2007 was the year of the paid reviews and the sold links for those trying to make money online, just like 2006 was the year of the directories for those that did SEO. It seems that each new year brings with it new preferred methods of link building and making money online, only to see them squashed eventually.

Below you can see the PPP popularity dropping since Google started punishing bloggers that used them:

In 2006 and 2007, writing projects and carnivals were all the rage for bloggers, and where are they now?

For those trying to make money online, it’s a constant battle to adapt and come up with new strategies that will grow a new blog to the point where the link building is taking care of itself, based on its popularity.

Personally, I’ve never used PayPerPost back when it was truly popular, mainly because PayPal wasn’t available in my country. I gave it a shot about two months ago, on a blog where I don’t post regularly, to see how it works and to make a few quick bucks.

Guess what, from a PR 3, it dropped to PR 0 in 24 hours after I posted the "I signed up for PayPerPost" review. Got the $20, but the PR is gone, not that it was worth anything anyway. I got a strong feeling that Google has some good filters by now, to deal with blogs that go on this path.

If anyone wants to give PPP a shot, you might want to avoid the I Signed Up For PPP intro post, and do some reviews instead. I’d be curious to know if the filters are triggered just by that title, or by the tracking images that you have to insert in the review.

I’m guessing the first variant, since there are people still making good money with PPP.

My conclusion from all this is that you can’t start a business that is monetized with selling links, paid reviews or other schemes that are against the guidelines of the search engines. Eventually, they will have to react, and ban those sites.