The following post is a response to Matt Cutts blog and the Official Google Blog, please stop being a bunch a cry babies …
Dear Google it’s 2007 that educational nirvana you all graduated from is over and it’s time to live in the real world. 
For example in Casino Royale, Aston Martin paid a lot of money to have James Bond drive their car, but you don’t hear Hyundai complaining that they are “polluting” the minds of consumers because 007 isn’t driving a Kia do you? So why do you think it’s ok to tell other people how they can or can’t advertise when you sell advertising yourself?
Designers like Versace and Dior are willing to give their dresses away to celebrities to wear on TV awards shows, but Target doesn’t complain when they don’t show up in something from the bargain rack do they. So why do you feel they should have personal assistants wrapping them up in police tape labeled rel=nofollow when they exit the limousine?
American Idol Judges are almost always shown at the table with their Coca Cola logo cups in true product placement style, but Pepsi isn’t crying over spilled milk about it. So why do you think they should direct the viewers through some redirection so no one can figure out what’s going on?
The problem is you figured a way to make money off of a link based analysis, and now you’re upset and ridding the waaaaaaaaambulance when other people move in on your cash cow. You feel like you have some god given right to be the only one who makes money off of it.
We don’t live in some communist inspired egalitarian society where you have been given exclusive rights to all link based profits, especially at the expense of all the people actually publish the content. You created the link problem, you need to stand up, like a man take responsibility, and fix it yourselves. You are one of the most profitable companies in the world, stop looking for free handouts from people reporting links to you or not utilizing link advertising because it messes with your business model. You don’t want people tinkering with factors in your link based algo, then stop relying so heavily on it. You have more PHD’s than any other company in the world, stop letting people waste 20% of their time on nonsense and get them to focus on solving problems that affect your bottom line, and ultimately their paychecks. Grow up and stop acting like a bunch of petulant spoiled children, who now have to share their favorite toy with the rest of the kids in the playground. Here’s a newsflash real businesses adapt to changes in the world around them, they don’t dictate that the rest of world capitulate to their whims just because they say they are warm, fuzzy, and “do no evil”.
Oh and lastly please stop with the “It’s better for everyone” BS when what you really mean is it’s better for your stock options and your bank account, cause most of us are smart enough to see right through that malarky.
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(Please excuse what is likely to be a naive question here).
GW, would you be so kind as to indulge me and break down what you mean by this sentence:
“The problem is you figured a way to make money off of a link based analysis, … You feel like you have some god given right to be the only one who makes money off of it.”
Specifically that link-based analysis part of things. Is this related to the ad-sense program?
You tell em man!!!
I swear I had to deal with a similar retard who thought it was his God given right to make money in a certain industry. Geez go aahead and adapt instead of being a little cry baby. wah!!!!!!!!
Why do you think this is in some way affecting their account balance?
Ever thought about a reverse boycott?
nofollow *all* our outgoing links, and see where that leaves Google’s business model
But, more seriously, I’ve also seen comments that another reason that its ‘wrong’ to sell links that pass PR is that the PR belongs to Google (ie wouldn’t exist without them) and its not ethical to sell what belongs to someone else.
The problem with this idea is that the PR wouldn’t exist without the pages that link – without us.
The PR belongs *more* to the webpage than it does to Google.
Yeah, I’m with you on the “just figure it out” attitude that Google needs to take, examine links in general and give credit as they estimate it is due, regardless if it’s paid, bartered, reciprocated, done out of admiration, earned or whatever.
But I have to disagree, Michael. Hyundai might not complain about the minds of consumers being polluted, but plenty of consumers dislike product placement. It can be annoying, especially when it feels completely out of place. It’s certainly annoying if you’re reading something you assume was an editorial piece that turns out to be some paid review.
Yep, I know it happens. Yep, I can even see value in a well done paid review type of system. But I can also absolutely appreciate that proper disclosure of something being paid is in order.
In terms of Google dictating how people can advertise, honestly, I’ll puke if I keep hearing this tired, tired argument. You or anyone needs to come up with something new, if you really want to win hearts and minds.
Google has not said don’t sell links. Google has not said you must use nofollow. Google has simply said that if you sell links, buy links or fail to use nofollow, then this may have an impact with you on Google.
If we’re talking crybabies, then include the website owners that have tapped into the PageRank economy and now are upset with the Federal Reserve Of Google has decided to cut interest rates. Hey, newsflash — Google’s an independent company that at least in the United States has a court-backed decision that says the First Amendment gives it a constitutionally protected right to do whatever the hell it wants with the PageRank meter. So you built your business around selling ads linked to PageRank, and now you’re upset when Google pulls the plug? Suck it up — the writing’s been on the wall that this WILL happen (not could) since 2003, and all Google has really done is finally made it more visible that many sites selling PageRank weren’t actually passing along credit at all.
If I’m going to be upset, I’m saving that for the relatively few sites that have been hit by PageRank decreases because Google’s “detection” system turns out to be more screwed up than it publicly lets on, and how it shouldn’t just be guesswork that you’ve been hit with a PageRank selling penalty (I don’t think this yet shows up as an official report). I can also get a little upset over Google trying to jump into FTC guidelines for human disclosure of paid reviews to try and make it seem like the FTC was calling for “machine disclosure,” when it was not — an that’s an especially hard line to make when some AdSense units actively encourage site owners to embed links as if they are part of editorial.
Overall, I just don’t see anything new in what’s happened this year, in terms of the basic arguments. If you care about being listed on Google, follow the guidelines it issues. If you don’t, do whatever you want. Just don’t complain if you violate the guidelines and Google smacks you down. To date, despite the whining, I’ve not seen a mass movement by site owners to robots.txt out Google in a boycott of solidarity. That would really hurt Google — seriously hurt it. But site owners don’t do it because in the end, they get a lot more help from the Big G despite also feeling like it’s Big Brother.
Well done Michael. I hear you loud and clear and I’m as angry as you are. There are too many Google apologists out there.
“But I can also absolutely appreciate that proper disclosure of something being paid is in order.”
That’s absolutely fine, Danny and I agree 100%. The key here is to state in text that this is a paid review or label links as advertising. Humans can comprehend this and judge the merits of the placement as they see fit.
The problem with nofollow is that it’s not designed for humans but for bots. If a webmaster uses nofollow only then Google will be happy and the users are none the wiser. Whatever happened to “Design for users first, and the bots will follow”?
That’s why I think Google’s rhetoric on this issue is utter BS and should be called out for it. And I agree when people say to Google “just figure it out on your own”.
Pierre
I’ve been waiting for this since you twittered about it last night. Well worth the wait.
Thank you for putting into plain language what so many have been trying to say at Matt’s blog. If only it mattered, huh? Google will do what Google wants.
Also, in your opinion, do you think Google will now go back and de-index all the sites that they previously stripped of PR? That’s been the talk in a few forums lately.
I think the real problem Google has with paid links is with people trying to hide it.
T-L-A recently suggested using an image if you mark your links as sponsored. This is what Google doesn’t work, and I can’t blame them.
I sell links, and I make sure my readers know they’re sponsored. If Google can’t be happy with that then maybe they do need to get down off of their high horse.
That’s some funny sh*t! Sadly, I know a dozen people in the industry who would quake in their boots if they read this. Why is anyone so intimidated by Google? Seriously. They only have the power and control we allow them to have.
Well said, Michael, except… I find it a little disingenuous to keep reading rants like this on web sites and blogs that use the nofollow tag.
It’s strictly for bot consumption (as has been stated already), has done nothing to honestly combat or slow blog spam since its introduction and is now being used as a manipulative tool by the very company you’re ranting against–so I’m afraid the use of it serves to negate any sincerity in your posting for me.
my word of the day:
“waaaaaaaaambulance”
Perfectly said, I love this thing you speak off, called the truth. I couldn’t have said it better myself
In all honesty, when I joined PPP I never thought that I was selling links. As far as I know I was being paid to actually give my opinion about the opportunity.
As a matter of fact, certain examples of business sites banning Google do make a nice dent on the peoples’ minds about it.
I, for one, am considering off-Google traffic and may switch it off in the future.
Micheal I love the thought and passion you put behind this post, however I have to disagree with your examples. I think you are a bit off the mark here. I followed the Twitter build up as well (nice job building the suspense).
Your examples of product placement are based on a one to one relationship between the owner of the product and the advertising medium (ie: The American Idol show, Sarah Jessica Parkers body, etc.). In this case when people sell Link Juice, they are selling a product that is not theirs to sell. If I was able to convince American Idol to use Mountain Dew cans on the Judges table without Pepsi’s involvement, I am fairly sure I would be talking to their lawyers.
Sure you could use the same old argument that its my site I have the right to do as I will … and you do, I agree 1000%. Google has the same right to “do as they will” with their property as well.
What Daniel said (#10)…although I think most of the “fear” comes from the fact that there is alot of traffic to be had from Google.
Brilliantly put.
I said essentially the same thing recently: regardless of WHY Google’s business model has hit a snag, it’s up the Google to adapt… not everyone else on earth. I agree that some webmasters have gamed paid links and pagerank, but that’s what happens in business: you come up with a great idea, and people circle like buzzards looking for a way to profit from it.
Like, you know, what Google does with all the info it collects off all our sites.
You don’t hear us whining: we just look for ways to adapt our strategies.
That’s where Google’s not practicing what they preach, and that’s where – even if you essentially agree with them about paid links – it’s hard to back them up.
To think Greywolf got listed as white hat in Rands game at pubcon. HA
Well said as usual.
Hear, hear!!! I agree 100%. Google just wants the rest of the internet to be poor, they want all the good candy for themselves.
To Scott Bannon who commented about reading about Google on blogs that are no-follow. It’s not really about that, surely any average person can see that Google is trying to monopolize internet advertising whether they are already using no-follow on their blog or not.
The fact is they should be allowed to use follow or no-follow however they see fit on their own website without Google saying it’s right or wrong, because Google does not own the internet.
smashing! my favorite part was “So why do you think it’s ok to tell other people how they can or can’t advertise when you sell advertising yourself?”
the goo hides behind the veil of “we’re only giving advice on how to do well in google” but then follow it up by extending their “advice” to the wishes of all search engines
“Google (and pretty much every other major search engine) uses hyperlinks to help determine reputation. Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and link-based analysis has greatly improved the quality of web search. Selling links muddies the quality of link-based reputation and makes it harder for many search engines (not just Google) to return relevant results. When the Berkeley college newspaper has six online gambling links (three casinos, two for poker, and one bingo) on its front page, it’s harder for search engines to know which links can be trusted.” source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/
oh well! not our problem.
@Loretta, I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you wrote that was directed to me, however my point really is that Micheal and many others who’ve published about this topic lately clearly seem to understand what they’re talking about with regards to the issue, yet by utilizing the very same pointless (to site owners and visitors) tool that Google is employing to control content and online traffic flow they’re contributing to the problem.
The nofollow tag serves no value to anyone or anything other than search engines, specifically Google, so why use it unless search engines begin funding your web properties for you as compensation? Would you paint your front porch purple simply because your neighbor prefers purple to white and threatened to block your driveway unless you conformed to his wishes?
I honestly don’t care if someone uses nofollow or not, but I do think it’s a bit disingenuous to contribute to the problem while ranting about it.
haha, I agree, sometimes google are big hypocrites… seriously, what are they all doing inside those big offices…
I can see Google not wanting to give extra link credit to sites that pay for links on other sites, since the sites that can afford to buy the most links could climb heavily in the natural search rankings with the right paid links. However, I can’t see outright punishing publishers or advertisers for paid links.
“Google has not said don’t sell links. Google has not said you must use nofollow. Google has simply said that if you sell links, buy links or fail to use nofollow [or javascript redirect, or robots.txt techniques], then this may have an impact with you on Google.”
It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? This is a simple tool for webmasters to use to improve their rankings, and prevent the index from being sorted by money. Of course, if your world view is basically anti-authoritarian, then it’s some kind of abuse of power. Google is actually RESPONDING to webmaster’s requests to make white hat methods “pay off,” and simplify the blocking of more spammy/black hatish methods that push down more legitimate results.
This blog is getting rougher by the week
. Great post, I enjoyed it.
Bold post. Linkbait for sure. On point . . . from an SEM perhaps.
I manage the affiliate program, paid search program, and SEO for a major online retailer (see my resume to determine who, if it matters that much). I mentioned before (I think on SEOmoz) that we need to fix the paid link juice problem for niche areas. Matt Cutts shared an extreme example on his blog of Google’s perspective and now Michael Gray has done the opposite on his blog. Neither of them are completely accurate and both of them could chill a little and be a bit more reasonable. But the extremist views on both sides are important for us to understand so we can work to find a reasonable solution. Instead of stomping feet and declaring rights, sit down cordially at the same table and work it out so both sides win.
My thoughts? A voluntary certification system of authority. A badging system if you will. People do most definitely believe what they read online. And if there are ways for people that lack knowledge and authority on a subject to seem authoritive and gain an audience . . . that’s a problem!! THAT is what Google probably views as EVIL! HOWEVER, that person can do just as much harm by purchasing some AdWords ads and spreading bad information. The internet is still the Wild Wild West and we need to reel it in. We need a badge of authority on the internet. How would this work? I’m thinking it would be similiar to the badging system that Google has in place for the Google Advertising Professionals badge and verification site. Should Google govern it? Perhaps, or maybe some other trustworthy organization that’s not so close to this situation, a more neutral party. Should they charge for it? Sure, but there should be a limit on the cost. Enough to cover processing fees but nothing more than the cost of a one year domain registration. The goal is to keep the barrier to entry really low. Is it required? No, but it proves your authority and Google should give it a bump if you display it and if the badge that you display matches the content on your site. Google would then have their paid links problem solved because if a site had a ton of inbound links carrying link juice (and I love how Rand came up with a word that doesn’t use Google’s PageRank term, btw, for legal reasons? not sure, but it will come in handy to use a term that’s not owned by Google if we keep flaming them) but it doesn’t have any badge of authority for its niche–that says something. Should every page have to have an authority a trust factor? No, it should be voluntary. It should launch with the really important niches on the internet (medical, psych, etc.).
Take a look at Download.com (a CNET company). They have two criteria for their results. Popularity and trust. The user can choose to sort whichever way they wish to sort. Imagine if Google displayed a trust ranking and a popularity ranking on their results?! Now that would be a powerful search engine. If I am searching for the latest medical information, I’d want a very high trust rank. If I was searching for a french toast recipe then perhaps popularity would be the most important for me.
Bottom line, Google is using inbound links for too many things now. They need to seperate TrustRank and PageRank (popularity). The internet is more than a popularity contest now. We’ve made it possible for anyone to be popular. But can they be popular and trustworthy?
Certification system . . . we need to go there.
“So why do you think it’s ok to tell other people how they can or can’t advertise when you sell advertising yourself?”
I think that Google are utterly okay with others offering advertising. Indeed, there are specific references to banner advertisers, advertising houses and affiliate schemes available, explaining how these are not a concern and they are able to algorithmically deal with them.
This is not an issue surrounding advertising, it is around links which exist purely to affect the search engine algorithms. AdWords are not a hypocrisy, they do not pass on PageRank.
I would not venture to rant quite so freely myself, but I was reading a post recently which hit the nail right between the eyes, if I may mix my metaphors momentarily. This isn’t about making money, it is about stopping spammers.
Buying links has become an accepted part of SEO because, rightly or wrongly, it works. Ranking for competitive terms without buying links involves a lot of hard work. The truth is though, that putting links out there simply for engines to discover is no better than hidden text or meta keyword spamming and I will be glad to see the back of it.
It is a failing in the algorithm and there is an element of arrogance in asking us to resolve this by implementing extra conventions, but at the end of the day people are abusing a weakness in the algorithm and influencing results in a way which does not provide best relevance.
The more we can concentrate on building quality, relevant content which targets the terms being searched for and which will convert, the better the web will be. Whether it is because Google make gestures of this nature or because someone else builds a better algorithm, it really is for the greater good.
I’ve been very interested in this topic ever since Matt began poisoning the waters earlier this year. I’m even more interested now that my site – a niche authority with 1700 or so inbound links online since 1999 – has been arbitrarily reduced by Google from PR4 to PR0.
OK, so I sold some links and did some paid blogging on a couple of the blogs I maintain. Do I not have the right to do as I please? Of course I do, and having Google rankspank (I can’t take credit for coining that word) my site is their business. However, it exposes PageRank as a less-than-perfect system. My site is still going to be an authority and still return high in search results in SEs for certain keywords. Google’s rather childish step of devaluing my PageRank to zero harms their brand more than mine.
Now, if they take the further step of delisting my site, or somehow moving it down for those certain search terms, they’ll be devaluing their core business as well. I invite them to do whatever they see fit because I will still rank on other SEs. Some webmasters will concur and do likewise others will bend to Google’s will and use nofollow tags. I don’t. Too bad for me, too bad for Google. I choose to ignore them and I will continue to ignore them.
What will you all do when Matt Cutts and Google announce that all links must be RED and BOLD? Follow along like good lemmings?
I hope Google keeps up the heavy handed, jack-boot mentality as it is sure to hasten their demise.
Thanks for the email but I don’t think Google will now go back and de-index all the sites that they previously stripped of PR even although it’s been the talk in a good few web forums.
The Internet works for so many companies in paid advertising. What is Google thinking? Wonder who they paid when they first started out to become a search engine? It certainly didn’t happen over-night! And what if we all banned their ads from our sites? Just a thought there Google! What happened to common sense in this decision?
“… others will bend to Google’s will and use nofollow tags. I don’t. Too bad for me …” – Rick Gagliano
What’s with NOT using rel=”nofollow” after Google has already discounted those links? Your paid links aren’t passing PageRank any more (if they ever were). Either lose the links, try to cloak them, or add rel=”nofollow” to them. If you want to protest, write posts explaining your protest. Not using rel=”nofollow” doesn’t explain your point of view to anyone, nor is it a protest that registers anywhere, except to bring fewer people to what you have to say. It’s like not taking your umbrella when it rains. You’ll show those clouds who’s boss!
“What will you all do when Matt Cutts and Google announce that all links must be RED and BOLD? Follow along like good lemmings?” – Rick Gagliano
People suspicious of authority tend to ascribe random motives and power struggles to authority. But personal psychological issues don’t make it so. Google tries to detect, via links, at least some meaning (anchor text) and value (PageRank). Their mission is create a relevant index of content on the web. rel=”nofollow” is part of that mission, moving away from an index sorted by money.
Google has been moving very rapidly to a much greater partnership with webmasters. They started out opaque and non-responsive, and are now much more transparent and responsive.
Of course, if you don’t want any traffic from Google, just put this in Robot.txt
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /
Oh wait, you do want that traffic? Why not work with Google to get it?
“The problem with nofollow is that it’s not designed for humans but for bots. If a webmaster uses nofollow only then Google will be happy and the users are none the wiser. Whatever happened to ‘Design for users first, and the bots will follow’”
- Pierre Far
You are suggesting that it would be BETTER if Google tried to to force webmasters to design their site in a certain way to disclose things to users? I agree in that Google’s quality guidelines suggest that a site’s quality score will be higher if they have a TOS page that users (and bots) can find.
Beyond that, I disagree: Google’s mission is their index, not your site.
They’re trying to prevent their index being sorted by money. Users of Google’s search results ARE the wiser in that those sites didn’t pay their way to better search results.
(And note that most links or ads explain themselves, or else there would be no reason to click on them. What you seem to really want is a little icon that indicates the degree of honesty of the webmaster, and the degree of compensation they earn with the buyer of the link on their page. Because without honesty being revealed, revealing compensation is meaningless. But of course, this can’t be enforced accurately.)
Right on, Danny!
Maybe I’m just dense, but don’t those who favor Google’s recent actions and support the use of the “nofollow” tag get that these measures are no better for improving search result relevancy than leaving things as they were would be?
When an authority site begins adding “nofollow” to all links that’s as negatively disruptive to the ranking of quality sites being naturally linked to as paid links are in the opposite direction. And while it’s true that at-least the “nofollow” tag doesn’t add spammy results to the indexes, the devaluing of natural links also doesn’t allow honest sites to climb the rankings as they should. In the end, both paid links and devalued links have a negative effect for end users searching for the most relevant information on their desired topics.
This issue has been around and discussed for years, for anyone who desires better search results there’s been plenty of time to fix this without brainless ideas and blame-shifting that ultimately just causes more problems…how about providing search results based entirely upon on-page content relevancy–Is that really an impossible hurdle for the search industry? It sure does seem like the answer to me. If I search for “red widgets” I don’t care how many sites link to what pages nor how long any site has been online, I just want the most relevant content results for pages about “red widgets” to be provided.
Brilliant. I especially liked the big paragraph at the end, and the remarks “communist inspired egalitarian society” and “a bunch of petulant spoiled children”. A much needed post. Congratulations!
So some sites got jacked. Big deal. It’s just like Danny said, “Overall, I just don’t see anything new in what’s happened this year, in terms of the basic arguments. If you care about being listed on Google, follow the guidelines it issues. If you don’t, do whatever you want. Just don’t complain if you violate the guidelines and Google smacks you down. To date, despite the whining, I’ve not seen a mass movement by site owners to robots.txt out Google in a boycott of solidarity. That would really hurt Google — seriously hurt it. But site owners don’t do it because in the end, they get a lot more help from the Big G despite also feeling like it’s Big Brother.”
What with the no follows? Why use a tool of the devil?
Scott Bannon said: “When an authority site begins adding “nofollow†to all links …”
(What are you referring to? Is there a nonspam example—not wikis or blog comments??
“I don’t care how many sites link to what pages nor how long any site has been online, I just want the most relevant content results for pages about “red widgets†to be provided.”
Do you mean you don’t care what method produces the results? If you don’t care, what’s the problem? Or are you against key components of the best algorithm—link counting and site age as algorithmic factors? If you are against the best algorithm, but want the best results, isn’t that a contradiction?
Google Lost in Jungle of “World Wild Links”
——————————————–
Search Reality : Google MFA sites are thoroughly cluttering the Internet with poor quality information and google is the “problem maker” than solution provider.
Research Reality : 6 figure salary and stomach full of free food does not create innovation much less artificial intelligence. It is pretty good idea for “buying off” prospective competitors.
AdNonsense Reality : Most of the adnonsense links are blended into the publisher sites to look like “site navigation links” this will produce lots of accidental clicks. Accidental clicks don’t convert! It will take another year or 2 for dumb advertisers to understand this reality.
Google is Dispensable : Today if google disappears still the WWW will work perfectly and websites will still attract visitors. Webmasters who generate quality content are truly “Masters of the Web” and no need to fear Matt cutts and his “hand rank” minions….. errr…. web quality team!
@DaveL, are you suggesting that a wiki or blog can’t be an authority site? Of course they can, so that’s a pointless (and loaded) question to ask. Any site that uses nofollow tags is compounding the real problem of poor quality search results, simply in the opposite direction of spam links. How is that better for end users?
I absolutely don’t care what method produces search results, so long as they provide me with the most valuable and relevant pages to my search topic. The problem with this debate is that the blanket devaluing of links will only serve to change the search returns, not improve them.
Are you implying that because Google’s is considered “the best” by most people that makes it okay to have blatant and correctable faults but not address those? Which would require functional changes by Google and not the begging of site owners to apply band-aids for them. Seriously, I’m not against anything other than adding to the problem further, which the devaluing of links does as long as link counts are being included when calculating a ranking for pages.
Look, I don’t want spammy results when searching for serious information on something any more than anybody else does, but I also don’t want to miss relevant or perhaps vital information either–and that’s a real concern now from devaluing links. Using Matt Cutts’ own “radiosurgery” example, the blanket devaluing of links across whole web sites may lead “radiosurgery” searchers to finding more non-spammy results, but also to having lesser quality information returned in the results they do get. It doesn’t make things better, it just changes them.
@Scott, I understand. Not my intention. I isolated wiki and blogs for having user-generated content which creates a need to seek spam solutions. What you refer to as blanket devaluation, and other spam methods are, I agree, challenging. Spam is a big problem. No easy, one-sided solutions have yet been found.
I don’t think Google made Wikipedia do anything. Wikipedia could have prevented their links from passing PR using other methods, and likely would have, if nofollow wasn’t available. It was something they wanted to do. All I’m saying is that it seems you might be pointing a finger at Google for simplifying what Wikipedia already wanted to do. Individual sites make individual decisions on spam problems.
@Tinker “Google MFA sites are thoroughly cluttering the Internet” .. perhaps you mean WERE cluttering the internet? They’re still there, but in a fraction of the percentage they were even a few months ago. Google is attacking that problem hammer and claw, and making big inroads. Still a problem, but not something I’m experiencing as “throughly cluttering” anymore.
Agreed Google is the problem maker, which is why it’s great they’re fixing the problem.
I have been reading over the SEO/SEM blogs over the last few months and I am clearly seeing the industry is divided into 2 groups.
One led by Rand Fishkin & Danny Sullivan who support Googl’e moves (is it bcoz Matt Cutts hire them to give lecture to his crybabies team at GooglePlex).
The other group is led by a bunch of stalwarts in the SEO/SEM field! -who opine that GoogleGuys should fix the problem algorithmically rather than BOSSING/Lording over webmasters!
IMHO – the second group is right. The LV Pubcon has not really solved anything but instead escalated the WAR.
Google is falling further and further behind in giving internet surfers what they want to see in their search results. First and foremost is the surfer. If they search using Google for “large green sacks” then Google should return results for “large green sacks”… It can, and does, return what it wants to return based on what it thinks about paid and unpaid links and the page rank etc. But is this the service the customer wants? People looking for large green sacks on Google will never find “www.largegreensacks.com – the worlds main manufacturer of large green sacks” – because Google doesn´t list it because it thinks it has paid for links… should Google penalise the site for this? NO it shouldn´t(everyone has to pay for advertising, buying links is another form of advertising and increasing popularity/brand awareness etc.).. Google even do it themselves. Mr General Public wants to see this site. Of course Google has to rank the results and there can only be one top spot, everyone understands this and everyone wants top spot. There has to be a method for obtaining the SERPS and each search engine is entitled to do it their own way, eventually the surfers will realise that they don’t always get shown what they want to see, they are only shown what the search engine wants them to see.. it is then up to them to make their choice about which search engine they use. More and more people are now using alternatives to Google and getting better results. With Google’s shortcomings in other areas such as cost per click advertising, Google ads and the very annoying “Unable to display results as this seems like an automated request” page that is shown regularly it is only a matter of time until they bury themselves.
The real problem is that Google has a near-monopoly on Search. It’s the gatekeeper to your site for a majority of internet users. Any company with that kind of power over your business should be a cause for concern.
This paid-links whingeing is a side issue. Remember that Yahoo used to use Google results? Now look at them! Sandbagged, but ever-so-politely. Because Google is a nice company. [Heh, heh, heh].
More griping here:
http://www.ttblog.co.uk/is-google-perverting-the-internet/
Are you a tech genius? Got a problem with Google? Start your own engine! You can stand on their shoulders. Seriously.
PS: If you had a search engine, would you wield the ban-hammer if you knew someone was trying to game it? Answer truthfully, now!
Bravo Bravo!!! Not that that they will listen but it probably felt good to say and your voice may mean a little more than ours since you are known in the industry.
yea, now google is a big company, it can do anything it want
google is acting like a king
if they say your are wrong, then you are wrong no matter what
google just bane my account for invalid click, but i didnt click my ad nor tell any one else to do it
so i submit my appeal from, but hear no response from them, its been like a month now
so i submit another one, still no response
@A Grant, I can’t speak for Rand, but no, I never said that I “supported” the Google moves. In fact, I’ve said several times that I think Google needs to find a way to figure out how to properly assign credit to links regardess of nofollow, since there are plenty of under-the-radar links that don’t get tagged.
I definitely support having a nofollow tag. As a site owner, I like the ability to say to a search engine that I don’t want a particular site to have credit, for whatever reasons THAT I DECIDE I want to use it for. Got it?
But the main thing I’m saying is that all these arguments that Google is demanding this, Google is trying to do that — yeah, and so what? Google’s been fighting paid links since 2003 and won the right, in court, to do whatever it wants with the PageRank meter back then. And now in 2007, site owners are going to start whining that Google has somehow done something new? And they were what, caught off guard?
Not in this case. The only new thing in Paid Link Wars II (since PLW I happened in 2003), is that Google uses a weak argument that the FTC wants disclosure of paid posts in some machine readable format. They don’t. But penalizing sites over paid links. The scale has increased, but the basic concept (and arguments over it remain the same). Writing. Wall. Clear to see for any site owner. And the answer remains the same. You want Google traffic? Follow Google’s rules. Don’t want it? Do whatever you want.
Dave L: “Users of Google’s search results ARE the wiser in that those sites didn’t pay their way to better search results.”
Really? And you have proof of this?
My point is that Google’s attempt to police paid ads is not being dispensed equally. I got “caught” because I was upfront about it. I sell ads on my site to people who want traffic. How it affects PR is not my concern, thus I don’t care to use the nofollow tags simply because it is extra work that adds no benefit for me.
The fact that Google slapped my PageRank down because of maybe 4 or 5 ads (that’s really all there are) to zero only goes to show what a fraud PageRank really is. They didn’t remove me from the SERPs, and they haven’t kicked me out of AdSense. Why not? Simple. They make money with my site and my site is properly ranked in their SERPs (#1 for a good number of search terms).
So, what really is PageRank? Obviously, it is an arbitrary numerical value, Google having proven that by their actions. It’s worth has been devalued and with it, so has Google.
The world and the internet is all about money. Just ask anyone at Google. Should anyone put a sizable dent in their AdWords/AdSense revenue, they’d be toast.
Google’s not going to stop link buying. People will buy links, ads, etc. for traffic more than for PR. In fact, I never mentioned PR to my ad buyers. In all honsty, if AdSense was better, I wouldn’t have to sell ads.
You can cowtow to Google and praise them all you like. They are protecting their sole revenue source by encouraging webmasters to report paid links, plain and simple. Without the massive amount of money from AdWords/AdSense AND the web sites of millions of webmasters, Google would not exist.
They’re just another search engine and right now they have a large edge. IMO, that’s not going to last.
Danny: “You want Google traffic? Follow Google’s rules.”
Shouldn’t that read, “Does Google want the traffic our web sites provide? Fix the algo.”
Let’s face it. The orignal concept of links being like “votes” is dead. Google will either adapt or die, not the other way around.
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