Easy come, easy go. The Red Stapler Chronicles, once a PR 4 blog, then a PR 3 blog, has now been slapped down to a PR of 0. Most likely, I am being punished for using Linkworth to sell links. I knew this could be a consequence of generating a little extra revenue, so this development is not really a major surprise. What bothers me is the consistency in which blogs get punished for selling links. Their are countless blogs that I know of that sell Text links or have sponsored posts that contain text links that have avoided Google punishments time after time.
Oh well, my Google search traffic is at a all time high, so this punishment really has not hurt my overall traffic. What it will do is reduce the possibility of me making any more money on Linkworth (certainly a catch-22) and will severely lower the possibility of someone being interested in buying an ad via Perfromancing. As a result, as soon as my current ad expires, I will remove Performancing Ads from my site.
Next, after my blog is free of paid text links for a month, I will submit another Google reconsideration request. Then the “google game” will be reset and I will continue playing it in the same matter.
I doubt very seriously it has anything to do with Linkworth. I look on our client sites often for evidence of possible problems, including paid links, and there’s nothing on this site that says “hey i’m using a link broker” … well, except for you broadcasting that you use them with this post.
Might re-consider in case it’s something else.
A couple of things I thought I would suggest,
You need to hide your plugins folder. All it takes is putting an empty index.html in the /plugins folder. You can see everything you currently use:
https://redstaplerchronicles.com/wp-content/plugins/
If you really did get a penalty, I would suspect performancing ads. They’re no different than a link broker except they use images. They leave easy to spot footprints on every blog. Plugin is named the same, title of their ad section/block and usually have their own affiliate banner showing. Either hide them better or make it all nofollow.
The last thing is regarding posts like these:
https://redstaplerchronicles.com/current-earnings/
I think the linkworth outfit does a good job of making it tough to spot, so then it comes down to you. Don’t broadcast to everyone you’re using them. All Google has to do is do a search for something like “linkworth” “earnings” and penalize the people in the results.
So be smart and protect yourself. As long as you hide what you’re doing well, you can use a lot of these risky places. The blogs that you mention getting away with it are the people that are good at hiding things.
Hope this helps. Enjoy your blog.
Steven
Steven,
Thanks for all the good advice!! Looks like I have some work to do. . .
I am sorry to hear about your pagerank decrease, This descend also happen to other site of mine. Decrease from PR 3 to PR 0. I it happen zigzag, i mean sometime it PR 3 sometime PR 0. But now it is PR 0 and I can’t do nothing except making backlink to other site. May be you have to put many link to other site for making inbound link
Yes it happens it depends on your quality back links but PR will not matters in promoting your website
My experiences always shocked me so I have the same shocking experience with PR. I think there is nothing wrong to sell or to have links, it is somethign else which always pinch me. I like all those advices because I didn’t know all that. Anyhow I am not in the favor to remove all those links which someone sells in good days. Don’t leave your partners, don’t worry about that green bar, it would be raising up soon.
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Kevin, I’m sorry to hear about your loss in page rank — but it will probably go back up. I have had this happen with several sites and the only thing that I was able to figure out was that there were some very bad links to the sites. For some weird reason, though, when the PR went down, the traffic and sales went up. Go figure! I understand how important page rank can be when you’re selling links, but ultimately, it’s the traffic that counts.
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Haha, don’t scare me like this! I use linkworth too!
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i also interested in ads and Google page rank.. so this is help to me take experience.
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Ohh thats really scary and even sad
Though im working day night to increase the PR of my blog 
Great post! i especially found it useful where you started. Good job! Thanks for the tips!
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Go figure! I understand how important page rank can be when you’re selling links, but ultimately, it’s the traffic that counts.
Yep – Still sitting at a PR of 0