PageRank paid links update (2007): what changed and what it means now

What Google changed#

In October 2007, Google began lowering the toolbar PageRank shown for some sites that sold links passing PageRank. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan reported on 7 October 2007 that Google “confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links.” Google also told him some link-selling sites could be dropped or given penalties that kept them from ranking well.

Google then set out its position on its own site. Its Webmaster Central blog post of 1 December 2007 said “buying or selling links that pass PageRank violates our webmaster guidelines,” and listed the October confirmation to Search Engine Land among its past statements on the issue.

Google did not name this change. The name used here is descriptive; Search Engine Roundtable’s list of major updates calls it Paid Links.

When it rolled out#

Google gave no launch date beyond October 2007. Search Engine Land’s report of Google’s confirmation was published on 7 October 2007, so this page uses that date; the exact start day is approximate. Sullivan wrote that he had noticed the drops the week before. Google stated no completion date.

What is known about its impact#

Google published no figures on how many sites were affected. It told Search Engine Land that it was decreasing PageRank for only a subset of the link sellers it knew about, and that most of the decreases happened after a human review. Its December blog post confirmed that selling links can affect Google’s view of a site’s value and cause it to lose trust in the site. Lists of affected sites circulated in the press, but Google did not publish any.

What site owners should do#

Google’s current spam policies still count “buying or selling links for ranking purposes” as link spam. They also say paid links are fine for advertising “as long as they are qualified with a rel=“nofollow” or rel=“sponsored” attribute value.”

• Mark every paid, sponsored or affiliate link with rel=“sponsored” or rel=“nofollow”.
• Do not buy links, or posts containing links, to improve rankings.
• If you received a manual action for link spam, fix the links before requesting reconsideration.

How to check whether it affected you#

This is a historical question. Search Console keeps 16 months of data, and toolbar PageRank no longer exists, so the only evidence would be analytics archives from late 2007. For anything recent, the Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists every update with its dates, so you can check what rolled out when.

Related updates#

• The Jagger update was an earlier update webmasters linked to link practices, in 2005.
• The Penguin update was Google’s first announced system against link spam, in 2012.
• The December 2022 link spam update used SpamBrain to neutralize unnatural links.