Looks like the gravy-train might be coming to an end. I had personally been noticing that the number and quality of ops has been dropping like a stone over the last couple of weeks. Perhaps now we have an explanation.
I do hope this is an aberration since PPP is a great source of revenue for this blog. Of note though is the fact that the advertisers are the first to get hit. I suspected as much after someone pointed out the linking patterns for the advertiser. If they’re not careful, they can be easily found through simple link patterns. Fortunately this means that some advertisers can still succeed even if this is a change in Google, they’ll just have to be far more wily about it all. Unfortunately that will decrease the amount of advertisers because there will be mixed reviews regarding the results of PPP campaigns. This is all hypothetical at the moment of course.
In the meantime the stare-down continues. It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen. While PPP has 15 000 bloggers behind them, we should remember that the competing programs also have enlisted bloggers. One of those programs has some very heavyweight blogs signed up. That’s still a small amount compared to how many blogs there are out there, but it’s not an insignificant number. On the other hand Google has a fleet of PhDs to solve their problem with, deep pockets and pretty much all the traffic. Is PPP the little startup that could like Google was not so long ago? Or will it end quietly as they slowly slip into darkness. Only time will tell, because it’s started. Google seems to have taken clear aim and fired their first shot.
Hornswaggled // May 9, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I would think it would be rather easy to find the majority of PPP bloggers and it would easy enough to simply devalue their outgoing links. Google and others could do this by hand, or by somehow spidering the network. PPP also requiered posters to implement some code into the post awhile back and this would be a dead giveaway if they still require this (I am not sure). PPP posties also link to each other pretty regularly and Google could see this as a bad neighborhood.
ReviewME is another one where it would be very easy to spider the network and devalue the blogs outgoing link partaking in this.
Things seem to be changing and I for one will be standing from the sidelines until this stuff settles. Sorry guys, no more opps from me.
Marc // May 9, 2007 at 4:20 pm
It wold be very difficult to do by hand since there are allegedly 15 000 PPP bloggers and Google doesn’t like doing anything by hand because it won’t scale.
It is possible to identify the bloggers, but it’s most likely easier to identify the advertisers since all of the inbound links are going to have the same link text and will all appear within a short period of time. They can then use that information to build the bad neighbourhood profile, but they’ll find the advertiser first. But again, this is complete speculation and your theory holds as much water as mine
Hornswaggled // May 9, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Hey Marc,
I agree with you that the advertisers will be the first ones to take a hit. I was really just speculating as to why and how they may be taking the hit, hopefully its not a devaluation of the advertisers site though that most likely is the case. I agree that linking patterns are easy to spot depending on how the advertiser set up the campaign. I know many advertisers that only added a few spots every other day or so with different anchor text, this would be more difficult to determine but not impossible.
Sitting here for just a few minutes thinking about this I can think of many ways Google can ‘find’ these PPP blogs and devalue them, this would intern devalue the ads and therefore kills 2 birds with one stone. I would assume that a hand check of the network would just be a stop gap until something is developed and they have had about a year to develop something.
I for one will not be advertising there for awhile until things settle out.
Mark // May 10, 2007 at 12:14 am
Does it ever concern anyone else the power that google wields? We’re all trying to make a living (and a lifestyle) from the web and all too often we seem to be at the mercy of The All Seeing Eye. If I succeed in leaving my job will my new boss be google?
Marc // May 10, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Google certainly does yield a lot of power. Does it concern me? At times, but the way I try to look at it is that there are lots of opportunities on the web. I know there are webmasters out there that make money despite being banned from Google. I’m not one of them, nor would I like to be, but it is possible.
If you’re getting all your traffic or revenue from Google, then yes Google will be your new boss. That’s why you’re encouraged to diversify
mike // May 10, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I think Google is making the right call here – these links are paid for. It’s legitimized link spam, and it is trying to cheat PageRank. Google already doesn’t count links from banner ads and the like – this is a natural extension of that principle.
I’d be more worried about non-PPP sites who link to blogs in what Google describes as a bad neighbourhood. I can guarantee you none of them want to be associated with a bad neighbourhood, and when they start dropping links to you, you’ll be part of a bad neighbourhood that is also completely isolated.
Marc // May 10, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Excellent point Mike but I don’t think there’s going to be any sweeping poison being passed around through sponsored blogs. All Google’s really interested in is devaluing the sponsored links. If they just flagged all of it as a “bad neighbourhood” they’d be doing harm to a lot more than the sponsors. The worst that could happen would be that they would simply de-value all of the links from said blogs, leaving no harm to others yet no gain for sponsors. All that being said, I’ve yet to see any evidence of this on this blog.
Dave // May 10, 2007 at 5:11 pm
This is scary. Most of us need adsense but PPP gives so much more bang for the buck. AAAAHHHHH!
Marc // May 10, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Dave, it’s got nothing to do with Adsense. Google will be trying to do this whether or not you’re running Adsense so at least you can take comfort in that.
I’d say we’re still a ways away from needing to panic. From where I sit it’s primarily an advertiser issue at the moment. That does affect us significantly, though not directly. There will be lots of noise made before it has any serious impact on the majority of PPP bloggers. Whatever it is they’re going to do it will hit the made-for-PPP blogs first and will likely rattle a lot of cages. Right now we’re just hearing whispers of issues with only one documented case. There’s still a long road ahead.
Matthew // May 11, 2007 at 1:38 pm
lol at google doing this by hand, it would take countless man hours to enforce something like that…
PPP isn’t going anywhere
Marc // May 11, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I certainly agree that they’d never be able to do this by hand. Google never does anything by hand because they know that solution can be easily defeated by scale.
I sure hope PPP isn’t going anywhere, because as mentioned they do generate a lot of revenue for me. But there is a slight whisper in the wind that something is coming… It’s just hard to tell who’s going to come out on top.
Hornswaggled // May 18, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Just to give you guys an update from an advertiser standpoint it seems as though Google is going through some fluctuations in the data centers. On some days the PPP spots are producing while on the other days they are dropped. It looks to me as though they are testing the results on a few data centers as they are known to do.
I have thrown a few more bucks at PPP but am doing so on a much smaller scale and am keeping a watchful eye. Im sure many advertisers are not as concerned as I and this will not be something that will kill PPP. Even if Google pulls the rug out there will still be a need for PPP to get the word out on certain products regardless of any help in the search engines.
Marc // May 18, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Thanks for the update Hornswaggled.
The shuffling in the index is to be expected as they try and figure this out. The fact that some people will be clipped off and some will survive is expected as well.
From a publisher’s perspective things are definitely getting much leaner and I just noticed a PPP Love post asking people to talk about how much they love PPP. I think they’re still a long, long ways off of any devastating drop, but they certainly seem to be experiencing a dip. All that’s left are posts about mortgages, credit cards, gambling, etc… I’ve done a bunch of those in the past. I’m just not interested in those so much anymore.