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PayPerPost: the bane of search engines by Mar Matthias Darin I have finally figured out why Google did the great "slap down" or "spank" as many bloggers have referred to it. The realization hit after visiting several blogs and seeing the same $8 glasses advertisement. There are 1,890 sites with the exact same ad. From the stand point of the search engines, all these PayPerPost users are knowingly spamming. PayPerPost has generated 1,890 backlinks by sacrificing all the blogs that wrote about the "$8 glasses". The result from the search engines was to rip the ranking of all the blogs involved because that now have duplicate content in mass form. Here's Google's official standing: What is duplicate content? Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Most of the time when we see this, it's unintentional or at least not malicious in origin: forums that generate both regular and stripped-down mobile-targeted pages, store items shown (and -- worse yet -- linked) via multiple distinct URLs, and so on. In some cases, content is duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or garner more traffic via popular or long-tail queries. What does Google do about it? During our crawling and when serving search results, we try hard to index and show pages with distinct information. This filtering means, for instance, that if your site has articles in "regular" and "printer" versions and neither set is blocked in robots.txt or via a noindex meta tag, we'll choose one version to list. In the rare cases in which we perceive that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we'll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. However, we prefer to focus on filtering rather than ranking adjustments ... so in the vast majority of cases, the worst thing that'll befall webmasters is to see the "less desired" version of a page shown in our index. So what does all this mean? Simple, any blog that uses PayPerPost is knowingly spamming the search engines for the sole purpose of manipulating the search engine ranking algorithm, an as such, will be severely penalized. It is important to remember that one tool in every search engine's arsenal is the power to ban any site that is destructive to the "harmony" of the search engines. When examining the PayPerPost movement it has become very clear that it is a deliberate attempt to manipulate search engine rankings. I recommend PayPerPost be avoided at all costs as it will ruin any blog's reputation. 
Top tags: search, content, payperpost, engines, ranking, blogs, cases, duplicate, engine, manipulate Comments from Scotty's Princess So true! A very enlightening post here. I used to have a Page Rank of 3 but I got stripped off after doing 5 page reviews from PayPerPost. I was a newbie then. Now I try to be selective of the reviews I am taking. But the amount sometimes they are willing to pay makes it hard to resist... OUR JOURNEY TO FOREVER LAINY'S MUSINGS KUERDAS Comments from fwaggle it's not even really about spamming or duplicate content. paid posting *is* page rank manipulation (which is arguably cheating at search engines). google gave them the option of using no-follow links, so they wouldn't affect search results, but most of the people who pay others for links, their sole purpose is to improve their page rank for a particular phrase. in google's opinion, by engaging in paid blogging, you're actively helping people cheat at page rank, so google starts slapping you down. and, as you said, your page is obviously less relevant because you're basing your link decisions on money rather than relevant content. my wife has been making quite a substantial amount from paid blogging, but i tell her not to do it on any site she cares about, regardless of if it has a nice PR - what's really funny is, there are fantastic opportunities available for people with high PRs, sometimes up into the whole dollar per word range. this attracts people to either knowingly or unknowingly trash their page rank, the agency can always find more people with page rank, the advertisers can always find more people, but the blogger gets screwed. people should definitely do some research on it before they start. Comments from tahtimbo I must admit that I had been looking into PayPerPost very seriously. Yet, time after time, I have come across warnings about page rank reduction. Although I would like to make a few dollars by writing articles, I really do not want to damage what little ranking I may have. This being said, I will not be joining PayPerPost. Thank you for sharing this information. Comments from carol Matthias, I always learn something from your blog. I was wondering what so many blog were spanked by Google. Now if someone could explain what Google won't give me any page rank at all that would be nice. Comments from gsmith With Google, I go by a simple rule, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Trying to manipulate or work the system never seem to work with PR for very long. If you are a long-term blogger, just let the search process work. Over time your rank will naturally increase, and you will never have to worry about getting slapped. Comments from Your Fun Family I am actually surprised at how many people on Entrecard are so against people doing paid posting. Yes, some people do way too many of them. Yes, people should not be recommending things that they know are crap or are for things that do not fit with their blog topics. I do not see a problem with people doing a few paid posts though. Most people that do paid posting are not going to be making money on their blog without doing it no matter how high their page rank is. We all should be more worried that Google will someday start spanking Entrecard users. Comments from The Success Hi thanks to comment in my blog about google decrease PR So, what do you think now, should I remove from pay per post and another post review? Should I remove from paid link?? Comments from Roomy Naqvy I found your analysis interesting. My Blog had a page rank of 4 and now, its 2...and I don't know how to get it back. Comments from remo 76.200.183.120 Although the pagerank slap on PayPerPost patronizers is definitely legitimate, isn't it like a case of killing the messenger and not dealing with the root cause? Why doesn't Google just ban PayPerPost from even coming out in their search engine? I think the reason why people join PayPerPost is that some of them are unaware of its ill effects because PayPerPost is promoted as being writing gigs. Seems to me that if Google really wanted to kill PayPerPost, that they should come up with an Advertorial Adsense section. But that's me. Comments from Mar Matthias Darin Thank you for commenting with some very good points and questions. Scotty's Princess: Money is a wicked lure and PayPerPost knows it, especially with our current economic situation. This is where people have to put a value on their reputation and whether they are willing to sell it. fwaggle: Its not just Google. Every search engine has these defenses and uses them quite well. I confirmed that after so much, most search engines will just ban the offender (in this case PayPerPost.com, and anyone that links to them. tahtimbo: I know the feeling. I spent months trying to figure out why PayPerPost was so devistating until I started doing mass comparisions of blog content. Plus I've read several incidents where people are being defrauded after putting the article up. carol: I'm glad this information helped. I'll look into the unranked issue and put up an article on it. gsmith: Usually, that is very true. There are a few cases where it isn't, like unranked pages... Your Fun Family: I don't think people are against making money through blogging. I think the issue is when one advertiser jepordises other advertising opportunities that people start getting upset. I personally don't care about Google's PR or any other page ranking system, but I do care about any site throwing a negative light in my direction. If I screw my site up, that's my own fault. When soneone else screws my site up, its time for war... There is a legal way to do paid blogging. All it requires is a large number of advertisers with a pool of publishers that can pick and choose what they advertise as well as using their own descretion in the review write up. However; that also means the advertisers have to accept the risk of and pay for negative ads. Not many are willing to do that. The Success: At the very least, be sure all paid links are nofollow. This will spare you from Google's wrath. Personally, I see the current PaidPerPost approach very broken and and extremely dangerously for any blog. Your best approach is to monitor your site through Google's Webmaster Tools and then decide what is best for you. Roomy: Start with Google's Webmaster Tools and apply for reconsideration. Then continue working on your blog, but make sure all paid links are nofollow. If you are lucky, within a month your PR will go back up. remo: I think that is the point. Google can not legally do anything against PayPerPost unless they (Google) can prove a direct and deliberate coralation between PayPerPost and some fraudulent activity. Because Google is making money from PayPerPost. Googfle makes nothing from the blogs that put up the PayPerPost articles, hence the slapdown. Ignorance and greed will always be the downfall of someone...
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