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I noticed a few days ago that the pagerank for BlogTactics.com has suddenly dropped to zero, and as the site has far more links to it than it did in the last PR update, I guess the “mighty Giigle”, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that I’m selling posts or links on this blog..
They’re wrong, I’ve never sold any posts, reviews or links on this blog, I don’t even have any “paid” advertisments, but it seems that doesn’t really matter to them. 
I assume it’s probably because my blogroll links didn’t have the rel=”nofollow” tag on them, so in their “all knowing wisdom” they’ve come to the conclusion that they must be paid links.
They’re not for course, they are in fact links to other sites of mine that are related to this blog, and to other sites that have useful resources and services that I use and recommend. It’s called affiliate marketing, but perhaps “Giigle” have decided to start penalizing affiliate marketers too, or maybe they just don’t like to see anyone other than themselves making money from a website.. 
anyway, what I think of their current stance is irrelevant if I want to get the PR back, which I’m going to “try”, as it’s still seen as a form of “social proof” for the value of a site.
so I decided to add the rel=”nofollow” tag to all my blogroll links and submit a reinclusion request, but I then discovered that WordPress doesn’t include an easy way to make blogroll link ‘nofollow’ed.
There are a whole bunch of other “XFN” relationship tags available, but non of them are going to help with getting my PR re-instated, so I went looking for a solution.
I found one on the KnowledgeConstructs.com blog from a very switched on guy called Zain.
it’s a pretty simple wordpress hack, and it must be simple as I managed to do it myself without messing anything up.
I thought that I’d do a video showing just how to use Zain’s code so you can do it as well if you need/want to, so the video is below…
This video is a bit longer than my usual videos at just over 9 minutes, but that’s largely because I’ve tried to cover the whole process to make it nice and easy to replicate.
you can grab a copy of the code needed from my useful free stuff site, where I’ve alsoo included the link for the webmaster tools page, which is where you can submit a reinclusion request if this has happened to you.
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[...] PR0 Penalty From Google For Blogroll Links | BlogTactics.com I assume it’s probably because my blogroll links didn’t have the rel=”nofollow” tag on them, so in their “all knowing wisdom” they’ve come to the conclusion that they must be paid links. (tags: Google Blogroll Links) [...]
[...] Matt presents Dealing With A PR0 Penalty From Google For Blogroll Links posted at BlogTactics.com, saying, “Dealing with A PR0 penalty from google for blogroll [...]
[...] Matt presents Dealing With A PR0 Penalty From Google For Blogroll Links posted at BlogTactics.com. Dealing with A PR0 penalty from google for blogroll [...]
Hey matt. I had a similar problem. Google dropped my blog from the index (main keyword) because I had a TLA banner in my side bar. Took a while to figure out this was the cause of that. THEN when I removed the TLA banner my blog magically re-appeared where it had been sitting. Big G is definately whacked.
I recently removed the rel=nofollow tag from my side so it will be interesting to what happens. NOt that I really care.
Im focusing on building my RSS numbers as a defense mechanism against this sort of thing. I havent seen a PR dump yet. Im lso getting the idea that G likes to see higher numbers in the referring sites stat VS organic numbers. ANyone have any ideas on this idea?
[...] Matt presents Dealing With A PR0 Penalty From Google For Blogroll Links posted at BlogTactics.com, saying, “Dealing with A PR0 penalty from google for blogroll [...]
Great information!
I hope it works on mine.
Regards,
Parimal
[...] Matt presents Dealing With A PR0 Penalty From Google For Blogroll Links posted at BlogTactics.com, saying, “Dealing with A PR0 penalty from google for blogroll [...]
Thanks so much! I have a couple of niche sites and it works great!
Matt,
I notice you don’t have any confirmation that your PR was whacked because Google was assuming you were selling links. Nor that adding the “no follow” tag will help. But I also notice your PR (for what it is worth) is back. So good good. I realize these are techniques made necessary by Google’s holier-than-thou attitude about what is acceptable and what not acceptable. It just makes me a bit sick to think we are forced to do this kind of stuff because Google tells us to do it. Personally I think the “no follow” thing is a bit degenerate.
Hi Rick,
nope, google don’t ever tell you stuff like that, in my experience anyway, but the fact that the PR cameback on both blogs within a week or so of adding my new plugin suggests my “assumption” may be valid.
it’s google’s game, so we just have to try and play by their rules, unfortunatly.
cheers,
Matt Garrett