Google Knols and Opportunity
December 21st, 2007 by Michael Gray in Grayhat SEOIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Since I spent the early part of the week discussing how Google Knols will ruin the internet, I thought it might also be fun to discuss potential ways you can use it to your advantage.
Having seen little more than a screen shot it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going to be included or available, but lets assume it will be pretty similar to Google Page Creator and other sites like Wikipedia or Squidoo.
First we need to have a discussion about authority and trust. I know Matt Cutts dances around the trust rank saying it’s some paper that was written at Yahoo blah blah blah. I know the engineers at Google get a little picky with their nomenclature sometimes such as a data push being entirely different than an update, so if the internal name isn’t exactly “trust rank” the concept of ranking a sites “trustworthieness” definitely exists in spirit.
IMHO getting trust is the single most important factor you should focus on when you want to get a site to rank. If you combine trust with good site architecture (easy crawlability) and good internal anchor text you can rank for anything. In fact there are hundreds of empty useless pages like this one on Wikipedia which rank #1 for their top term [Joigny] on this combination of factors. But I digress.
Trust is the hard part but here’s the key, you really won’t have to worry about trust in this case, Google and everyone else is going to take care of that for you. It should take about 6 to 9 months to fully grab hold but after that Knols listings in SERP’s will be more common than price inflated Wii’s on Ebay.
What you will have to worry about is getting links with good anchor text. Using your own network of sites to link to your Knol pages is dicey. If you run a clean on topic network of sites, not much to worry about, if you take care and don’t duplicate yourself into oblivion. Run a shady network … I’d stay away from this method.
Now an interesting tactic would be to purchase some advertising. Personally I’d test the advertising by pointing it at my competitor first to see if it works. If they jump up you know the links are good and you can repoint it at your Knol page, if they tank let your conscience be your guide.
What you wonder hey won’t the person I’m buying the advertising from wonder why you’re making the change and pointing the links at a new URL? You’re still not directly pointing links are you … Silly Goose. Don’t you know some people point them at intermediate domains … for argument’s sake lets call them tracking domains. Purchase your advertising, point it at your “tracking domain”, and 301 it wherever you want. The great part is you can also repoint it wherever you want, no need to involve the person you are buying the advertising from.
Now if you were a person who experimented with “IP Delivery” you could do conditional 301’s. Let’s say the Mooklebot comes by you redirect it to the spot you want the link love to flow, normal visitors get directed someplace else. Now of course that behavior is strictly against search engine guidelines, not something I recommend or endorse in any way. In fact I included it only for entertainment and educational purposes … really.
Of course some people out there are really wondering about siphoning off link love, will they get a link with the best anchor text they can create to the best page on their site, and will it be nofollowed. Well I haven’t heard any mention of link condoms yet, but I hope they have thought about. if I were Google I would make the links straight links but give them equivalent of a nofollow in the algo, just because it would screw up the other engines. If they were really clever they would use an internal ranking mechanism to only allow link juice to pass from trusted profiles and ignore the rest. You did notice they slipped in Google profiles last week didn’t you?
However I think you really should concentrate on driving traffic to the knol page instead of the links to your page, ultimately you want them to buy something and the more pages you bounce them through the worse it will be.
Of course some truly naive people actually believe that Google is going to be able to police and editorially control Knol pages kicking people out who violate TOS … (excuse me while I stop laughing). Have you been to Blogger recently? You do remember that Google owns them don’t you? You see how well that “flag this” button they added in 2005 has stopped the proliferation of blogger spam haven’t you?
Lets recap Google Knols makes it much harder for the rest of the world to get top listings, since they become Wikipedia II. Google also assumes control of your content and locks you into their monetezation schemes. Lastly Knols provides a fertile stomping ground for spammers to put down roots and abuse Google’s over reliance on trust. Any Questions?
Sphere It
December 21st, 2007 at 5:13 am
No questions. I appreciate your point about Knols taking up yet another spot in the SERPs - for music SERPs, that’s 1-2 YouTube slots per front page, plus possibly a Knol page and a Wikipedia entry. Add in official websites and those ridiculous last.fm pages and there’s really no point in bothering.
As I said in your last post, Google the publisher ranking so highly in Google SERPs is a complete abuse of PageRank.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:32 am
No questions, just thanks for the continuing education.
December 21st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Now I have read a few of your posts about the evil empire using knols to crush wikipedia (a good thing) but hurt “mom and pop” (a bad thing) let me go to the knols page, read the entire thing, meditate for 1 hour, eat, pickup my child, think while I drive, read the knols page again, think about what you are implying, add my thoughts to it, then come to my own unique perspective.
MANY questions, thanks for the inspiration…
December 21st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Ok, this doesn’t require much thought.
Here would be my concern for Google. I have a handful of hobby sites that cover my passions but have no PhD. Some “know it all” with a degree makes a “knol” that covers the subject I have already covered on my domain. I do not want to make a “knol” and compete “behind the safe walls of Google” … does this make the trained learner with the PhD’s “knol” of more value than my entire site? As you see with Wikipedia and universal search it does! Universal search changed everything, now Google can inject anything it wants into organic search.
Shame on you Google, now you are really onto something Michael, beat it with a stick!
December 21st, 2007 at 3:03 pm
@SEO Bozo box (thats for the other peeps, I know who U are) that’s what I like to call a light bulb moment
December 21st, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Good observations Michael, you are ranking really well in the Google serps for knols but I would caution for your own credibility (and for doing some real good) to keep this subject focused on facts & concerns. Talking about spamming knols is cool for the script kiddies but is not relevant to the BIG picture.
These are defining moments; keep your eye on the birdie and try to not be a dick, truth is more powerful my friend.
December 22nd, 2007 at 12:33 am
i am excited to seeing how the naming of the knols is going to go… if you claim something to write a knol about can you pick what the /name/ will look like? (this is an assumption of what it could look like) knol.google.com/YOUR_KNOL_NAME kinda like wikipedia, this could be almost like a land rush to get competitive words - what affiliate marketer wouldn’t want to have knol.google.com/low_mortgage_rates - could we see a possible industry pop up of selling knols? almost like bootleg movies? this is either going to be one of the best moves big brother “g” has ever made, or a crazy mistake of spam and debauchery. i am keeping my eyes on googles blog waiting for another announcement.
December 25th, 2007 at 12:59 am
I would like to make a point that has been missing (or at least not directly referred to so far):
Mainly you will begin to see Google’s search results showing only Google Products above the fold. Imagine someone searching on “Mexican jumping beans”; you will have Google Image search at the top, followed by two creative Youtube videos of Mexican jumping beans doing something odd, then two Google Knol’s pages all about Mexican jumping beans and other bean varieties.
Does that sound at all to you like a truely organic search result anymore? Would people really continue to use Google when all Google begins to only show is its own stuff? Seems problematic to me.