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When Google Can't Figure Out Its Own Webspam Rules, Perhaps It Needs To Rethink The Rules
from the too-confusing-for-itself dept
Last week we, like many other publishers, saw Google's Matt Cutts post a "reminder" that Google's PageRank system punishes sites that sell "links" or "advertorial pages" that pass along an impact on PageRank. After reading it, it actually sent us in a bit of a scramble, because while we're pretty careful about these things, and have no desire to help others boost their PageRank, we suddenly got worried that even some of our fully disclosed and clearly labelled advertising/sponsorship partnerships might technically run afoul of the rule. After reading through a bunch of documentation, we're pretty confident that we're in the clear, but not entirely sure.
Apparently, we're not the only ones. Among those who have been found to be violating Google's stated polices is Google itself. SearchEngineLand has a pretty detailed expose of a variety of ways in which Google appears to violate their stated rules, and also notes that its own site might also accidentally violate the rules in a few places. At that point, you have to wonder if the rules themselves really make sense.
I'm sure that the rules are intended for all the right reasons: no one wants someone to pay to impact search results. But blanket statements about some of these things can get pretty tricky, pretty fast. Google, for its part, insists that it is reviewing its own violations, and the webspam team won't treat its own divisions any different than anyone else. And, in fact, we've seen Google punish itself for similar violations in the past. But the bigger issue is that rather than just showing that it doesn't have a double standard for itself, wouldn't it be better to realize that perhaps the rules aren't as clear cut as some would want them to be, and that perhaps there are better ways to tackle this particular problem?
Apparently, we're not the only ones. Among those who have been found to be violating Google's stated polices is Google itself. SearchEngineLand has a pretty detailed expose of a variety of ways in which Google appears to violate their stated rules, and also notes that its own site might also accidentally violate the rules in a few places. At that point, you have to wonder if the rules themselves really make sense.
I'm sure that the rules are intended for all the right reasons: no one wants someone to pay to impact search results. But blanket statements about some of these things can get pretty tricky, pretty fast. Google, for its part, insists that it is reviewing its own violations, and the webspam team won't treat its own divisions any different than anyone else. And, in fact, we've seen Google punish itself for similar violations in the past. But the bigger issue is that rather than just showing that it doesn't have a double standard for itself, wouldn't it be better to realize that perhaps the rules aren't as clear cut as some would want them to be, and that perhaps there are better ways to tackle this particular problem?
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Thoroughly convincing!
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Also, can you lot at least try and come up with some new material occasionally, instead of the same old bull every time? I know creativity isn't exactly your forte, but come on, you're not exactly constrained by logic or reality, so you've got plenty to choose from when making claims and accusations.
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Weird
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Re: Weird
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Re: Weird
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Re: Re: Weird
Well, except that doing only the "nofollow" thing has the benefit of making linkspam nonbeneficial to the recipients of the links without catching possibly-innocent site operators in the crossfire.
The problem there being that the guidelines are not clear and, moreover, Google explicitly refuses to make them clear, citing concerns that if the exact criteria for their deciding which links are linkspammy were to be published, linkspammers would use that information to linkspam without being detected by Google.
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Re: Re: Re: Weird
That is silly.
As for your other point, I agree that the guidelines should be made more clear, so...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Weird
Google can't penalize the spammily-linked-to sites directly, beyond making spammy links not count towards PageRank; if it did, then anyone could bury a competitor in the search rankings by setting up spammy linkfarm pages linking to it and making sure they came to googlebot's attention.
Making spammy links (however identified) not count towards the linked site's PageRank is actually the only thing Google can do that minimizes harm to those not acting in bad faith, while still minimizing the effectiveness of the tactics of those that are acting in bad faith.
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I'm with you on the fact that the rules should probably be reviewed/explained better. However, I'm also glad that they are looking into potential violations rather than fixing themselves without penalty, then penalizing others for what they were doing....
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i think the latter covers the lot!!
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Fencing with Google
You can't hide that you're on the fence with Barbara Streisand, not answering our questions, waiting to see the effect Google's pirated ad sites on profits maximization, $100 million per site. That's $40 billion dollars, 96% of which used to go to the Entertainment Industry!
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