Comments on: If google punishes link buyers Darren should be penalized

By: SEO Review - Digital Photography School | Don't outsource your SEO work to India, Do It Yourself at DailySEOblog

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:35:05 +0000

[...] spotted Darren’s comments here and there on some articles. Most interesting of them being this one, where he was a bit miffed about an article I wrote which according to me was wrongly interpreted. [...]

By: Vikram

Vikram — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:01:49 +0000

Hi there,
I see your point of view Mani. This post has shades of gray but your previous posts have been great, Keep the flow going.

Cheers!

By: Mani Karthik

Mani Karthik — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:20:20 +0000

@ Beau – You are right. Though I think it’s not good to over do it, many readers find it interesting to read about these sites. And it’s interesting to see how Google deals with it.

By: Beau

Beau — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:51:06 +0000

Mani,

I think you could have chosen a better example than Darren Rowse and ProBlogger.net. There are many other high profile blogs, websites that do a tremendous amount of aggressive “Link Baiting” or link purchasing.

Unfortunately, your message was lost due to your poor choice of evidence.

Beau

By: raj

raj — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:31:13 +0000

Mani, it became personal when you put Darren’s name in the title of your post. I find it hard to believe that you’re saying that’s not what you’re doing. Furthermore, you can kowtow to Google anyway you want, but brazenly saying above that you expect everyone to do exactly the same is unbelievable. Are you dense or just trying to get noticed? If the latter, this is NOT the way to do it.

By: Mani Karthik

Mani Karthik — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:45:04 +0000

@Jane, This is not personal at all. Hope you’ll take it in the right spirit.
@Vikram, you are right – “The posts on your blog have mentioned famous bloggers and well the line has never been crossed”. I didn’t want it to happen this time either. This was a mis-interpretation. Please see the update note on the post.

Cheers!
Mani

By: Things to note when link baiting | Blogging Tips

Things to note when link baiting | Blogging Tips — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:04:45 +0000

[...] noted something interesting in Darren’s blog and reported about it here. It was an impulsive post and I had no intentions anything at all of it being controversial or so [...]

By: Mani Karthik

Mani Karthik — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:53:06 +0000

Hi Darren, I’d not write anything like it if it negatively affects anyone (forget someone who makes a livelihood out of it, but anyone).

I haven’t reported you to Google nor do I think anyone should. I was trying to make a point here that – Googles policies are often ineffective as it fails and cannot stop “anyone and everyone” who tries to manipulate the system.

I have tried for link exchanges(even a John Chow kinda operation), and just like you, quit it once I came to know about it’s ill effects.

I don’t think that anyone should report anything like this to Google, unless it affects you. Like a site ranking higher on the SERPS than your site, which does(the other site not your’s) blackhat SEO techniques and link buying by mass.

In this case, my sincere wish was to let people know about the failure of Google policies by taking a popular example – that’s you. People would not find it interesting if I gave my example or any non-popular blogger.

Bottom line – This post was not meant to hurt anyone but educate the normal reader that Google’s policies can be ineffective, even in the case of a popular site like Problogger.net. I strongly urge the readers to take this as an example/case study from which you should take lessons and not as something to act upon.

By: JaneF

JaneF — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:27:08 +0000

You leave Darren alone. He never did anything to bother you.

By: Darren

Darren — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:10:48 +0000

why didn’t my last comment go up yet Mani – it’s been a couple of days?