Why you should stop selling text links and surrender to Google
Google originally hurt me by taking away my hard earned PR5 and awarding me a PR2. I looked today (2 days after submitting my reconsideration request) and they appear to have taken me all the way back to the start - a PR0. Many people have said that "it doesn't matter" and that "these new PageRanks aren't reflective of your search engine results" but the question I ask is "for how long?".
Look at the pattern
If someone is doing something you don't like what action do you take? You warn them, then you take action and then if your action was ineffective you completely remove the problem. Translate this into the current situation - where you are the problem to Google. Google warns you by showing you that your PageRank could be dramatically reduced but doesn't make that metric active just yet - giving you sufficient warning to right your wrongs. What's the next logical step?
Think of Google as your parent when you've been naughty; you have a finite number of chances. All they've done thus far is put us on the "naughty step" so we can think about what we've done... I don't want to see how far they'll go.
The next logical step is for Google to make that PR active
If the warning wasn't enough, the only place for Google to go is to reduce the meaning of your website. They would do this by making that reduced PageRank determine the position your website holds within the search engine listings - and that would not be a good thing at all. Where do they go from there? The next step is to completely remove your website from the index altogether (although this would be a harsh step to take).
Why I can't let that happen
Google delivers me 300+ visitors a day which totals an acceptable 2,100 people per week. I can't afford to drop that many natural visitors because of their high quality. Search engine visitors are good because they have an information requirement that Google believes your site holds.
As a consequence I removed the information related to adveritising on Seopher.com and removed the space where sponsors' links would appear. I've informed Google of this and hopefully they'll accept my apology and re-instate my PageRank. After all, selling text links is a lucrative source of income as it is and I'd rather focus on high quality content (and visitors); continuing to sell text links would be against my long term goals.
So, Google... I surrender.
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