Big G, Sodom & Gomorrah And Blogging

Big G has finally laid some smackdown on blogs all over the Internet. John Chow and ProBlogger are some examples of well known blogs with high page ranks that had taken a plunge (each of them has a PR of 6 and they are all down to PR 4 currently).

It’s fire & brimstone for many bloggers all over the world as Google’s latest page rank update penalized blogs everywhere.

If you are not familiar with the story of Sodom & Gomorrah, it is a story of the Bible during the Old Testament where God destroyed an entire city because of their sins. Apparently, it is the ONLY recorded instance in the bible where God actually destroyed an entire city with fire & brimstone.

So what are the apparent sins that were committed by bloggers that warrant the judgement of the almighty Big G?

Darren Rowse from Problogger.net quotes:

I’d heard blogs had been penalized in their page rank recently for selling text links - bizarre thing is that neither of these two blogs (Problogger.net and Digital photography school) sell links. I’ve never sold text links at DPS and haven’t on ProBlogger for months now - perhaps I was penalized for taking them off!

John Chow quotes:

I would say the most likely reason for this change is Google is messing around with link resellers like Text Link Ads. By downgrading a large chunk of the blogs on the Internet, Google has made it that much harder for the link resellers to sell links.

My feeling on this is to not even worry about it too much. Keep an eye on your search traffic for the next week or two. If it’s still the same then the drop in PageRank is just a number drop and nothing more. However, if that is the case, then PageRank just became irrelevant.

Bloggers that make money from advertising networks which rely on pagerank to determine their income might be shaken up as a result of a drop in Page Rank (and only God knows what other evil schemes that are brewing within the Googleplex).

So how does this affect my blog? Na-da… cos’ I don’t rely on Google to feed me.

I have a page rank of ZERO on my blog but it doesn’t bother me.

Google can De-list my websites or strip off my page rank forever - it doesn’t matter to me because I have many more ways to get traffic to my sites and Google CAN’T strip me off my credibility & reputation.

If you are a victim of Big G, here are a few tips for bloggers on how to protect your rice bowl:

(1) Build networks and move towards E-mail marketing. It doesn’t depend on your page rank but rather more so on your credibility.

(2) Develop a skill that you can use to do a Joint venture with others to drive traffic to your blog (whether it is writing, graphics design, networking with other bloggers/Internet marketers, directory submission services or many others).

(3) Develop a long term relationship with your blog readers. Direct traffic is still one of the most targeted ways to get readers to your blog and word of mouth (through them) will get them to expand your number of readers naturally/organically.

(4) Content is king - when you have good content, Google will give you your page rank back - organic is still the way to go.

(5) Have a distinct edge about your blog. Don’t just talk about ‘make money online’ or ‘Internet marketing’ - there are 59,936 blogs that talk about Internet marketing & making money online. It’s like saying, my blog teaches you about business (the scope is too wide) focus on a sub-niche and make your branding targeted.

I practice all the 5 steps above everyday. At times like these, I’m glad I’m into writing - because it is an Iron Rice Bowl.

Technorati tags: Page Rank, Google updates, developing your own skills, writing, blogging techniques, blogging