Paid review, does it really affect PageRank?

[st_hart]

Some bloggers complained that Google punished them with lower PR in the last PR update, because they post paid reviews on their blogs. I wonder if it's right. My friends post regular paid reviews (2 - 3 reviews a week) and her blog PR remain the same (PR 4).

[jimbo]

I do not know about paid reviews however I do know that sites who were selling high PR links have been busted in the latest Google PR update.

[dianar]

If Google starts penalizing these bloggers the way they did a couple of years ago, you will see another migration away from them and into other programs.

It might be hard on the bloggers, but people really need to use other options, instead of relying on Google alone.

[simplyme]

Originally Posted by st_hart

Some bloggers complained that Google punished them with lower PR in the last PR update, because they post paid reviews on their blogs. I wonder if it's right. My friends post regular paid reviews (2 - 3 reviews a week) and her blog PR remain the same (PR 4).

That is a curious matter. I do not understand the harm in posting paid reviews on ones site or why that would be frowned upon. It seems to me Googles focus is more for those low content/large amount of links and keyword stuffed fluff sites. -- Then again I am fairly new so what do I know

[tonyknuckles]

I can attest tothe Google slap of a coupe years ago. I had a high flying blog that had up to a PR4 at one time and i was doing good through a variety of paid review services. when Google slammed me to a PR0, it all dried up and I was only able to get menial money after that. went from making $60/day to next to nothing
It was awesome while it lasted though.

[st_hart]

Originally Posted by simplyme

That is a curious matter. I do not understand the harm in posting paid reviews on ones site or why that would be frowned upon. It seems to me Googles focus is more for those low content/large amount of links and keyword stuffed fluff sites. -- Then again I am fairly new so what do I know

Well, it's about the quality of the inbound links. We usually (well, it's the requirement) add links to the advertiser's site on our paid review. So, actually the advertiser 'buys' links from us. While Google rely mainly on inbound links to decide the PageRank. An inbound link is an example of a web page recommending another web page. The more quality the content where the inbound link in, the more Google will value the inbound link.

[billmcintosh]

I guess the real problem is that Google doesn't trust bloggers to only endorse or do a paid review for products that are actually good.

It'd be nice to see some kind of system where if you think the product/service is bad you could nofollow the link. If you legitimately thought it was good: what's the harm in passing pagerank for a good company?