Google - Please Get Your Act Together
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Let me explain the situation a little more.
You probably know about google adsense (most webmasters, bloggers and surfers/visitors do), Adsense displays contextual ads on websites, and the site/blog owner earns money every time someone clicks on an “ads by Gooooogle” ad. Which is a great way to earn some extra cash from your blog or website.
The problem Google is facing now, is that a lot of site owners, bloggers and companies (some companies are fairly large and have some “authority”) are selling text link ads (which is another great way to monetize a website by the way), and Google doesn’t like that, at all! I suppose Google doesn’t like this because they don’t get any money from text links sold by other companies. And probably because this messes up their PageRank system, since it’s based on relevancy and not on “purchased traffic or links”.
So What Now?
Well, now we have Matt Cutts, who’s at the head of Googles’ Spam Team, who’s asking people to report paid links. (i’m not linking to his website on purpose, but you can do a Google search and you’ll find his blog).
I think Google should get it’s act together, i mean, they’re “selling” and “buying” links with Adsense and Adwords, but encourage people to report sites that have paid links. I don’t get it!
So what’s your take on all this? Are you a little concerned about Google wanting people to report sites that sells text links (for, say, SEO purposes and pagerank boosting)? I’d like to hear (read) what you think of this, good or bad.
Also, there is a really interesting post over at performancing written by Ryan Caldwell that explains really well what this is all about.
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20 Responses to “Google - Please Get Your Act Together”
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Anything that is non-Googled is being pushed out of the door, that seems to be the case. Wasn’t this so too when Microsoft ‘conquered’ the world? The era now is Google’s.
Hey Jonathan,
Hope you’re not buying any links cause you could go to Google prison, after I report you :)
I think it’s crazy what Google’s trying to do. I mean you can expect them to try and devalue the link weight given to sites that buy and sell links on their own.
From a business standpoint you’d expect them to try to maximize their income any way they can.
However, to go on a witch hunt and ask people to turn in those they see participating in an obviously huge commodity is ridiculous. Does anyone believe they can’t find these sites on their own?
I’d say in the area of public relations, Google needs to rethink its strategy. Word’s getting around fast and it doesn’t sound pretty.
Hi lyndonmaxewell and Matthew!
Yeah seems Google wants to know exactly what color is our underwear too. It’s kinda creepy when you think about it.
Hey Matt, please no, don’t report me! lol Well i’m not selling links at the moment i only sell space on my site to Google Adsense (maybe i should stop that) and some sponsored reviews here and there, but not too often.
Bah Yahoo doesn’t mind (from what i know) if we sell links on our blogs, and another thing, yahoo doesn’t care about the “nofollow” thing, i have way more pages indexed in yahoo than google. Though i rarely visit yahoo and use Google hundreds of times per day, they’re not really in the good side lately.
I hope Google doesn’t venture into Microsoft territory. I find Microsoft’s tactics to be overbearing and obnoxious.
Helllo Lisa, thanx for replying, welcome to SWR :)
Totally agree with you, i’m already a Mac addict anyway, i just hope Google will eventually act like “adults” and not “children”, asking people to report sites that sell links is kinda lame i think… oh well there’s still Yahoo, and they offer similar services (Yahoo Network Publishers and all)
I was reading last night that Google has a new feature in Google talk that
1)
Allows you to send a voice message to another Gmail account. Kinda cool!
2)
Allows you (or the person you’re talking to) to record your conversations and store them in your account. Kinda creepy!
They’re quickly turning into the NSA!
wow, just for that reason, i won’t use Google talk. Big Brother is watching!
On this text link thing, I’ve bashed it a couple times. A simple text link by itself doesn’t stand out much. Half the value is in the link value.
I can’t really blame Google for wanting to stick it to their competition, but I think they’re going to spur on more social networking and less Googling if they stay on this road.
While they’re sticking it to companies like TLA, they’re strengthening companies like MBL … which is of course owned by Yahoo
Shane, you bring a really good point there, MBL is owned by Yahoo, so Google might wanna think twice before trying to “force” webmasters to remove paid links and asking people to report them… Well there’s still Yahoo and community sites, which is real fine by me :)
I am still trying to get my head around monetising my blog (and I have a new one to launch so I have two decisions to make). Is it getting to the stage where advertising is an either or proposition? That is to say use google adsense or text link ads but not both? I will have to do some more research regarding which is best for different types of blogs and different size blogs in terms of readership
Hey Coach! well i’d suggest you try different options, adsense is sure interesting and easy to implement, but there are other services, like bidvertiser, adbrite, and yahoo, just to name a few. For a new blog i would not suggest TLA, i’d wait say 3-4 months. Sure you can do both adsense and TLA. :) It’s all about testing different services and see what works best, and which service you’re most comfortable with. I know some people that are earning hundreds, if not thousands with adsense, but i’d really suggest trying out different solutions. My thoughts.
Thanks Jonathan - that’s just the sort of advice I was hoping for. This blogging gig is fun but it would be nice to make enough to cover the cost of hosting etc. I’ll include the services you mentioned in my research. Cheers :)
You are more than welcome Coach! :)
Feel free to drop me a line if you have questions or anything.
By the way you can probabaly add, reviewme, sponsoredreviews, payperpost, blogtoprofit and blogsvertise to the list :)
Google suxx, they cancelled my adsense account for invalid clicks and I have no clue how that could have happened, if someone did indulge in screwing up my account why should i be held responsible. Couldnt understand that mate. Anyway I dont see much future in Adsense, according to an article I read, the clicking ratio has dropped, lots of google ads are the richjerk kind of stuff…lol, we all know him dont we?
Hey Robin, haha yep we all know him! I’ll be trying out different services real soon, adsense is doing ok on my blog(s), but i don’t like to put all my eggs in the same basket, i still really like Googles’ services (like adwords, google reader, and personalized homepage) but it’s more “what google does” that i can’t stand.
Almost everyone I know has a love-hate relationship with Google.
Google acts like the Big Bully of the Internet, and whether you like it or not, more often than not, Google is involved in almost anything you do.
We all came to love it as a search engine, and we were flattened with the free 2GB mailbox. Ten we were enticed with Adsense, and Groups, Frugle, Earth, what not.
And then out of the blue, we seem to be stuck with it! (Note: A couple days back, Google replaced Microsoft as the number one trusted brand, I think.) But how many of us actually value this ‘trust’ and to what extent?
I recently personalized my Google home page …. and horror of horrors, it had logged all my searches for the last one year! And that is, even before I personalized the Google home page. Is that intrusion of privacy or what???
WILL someone write a book “Lige without Google” or “Is There Life After Google?” ???
I will seriously consider sponsoring such a book.
Hey RK, you know what? the idea of a book on the subject is such a great idea! I’m sure it would be a hit! It’s true Google offers awesome services, but i don’t really trust ‘em… Well i sure am happy to know my blog now has a PR4, but still i have way more pages indexed in Yahho than Google, and Yahoo follows the “nofollow” so even the dofollow plugin is geared towards google. Ok, i’ll start writing :)
Wonderful spirit Jon, good luck with the book!
Be sure to include topics like:
1. How Google robs me of 3 hours of sleep every day
2. Why I keep a Google talisman in my glove box
3. How Google discovered which shampoo I use
4. Why the barber asked me if I have a Google account before giving me a haircut
5. Will the next generation of cars run on Google?
hahaha, RK, don’t send to much of those my way, i almost fell off my chair! lol
If i don’t get around to writing a book, those would be awesome headlines for posts! :) (if you ever come across a blog that has one of those as a post title, sue them, you have the proof here that you have copyrights on those! hehe)