Google penalties can be lifted

A few weeks ago I posted about David Airey's Google penalty.He has just updated that post noting that the penalty was lifted and his Google rank has shot up and his hits have subsequently reflected this.Read his post and then continue reading this one.After reading his post a few things came to mind. Firstly Google Pagerank and search results are absolutely imperative to a successful blog. No shit. Secondly, to a certain extent Google can and does restrict bloggers, whether this is conscious or subconscious it is still happening.David is the perfect example and now I am questioning my tactics and what I do on my blogs.My concern is for SA Rocks. I ran a badge competition a while back and when the winner was announced I hoped that people would use the badge on their sites to show support for SA and how much it rocks. Simple.But is it possible that I could receive a penalty? Oh, wait, can I even blog about this or will it alert google's spam team to what I have done?There are ethics involved ofcourse. They must surely and hopefully do take in to account the intention of the blogger when he/she "broke" the rules.The last problem or concern I have with all of this is exactly what counts as "Black hat SEO" and exactly what is a "bad neighbourhood" to link to?There are some links that David provides to try and help with these issues; here and here

Google search rank penalties

Did you know that paid text link ads can sink your Google rank through a penalty imposed by the search engine giant? I didn't but David Airey found out first hand recently.His Google refferals dropped from 30% to 6% thanks to a penalty implemented by Google.The problem?Airey started to sell advertising on his site without adding the rel=”nofollow” to hyperlink adverts. This is apparently not such a good idea as Google frowns upon this in a big way. Advertising is allowed but the rel=”nofollow” is essential.Revenue via advertising is allowed by Google but the company is very clear about what is allowed and what is not:

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:* Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the ‘a href’ tag* Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

Airey has some great links on his post that will help to explain the problem and give you solutions. Money is still able to be made, but make sure you aren't destroying hard work on the SEO of your blog for a few hundred bucks.I am interested to know if this sort of "law" applies to javascript adverts or any other kind of advertising on a website? Anyone have any answers? Maybe The Unknown Soldier has some answers?

David Airey's blog is a must read

I know that many bloggers aren't in to the whole optimization concept. Whether it be optimizing writing, appearance, communication or any other aspect of a blog. But David Airey has a blog that have not been able to get off for the last week or two.He talks about a variety of topics in a succint and simple way that makes sense to me and clearly to others as well. I think the blog will (might) appeal to the Quirks, Cherry's and Jo's of the SA blogosphere as well as any blogger who is in the process of a redesign or generally looking to spruce up their template and approach to blogging.Some featured articles that I found that have definitely helped me at SA Rocks and soon on this blog too:5 important design aspects of any website or blog6 tips to improve your blog articlesTop 5 essential WordPress PluginsAre these good or bad business cards?Some points I particularly like from articles that I have read on his blog: Link your blog posts to and from your blog posts. This will help to keep the reader on your site for as long as possible.Clean things up. Get rid of anything unnecessary in your sidebar.Choose a colour scheme.I am sure that many in the SA blogosphere will glance over the blog and palm it off as useless gimicky rubbish. I don't think so however.If this sort of thing interests you then do yourself a favour and visit his blog. Just like most how to sites suggest, David has contacted me and thanked me for my comments. Nice touch and one that I think many of us overlook. Person to person is always best. Always.