Link benefits despite PR block?

Several months ago, I purchased some links from a PR8 authority site. This site had its PR blocked in May, but the pages still show PR8.

Does anyone know if links from this site will still provide any benefit to my sites? Obviously, I will not continue to pay the same price, but if there is still a SERP benefit, I would consider keeping the links...


thank you in advance...

Did your SERPs improve after buying the linkage?

Did they drop when it was blocked?

Do you see any traffic in your logs coming through that link?

If you have a fairly simple site you should be able to decide easily about the benefit... but there is another element... if PR passing is blocked then your paid link there might not put your own site in a favorable light.

SERPS improved considerably after link placement - this is a very high-profile site. SERPS definitely dropped after PR was blocked, but I think there is still a benefit (hard to tell how much).

I definitely receive traffic, which is the big reason I'm considering keeping the links.

I can't believe the big G would start drilling down off of such a high-profile site to penalize linked sites, but I guess anything is possible...

Speaking of drilling down, does Google manually go through and look at paid links and start penalizing? That seems pretty extreme - but I haven't followed this issue much...


thanks again

I read recently that Google never hand penalizes sites.

from http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html

"Google's technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance. There is no human involvement or manipulation of results, which is why users have come to trust Google as a source of objective information untainted by paid placement. "

http://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html

You can be assured that no one at Google has hand adjusted the results to boost the ranking of a site. Google's order of results is automatically determined by several factors, including our PageRank algorithm.

If you find the above reading helpful, then check out this link - it has a lot if good links with information on Google, all in one place.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=338190

Happy optimizing!

Thanks, but I'm not sure I agree. Google removes sites all the time. I'm just wondering if a link from a site that isn't passing PR can still help me in the SERPS...

I'll keep looking...

I stand corrected. I knew I had read some info on this recently, but you are right, Google will remove sites for spamming type activites...


"Our search results are generated completely objectively and are independent of the beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google. Some people concerned about this issue have created online petitions to encourage us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Because of our objective and automated ranking system, Google cannot be influenced by these petitions. The only sites we omit are those we are legally compelled to remove or those maliciously attempting to manipulate our results."

source http://www.google.com/explanation.html

To answer your question, I do think that the link still helps your serps. That is to say it's my theory that all links count for something, and that PR is not the only place links are figured into the algo. Best of luck bigchief.