Recently, Google modified their search algorithm in order to obstruct the selling and exchanging of links. They penalized big sites like WRAL (CBS and FOX Raleigh local station) and even Forbes and Washington Post. As a result, their Page Rank went from 7 to 4 or 5. Therefore their selling links model is hence dead. We mentioned almost a year ago that, inevitably, search engines will develop algorithms to measure link authenticity. This change in algorithm had a negative impact for hundreds of websites that were selling links. Moreover, thousands of websites that were counting on increasing their rank by buying links were affected. They will have to think twice before signing long term SEO contracts. Even the article writing took a hit, as Google does not rank these sites as before.

So, if you don’t transform your site to make it user friendly, respecting all search engines guidelines, and link the pages properly inside your site, in less than a year your website will hardly get any traffic from your SEO work and might even be penalized.