing my part to SPREAD THE WORD, this post will be cross-posted to all of my blogs.)
Hello! I'm Jenn, and this is Jenn.nu, my personal blog. I'm 27 years 
Giving up the google search and gmail will be difficult but this pisses me off just as much as the next person. That’s absolutely RIDICULOUS.
WHAT THE FUCK. I noticed my GPR was down. Eff that.
Have you tried out ask.com? I first tried out their newest search engine styling last month, when I wrote a review for them, and I really like it!
Ugh. I wondered why my site went from a PR of 4 to a 2 and then a 0. -.- Which has been really freaking frustrating.
To decide if a site is worth to visit by how many payed link it has – it is unfair too…
I can’t give up gmail. I understand that google is being really shitty to a lot of people that are just trying to earn some money, but I’m addicted like a junkie to crack. I hate adsense, even though I’m only a few clicks away from a payout, I ditched it awhile ago. And there are plenty of search engines out there I will use instead. But give up gmail?!
*starts to shake*
Wow thats messed up!
Yeah, I can’t stop using g-mail (had this address too long and EVERYONE including Jeremiah’s whole huge family uses it to keep in touch.. and they’re so internet-illiterate that it would BOGGLE THEIR MINDS if I changed e-mail addresses..) but I can definitely get off the google search and everything else.
Sucks that they’re pulling this crap. Hopefully they lose enough business to pull the poles out of their butts.
Try live.com as your search engine. Microsoft is mimicking the search technique of Google, so the results are similar. I usually find what I am looking for within the top three results with either engine.
Wow, IamKecia.com did have a PR of 2 (though it’s only 5 months old & didn’t get no where near as many comments as jenn.nu), until just a few days ago…now it’s a 0. I have a gmail acct that I rarely check, and I’d rather use Yahoo! to search, so it won’t be hard for me to tell to kiss my ass!!!
I can’t give up gmail. I love it too much. I don’t know about giving up google search either.
wtf… I pretty much stopped using my gmail account since I now have my drown account and my uni email account. Dropping it as a search engine will be tough, but I’m going to make an earnest effect to stand up against this sort of bullying.
That IS strange, because I went from 0 to 4.
Maybe they have their numbering backwards or their system is just messed up for the moment.
I’m close to a payout on adsense too so I’m gonna get that and be done with it. It just really sucks b/c I was finally at a 2 and BAM it’s taken away.
Bastards!
I am so used to using google that it is hard to switch. However, I recently came across a somewhat new search engine. I love the design of it and will definitely be using it more often. It is located at http://riight.com
I was wondering what was up. Although my PPP account still says I have a PR of 3, other places are showing it as 0. I’m glad companies are starting to change what they base a sites worthiness off of though. I’m not going to be a happy camper when my PPP account starts showing 0 instead of 3. I wonder when PPP will change how they do their ranking system…?
You’re going to quit using google because of that? No offense Jenn, but that won’t make much of a difference in the “world” of google. I mean I can understand your mad, as are other people but there are ways to raise your rank in a matter of minutes. Actually, anyone can raise their page rank, it’s not hard to manipulate at all. It’s a lot easier to do then most people think/realize. Personally it has not affected the page rank of any of my sites, shockingly, at least none that I have noticed.
As selfish as this sounds, I’m glad I’m not the only one who this happened to. At first my main site was predicted to go back up to a 5 at the next update, sadly it’s dwindled from a 4 to a 2. POS.
I thought they were doing that too, they aren’t though. They are just redefining what page rank is because hardly anyone had 1 or 2 they skipped from 0 to 3. Myspace went down, They are just restructuring the way things are done. The first update was to punish anyone who belonged to a link farm, this one is to restructure the Page Rank and make it mean more.
Sean,
I don’t think that’s what this is at all. Site’s that have no paid blogging content have not been effected at all. Sites that DO have paid blogging that were a PR4 or PR5 before yesterday are now all PR0, while my PR4 site that I’ve never done a paid blog at, has retained it’s PR4 though all of this.
Somehow they are singling out sites. Be it by popular SEO links or through paid blogging site’s widgets, it’s only the paid blogging sites that are being effected. Its not just a coincidence that thousands of paid bloggers suddenly plummeted to a PR0 while nobody else in the non paid blogging world was effected.
Veronica,
Of course Jenn’s individual commitment to quite using Google isn’t going to effect them. But if ALL the paid bloggers out there suddenly stop, it will make a pretty big statement to Google who’s stock dropped $40 in the last two days after rising steadily for the last three months. Google will feel that hit, believe me.