PayPerPosters The Latest To Lose PageRank

I'm still convinced that this is a manual adjustment - a punishment for obvious and high-profile offenders - intended to frighten the rest of the web to conform to Google's policies.

In reality it might be that Google does not have any automated means of punishing others - and if that is the case their tactic is clever. Let the webmasters know that Google moves in mysterious ways, and we should all be good citizens.

Some bloggers participating in PayPerPost's program have found their site PageRanks lowered to virtual obsolescence by Google in the past week.

Ultimately the way forward is clear - if you want to do well via Google you have two choices:

1) Learn deeply what Google considers to be evil, and don't be evil
2) Outsmart Google

If 100% of my income came from a singular site, I'd play ball. If I had dozens of sites, I'd be testing to see exactly how well Google can tell if your site is pure and genuine.