About two weeks ago, you may have noticed your site or ones you visit regularly declining in the search results for prime terms. It was the result of what has now come to be known as the Google Slap. That was a precursor to what many real estate blogs saw happen when PageRank updated the other day and their blogs fell a point or two. Now, fear not, this was not a slap just to real estate, many a Technorati 100 blog felt the same slap. Just look at Search Engine Guide which fell from a 7 to a 5, SERoundtable which fell from a 7 to a 6, Forbes which fell from a 7 to a 5, and the 9rules which 8 to a 6. Read on to see a sample list of real estate blogs that fell in PageRank.
Read also: Matt Cutts Confirms Paid Links and Google PageRank Update
“The partial update to visible PageRank that went out a few days ago was primarily regarding PageRank selling and the forward links of sites. So paid links that pass PageRank would affect our opinion of a site.
Going forward, I expect that Google will be looking at additional sites that appear to be buying or selling PageRank.”
-Matt Cutts
Read also: What is PageRank and How Often Is It Updated?
Examples from Real Estate
I am not blasting any one of these blogs. Many of these people are people I know and respect and believe have quality blogs with solid content. I am just stating the facts and showing the rest of you what can happen when Google updates their algorithm. I’d like to remind all of you that if you want any help with SEO, we offer that service for free with no obligation.
Read also: My Controversial Post on Why Google May Hate Your Blogroll
List of Real Estate Blogs that Fell in PageRank
*Happy News for all Realtors – Nearly all the bubble bloggers radically fell in PageRank.
List of Technorati 100 Domains that Fell in PageRank
Some Possible Reasons Why Sites Fell in PageRank
Some of the reasons the SEO community believes sites were slapped by Google were that they were growing low quality links in bulk, purchasing links, engaging in reciprocal link schemes and simply had too many sitewide reciprocal links on their pages (i.e. blogrolls). Another reason Matt Cutts alluded to was the number of forward links coming from these sites and going to lower quality sites.
Not everyone was slapped, many new blogs benefited from the new updated pagerank. So, feel free to post your former pagerank and your new one in the comments below.
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