Do you consult with an SEO expert? Has that expert advised you to hide links from search engines in a practice called PageRank sculpting? Are you aware that PageRank sculpting is a widely discredited practice that has been shown to not work not only by the SEOs who challenged the crazy idea in the first place but also by Google? PageRank sculpting became popular in 2007 after a couple of very prominent SEO convention presenters endorsed the idea. And yet despite warnings from Google employees and more discerning members of the SEO community like Shari Thurow and Adam Audette, the PageRank sculpting SEOs boldly claimed they had tests that proved PageRank sculpting works.

The truth finally came out over the summer of 2009 when Matt Cutts of Google announced at an SEO conference that Google had changed the way it handles PageRank for internal links in late 2007 or early 2008 because of all the harm that PageRank sculpting was causing to Websites. The tests that the PageRank sculptors were using proved to be completely useless and invalid. And yet, unbelievably, despite being shown the error of their ways, these SEO fools continue to preach the PageRank sculpting Gospel to anyone who is crazy enough to listen.

Instead of acknowledging they were wrong the PageRank sculpting believers have pretended that their false idea was outed by Google. They now invent euphemisms to deceive people into thinking some new idea has been born. Or else the PageRank sculptors promise that their “new method” will work better than the old, discredited method. Remember that these guys never once showed they could actually change anything for the better with this dumb idea. Instead, they were shown to have no idea of what they were doing when Google made its announcement.

Don’t let anyone deceive you into thinking that PageRank sculpting can help your Website. If that were really the case the best SEO minds in the industry like Jaan Kanellis, Adam Audette, and Shari Thurow (to name just a few) would have stepped up to the plate and endorsed the concept.