Shopzilla must've been hit hard by the PageRank massacre, or so one would suspect. A blogger was offered $100 to remove a PayPerPost review that he had written on Shopzilla.

But in the second mail they were offering me $100 for the removal of the link. I was really amazed to see the mail because they paid for putting the link and now they are offering for the removal of the link also.

Uh, what? Whatever works for them, I guess. I guess PageRank matters more to some people than to others.

Some folks are already prepared to make it tougher for ShopZilla:

I think I'm going to have to add a post about stopzilla on a blog under a PayPerPoast heading. Are they gong to pay me too?

Shopzilla, it really doesn't matter. Or rather, Google, stop making people run like a stampede to have bloggers remove their posts.

On the other hand, would PageRank really make people go this far? Is there something else we don't know? Maybe there is a Public Relations (PR) issue with some of their paid reviews that triggered Shopzilla to encourage bloggers monetarily to remove some paid reviews. We have seen cases before where paid reviews have hurt a company's reputation.

Still, the timing is just a little bit coincidental. I know a few people whose PageRanks were restored after they removed their paid links and requested reinclusion.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

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