Nov 27
Real Rank - Don’t Be Hatin’
If you’re a blogger who does sponsored posts, chances are you’re very familiar with Pay Per Post.
And you’re probably also familiar with Google and how they have been pummeling the Page Rank of sites that “sell PR”, by using specific anchor text to link to sites.
Obviously this site has already been hit which is why (as of this writing) your Google toolbar says this site has a PR of 0.
Thanks Google!
How I Feel About PR
Well as I’ve said before, I’m not mad with Google. All they’re doing is trying to make their search engine the best it can be and selling links using specific anchor text we are undermining their efforts is we don’t use nofollow in our tags. But as I’ve said before, the big problem I have with all of this is that Google has not officially ever said, “you can do this, you can’t do that” and with their Webmaster Tools, I don’t think they have a good excuse to not give an official word to all the webmasters who WOULD play by the rules if they knew what they were.
Introducing Real Rank
So getting back to Pay Per Post, they issue posting opportunities to its members based largely on Page Rank and Alexa Rank. When all of their members’ sites started going to PR 0, they (thankfully) did not change the Page Rank of their members’ stats, (likely because they would’ve had a freakin’ hard time trying to fill all their opportunities). So after all of this, it was really only a matter of time before a new ranking system appeared, and it looks like Real Rank is the first one to get its head above water. Here’s a snippet of the description from IZEA (parent company of PPP) :
…gathers REAL traffic information, much like your analytics platform and ranks users based on their standing within the network. The formula is relatively simple.
70% weighted towards visitors per day
20% weighted towards amount of ACTIVE inbound links per day
10% weighted towards pageviews per day…
Does Real Rank Fix the Problem?
I guess it depends on what you think the problem is and what side of the ball you’re on. The reason why I felt obliged to make this post was because of Court’s post on the subject, where for him it came down to the question,
Can You Survive Without Google?
In his opinion he said that “[.01% of bloggers don't care about Google]“. I would argue that it is probably much higher than that. I think there are a TON of people who have turned away from Google for whatever reason… AdSense doesn’t yield anything for them, and they’re not getting anything for G’s Serps. And I think for these people, Real Rank may provide what they need to make a buck from their site. Now I’m not saying that it will help them make 13K a month, but maybe the “few bucks” they’re looking for that helps them in their everyday lives.
What About For Me?
I don’t know. I’m kind of in the middle of all these things… I’m always working to improve my AdSense earnings, but while that’s going on, I love making some side cash with Pay Per Post. And as Courtney points out, I think it’s a fair bet that Google won’t stop on these penalties and will start banning/de-indexing sites all together. If THAT happens, there will obviously be a drop off for me on visitors, which of course impacts every other stat including my new Real Rank. Maybe this is a time that I should consider changing MY business plan for this site. Of course that would I’d have to have one first…
What about you? Do you care about Real Rank? Is it making you consider doing things differently with your sites?
November 27th, 2007 at 10:57 am
my oh my, what did you do? I am still PR3. Anyway, I am very happy to see PPP’s company is doing someinthing about pagerank being unreliable. In truth, the only real reason for me to worry about Page Rank is for PayPerPost.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
The problem with realrank is that part of the reason people are paying for things like PPP isn’t just traffic to their websites/products but to build up backlinks with decent PR so that they will rank higher in the SERPS.
The other major issue is that traffic can be faked really easy. People are going to start totally artificially inflating their traffic in order to fool PPP and get paid lots of money while producing horrible results. The whole system could suffer drastically as a result.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I agree with Antibarbie this can be inflated just like anything else.
You really need to focus on other ways to make money besides Adsense and PPP.
I don’t soley depend on Google for my traffic and I can definitely survive without them. I think if you put so much emphasis on one thing you can set yourself up for disaster.
I do a great job of promoting my websites using other services. Could I do even better? Yes, and I am. That is why I started actively writing for a few other places. I can reach more people and effectively pull them to my website.
Google is not the only search engine out there even if it is on top at the moment.
I don’t know the % of those don’t care about Google but I do know the ones who do seem to be very high if they didn’t care why in the world did you fix your site to appease Google?
I highly doubt that they would not have fixed their sites to appease Google. If more people didn’t care about them they would not have such a stranglehold and they would be forced to change some of their practices if they wanted to stay on top.
Until people start to wake up and get their virtual houses in order they will continue to fall lock step with whatever Google has to say simply because their virtual homes won’t do well without a nod from Google. That’s definitely not how I planned my online strategy. In my opinion that is not a smart business plan.
My website went down to a 0 initially I was a 5 this past April. I’m not changing a thing and I’m still making money online. Each month the amount I make increases. It takes a lot of work but I’m doing it and I will do better next month. ;-)
November 27th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
@Apexad - I shot the sheriff.
@AntiBarbie - Good point. Any program is going to have its flaws and I’m sure just like PR, this one will be gamed, exploited and maybe a sub industry will come out of that too. *nod*
@Opal T - “That’s definitely now how I planned my online strategy” I think part of my problem is that I really didn’t ever come up with an online strategey, I became dependent on PR, and here I am. Now is time to change that, and hopefully that will happen in the next couple of weeks as I start to make some serious changes to my sites.
I hope you’ll join in the fun Opal! PLUS, if you’d like to write a guest post, I’d be in your debt. (#):)
November 27th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Well, obviously, all the sheriffs are dead because many others are suffering the same fate. As for me, I did actually removed Text Link Ads from my site, maybe that is what is keeping with some PR left.
I just contacted PayPerPost to see if they would move my PR back to 5 for the sake of oppurtunities and they basically said No. So it stays at PR3 on PPP and in the real world.
In some ways I think I am pretty dependent on Google, but not entirely PR in regards to my blog. My blog has that rare element of utilizing an untapped images.google market where PR is not so much an issue.
As far as making money, wheather it is adsense, or PayPerPost, I do alright. However, I have several websites/projects that I haven’t yet put the deserved time into. So, at the point when I actually have some time to that I fully plan to listen to Opal and look into better ways to promote and make money on my websites.
That being said, out of curiousity, anyone mind sharing their Real Rank? Mine is at 153, I have to figure out if that’s good or bad.
November 27th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
@Apexad - My Real Rank is 440 and I think that the lower # the better. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that a Real Rank of 1 means that you’re in the top 1% of ppl who have Real Rank).
And let me know how your other projects are going, I hope as I go forward with mine, you’ll be inclined to share yours too. *nod*
November 27th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Google has had a information posted that specifically outlines how you should link to sites that are paying you to write about them. I found the info a while back and fixed my own links… You can read about googles position on paid links at: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66736&topic=8524
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Glad you had a better black friday! Take care!
November 27th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
@Talina - Yeah, I kinda knew about that page on Google from other blogs but I had completely forgotten about it until now! Thanks for posting that link - But even still, when the big slap came, people didn’t immediately know what was going on, PLUS I don’t know that there’s currently a consensus on how to get back on Google’s good graces (ie restore your PR).
So I wish they would freakin’ come out with an official statement already!!!
BUT in any event, I appreciate you taking the time to stop by. (#):)
November 27th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
+1
@Talina - Sorry, I meant to ask what you meant by “[fixing] your own links” as you said in your comment… I saw your post on the whole thing but wasn’t sure if you WERE a postie or if you WERE one now, or what exactly your experience was with the whole thing…
November 27th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Like you I am in the middle.
I don’t get much traffic right now so am worried that my Real Rank will not be worth too much! I currently am barely holding onto a PR4!
I guess it just comes down to the fact that I have to keep posting and fishing for new visitors and then it will all work out.
Google will have trouble if they cut everyone off but I don’t think they care right now!
November 27th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
You got the sheriff .. I shot the deputy heh.
I’ve been a member of PPP for a while but I haven’t done any posts for them. I’ve yet to see a great ranking system though.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:09 am
You need to quit worrying about PageRank and opt into the new PaidRank system ;)
November 28th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Haha I read that post. Can’t we have a rank bar that’s colored brown? Hehe
November 29th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Good for you!
This recent smack down has made me think about other ways I can increase my traffic. It’s always been on my mind and I’ve always done a good job but I’ve turned it up several notches.
Perhaps I could write something here and on my own website?
I honestly don’t get Real Rank. I do think you will find some people using services that will artificially boost their traffic each day .
I really am not impressed with Real Rank it seems a lot easier to game than Google but who knows I might be wrong?
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
@Forest - As I read on Court’s post, I don’t think Google much cares who they cut off ’cause frankly, they have a billion pages to index.. Why not make the job easier on themselves?
@Brown - Well I’m not saying that you SHOULD start posting, but of all the sponsored reviews sites I’ve used here and there, I’m probably happiest with PPP.
@Ad Tracker - Are you trying to tricksie us again? (#):)
@Opal T - I don’t think you’re wrong regarding Real Rank, I mean, it will be gamed. It HAS to be gamed. But we’ll see. *nod*
December 12th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
A 1 - 10 scale is easy to understand.
PPP real rank can be thousands!
Before Real Rank, even with 0/10 I was getting at least 1 or 2 opps every now and again.
After PR was dished out from 3/10 to 0/10 across all my blogs, I now get 0 opps a day.
Great fun.
As soon as PPP finishes paying me my $300 dollars, I will be deleting every one of their posts, and deleting their tracking code on my sites.
I’d curse here..but I’ll refrain.
PPP sucks now.
December 12th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
@Sir Jorge - Eh. I guess I’m so jaded by Alexa Rank that the scale for Real Rank doesn’t mean too much to me. And I’m surprised to hear that you’re getting 0 opps a day from PPP. Is it a PR, Real Rank or Alexa problem?
And thanks for visiting BTW. (#):)