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Hi Squadron
Yes there has been the long overdue PageRank Update, and I'm sure the blogroll has been a great help to many sites (thanks Snos).
I've gone to a PR 5, so have fared very well from the update. There's talk that blogs that have Text Link Ads (and I query perhaps Amazon and other sponsored (non Google) advertising) have taken a -1 or -2 penalty. It's hard to know with new blogs, who might now be a PR 2 or 3, but perhaps would have been a 4-5 without such advertising.
General consensus is that Google have cracked down a little with their PageRanking, so that generally blogs might be ranking "1" less than they would have expected. IMHO, blogs have probably been given a little too much juice in the past (my old wordpress.com blog received a PR 5 in just over 3 months last time around), especially in comparison to more "static" sites. So it's merely a "tweaking" of the Google Algorithm.
I covered it a bit here: blogpond.com.au/2007/10/27/google-pagerank-finally...
I've gone from a 0 to a 3. My blog is all of 4 months old, so that suits me fine. Course I've got no advertising at all, so that sounds like it would help.
Well done Meg ! PR 5 is very good for an Australian content site.
On the down side I've just seen that a news site I run drop from PR4 to PR0. It only had a handful of private text link ads, but enough to get the good old Google spanking. Wack ... please Sir, may I have another? I suspect the fact that I had the word "Advertisers" at the top of the section was a bit of a giveaway :) I'll remove it and see what happens.
It pisses me off that Google thinks they are the only people who should make money from text link ads. Or maybe, their search algorithm is so weighted towards links too many people were scamming their system really screwing up their supposed "search quality".
I usually use Google for everyday vanilla searching, but if I really want to find something tricky, I always use Yahoo. Yahoo seems far better for long-tail searches.
Methinks I'm going to change my home page from Google to Yahoo just out of spite!
I went from 3 to 4 for my blog. My website home page is unchanged at 4 I think - I don't check very often. In the debate, which has been impossible to avoid, I'm on the side of "it's a lot of fuss about nothing". I understand that people have reasons for caring more though. And we all have to admit that there's something about ranking systems and gradings that is irresistible.
I too went from 3 to 4 after sitting on three for over a year. I went to 3 quite soon after starting blogging and wondered if part of that was because of using blogspot - Google owned.
I went to a 4 which pleases me for child protection. I have been fascinated with all the talk about it. Thanks to all you natters I have learnt heaps - including that niche topics will PR progress quicker. I love that about blogging - its possible to quickly find opposing views and learn from each of them.
I've copped a smack on swollenpickles.com i have another blog that dropped to spots as well. Damn text-link-ads!
I've dropped from 4 to 3, but to be honest I don't really give a rat's about it. There's more to the Internet than getting traffic from Google. I would much rather have my site linked from hundreds of other sites than rely on search engine results where I could never get in the top echelon anyway. Most of my income comes from TLA and other affiliate programs, but I dumped AdSense months ago due to it's highly restrictive conditions. All the things it banned me from advertising were the ones that were paying me a lot more than Google, so Google got the shove.
I'm now using Yahoo as my search engine instead of Google - I really want to have as little as possible to do with Google (except for hosting my blogs on Blogspot). They've become too powerful and money-hungry, and in my opinion are the new Microsoft, intent on crushing all competition in their quest for a monopoly.
All I can suggest is for people to look at whether getting rid of TLA on their site will really result in a tangible benefit, or if they will be cutting off a good source of income just to satisfy the bullies at Google.
Here's a very good take on the situation from another TLA seller, Linkworth: blog.linkworth.com/so-what-is-next-for-webmasters/
I recommend to anyone running text link ads on their site that they have a look at it before making a decision.