It appears that there is a Google PageRank update happening right now and is affecting sites some very high profile sites (and of course they are making it widely known). The verdict is out however on whether the penalty was imposed on those that sell links on their Web properties (paid linking) or those that were interlinking their blog networks (which seem to have bore the brunt of the negative update) heavily.

It should come as no surprise that this was going to happen. Google has been indicating they would begin penalizing paid links for some time but I was tipped off a few weeks ago by one of our writers who contributed a story on the the paid link debate for our November issue. Needless to say, many who are seeing a lowered PageRank are not very pleased at all. There are extensive lists floating around about who has been affected by the update. Website Magazine has not suffered any reduction in PageRank - whew - must mean we're doing something right!

Just as a reminder, here are Google's guidelines on linking: Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.