Google, the God of all Internet God’s does not like it when sites try to pull one over on them. And recently, Findlaw.com is in Google’s hotseat. Reportedly, Google dropped FindLaw’s page rank from a 7 to a 5 when they discovered that the site was in agreement to sell a link from FindLaw.com to a law firm’s Web site for up to $2,500 a month for the sole purpose of improving that site’s search results.

This is a big no-no in the eyes of Google. According to its Webmaster Guidelines: “Buying or selling links that pass Page Rank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

After FindLaw got busted, they quickly put an end to the link sales a.k.a SEM Advantage program. And Google has returned their page rank to a 7! The moral of this story: Don’t mess with Google.

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