Linking and Rule of ThumbIt has always been a rule of thumb that links should always be treated as one of the holy grails of SEO and yet many of us continue to disobey this very basic rule. I cannot remember anymore how many times have I been subjected to seeing links get traded or sold by owners of sites who don't seem to bother about the negative effects that it could put up and generate in terms of link building campaign and popularity.
The TLA Syndrome and SE ResponsibilityAlthough at this point in time, the latest Google update made many internet business faces and SEOs frown to an extent that they look like someone you cannot approach with the face of a tiger ready to eat you in whole, still, the disobedience continues. Remember that there is no turning back when this kind of devastating effect happens to you and your website.
The point here is, even if you or me can still do something , about this latest pin down by Google on the PR of sites that sell links. Even if one of the most prominent among the most prestigious is TLA, there is no doubt that there are other ways of selling links and getting the advantage over the others with the use of PR. Pr by the way is the most highly regarded in the selling links business and this is the root of Google's newest algo regarding the latest update that happened.
Even if there were literally billions of money lost in this link selling industry, Google doesn't seem to care. They still managed to let the world see that selling links is not the way they want things to be in terms of SEO advantage. This means that this will be put in the history of both the internet marketing and the SEO arena as one of the major setbacks that rocked the whole internet industry this year.
This also further proves that Google has the power to do what it wants us to do and by this virtue, we all then should abide by the rules. I can really see nothing wrong with this but and I am actually looking forward to seeing things go back to its rightful stats when the smoke is out.
After all there is nothing wrong with making us realize that we cannot always do what we want to do and this is because the search engines are here to let us know about it and that Google is just the instrument on letting us know that we are not in the right tracks.
John Chow Sees it This WayRetaining your green bar can now be done even if you sell links according to the great JohnChow. This is by virtue of understanding what Google wants us to understand "no-irrelevant linking" and "improper use of links" to gain advantage over others. (my own opinion)
Relevant Links and Maintaining PR
This is actually a tip coming from John Chow and allow me to give my point of view based on my own opinion about this important matter regarding link selling and maintaining PR. One thing you can do to maintain PR while selling links and not feeling the devastating effect of the Google PR update on the next season is to make your links as relevant as possible.
Removing your Link to TLARemoving your link to TLA could work for you as many webmasters who are earning from selling links made this same important move after they felt the might of the latest Google update. By removing your link to TLA, you can be sure that Google will not see you as one of the culprits of propagating the wrong distribution of links through link selling.
The reason for this is because Google knows that TLA is the biggest common factor in the link selling industry and scheme, so chances are, if you remove your link to TLA ( which is what many webmasters did) . A good substitute could be the "redirect method" or the "nofollow attribute" use according to John Chow.
Labeling the Links that You HaveSearch engines have a way of knowing that you have links that they see as part of selling links scheme when you label your links. By leaving your links unlabeled, you can avoid this particular disaster. What I am talking about is the common way of labeling links like sponsored listings etc.
The New TLA PluginIn case you do not know it yet, TLA has a newly released plug-in that you can use to possibly help you or maybe at most avoid this same fate on the penalty imposed by Google on people who are up to selling links in exchange for money. This hopes to cure your worries and doubts regarding selling links.
So if you are still using the old TLA plug-in, you better go and get yourself the new upgrade of TLA. Tip: "If you want to see who among your partners and neighbors are running TLA, do a search for function TLA ads".