Google Slaps Bloggers… Yawn
It’s pretty much old news that Google reportedly slapped bloggers who offer paid links by reducing their PageRank. But, the discussion continues in the blogosphere over what to do about it. Most recently, Jeanne Dininni posted her thoughts.
My advice, which I believe is very similar to Jeanne’s, is to do nothing.
Not “nothing” per se, but rather to keep doing what you’re doing.
As I mentioned in my “Google is Irrelevant” post, Google is, well, irrelevant. It is losing its relevance in search. Google is spending a lot of time and money expanding into other areas, as a result, its focus on search is becoming weaker and it is losing ground.
Sure, there are the non-believers that think that Google is synonymous with the “Internet,” but those of us who have been on the Internet since before Google was created or even became popular know that such synonyms are bound to become undefined. Yahoo was once synonymous with search and Netscape was once synonymous with web browsing. Google, while still dominant, is seeing its empire chipped away, bit by byte.
As I mentioned in my aforementioned post, other services might possibly become contenders to replace Google: del.icio.us, Digg, reddit, StumbleUpon or Technorati. Since that time, Google has apparently forged some type of relationship with StumbleUpon, which may be good or bad news, depending upon how that shakes out.
But, there are other contenders as well. One such contender is Wikipedia. Though its reliability may be in question, I find myself using it more and more as the first place to look for something. Even if you don’t trust its content, it usually has resource links, which are typically more reliable sites from which to find the information you’re looking for.
In the comments section of my irrelevant Google post, Greg Allsopp pondered: “So your [sic] going to rely on your friend to help you cure your embarassing problems? Book your next holiday for you on one review or find the best prices on hairdryers?”
As far as the first question is concerned, Wikipedia may offer an answer. As for the second, you may want to pay Deborah (or a similar blogger) a visit and, as for the third, you might want to just go to Wal-Mart.
For certain things, I find myself checking Wikipedia first and then only resorting to Google if Wikipedia doesn’t lead anywhere. I’ve learned the types of things that are easier to find in Wikipedia than in Google. I’m sure I am not alone. And, that’s bad for Google, because that means fewer searches coming its way, which means less advertising revenue.
I’m not saying that Wikipedia will replace Google. It’s entirely possible that Google won’t be replaced by any one service, but that a number of different services will chip away at Google’s empire.
Not that Google isn’t chipping away at its own empire… Does anyone else remember when Yahoo was the top dog in search? You had to be listed in Yahoo if you were running any kind of business or service online. Google was making some inroads, but plenty of people were still using Yahoo. Then, Yahoo decided it could push webmasters around, and started asking for a $299 fee to expedite a review of your website for inclusion. Note that they didn’t even guarantee that you would get listed, only that they would review your site and make a decision within x number of days instead of 6 months (or whatever the lag time was then).
Some webmasters paid the fees. Others focused on the free search engines, like Google. Google made a lot of progress when Yahoo started charging. People began to question Yahoo’s reliability–were listings based on quality or ability to pay? And, usage of Google increased. On top of that, webmasters even helped promote Google by adding Google search boxes on their sites as one more slap in the face to Yahoo.
Now, Google is turning into Yahoo. Instead of charging fees, they are bullying webmasters into doing things their way–to benefit Google–or punishing them with reduced PageRank or results placement. At this point, Google’s quality must be questioned. Despite all their updates, I still see a lot of spammy sites in the search engine results and most, if not all, of these sites are of far less quality than the bloggers and websites who are being punished for selling links.
Google apologists will argue that “overall” search quality is improving and that you cannot take isolated search results as a measure of the overall quality. But, an individual’s individual search results are what matter. And, if those return low quality results, those individuals will begin to look elsewhere. Likewise, there were Yahoo apologists that argued that webmasters that couldn’t afford a $299 fee (which I think was later made into an annual fee to maintain your listing), you probably weren’t a quality site to begin with or weren’t serious about your website or business.
But, the amount of money you have to spend is not a measure of the quality of your site. It doesn’t matter whether you cannot afford a $299 fee or cannot afford to not offer paid links. Neither determine quality. You can see how Yahoo fared by its decisions. Do you think Google will fare differently?
History repeats itself. People frequently say that it’s because we haven’t learned the lessons of the past. But, that’s not true. The reason that we repeat the same mistakes is because we think that our situation is different or that history is not relevant to our decision. Or, we make some excuse as to why the past mistake was different from the mistake we are making.
Take this chance to learn from history what Google has not. If you have a quality site, keep doing what you’re doing, in spite of how Google may punish you. Death is knocking on Google’s door, not yours. Take advantage of other search engines and methods of promoting your site. Google is not the be-all, end-all. Google is not the Internet.
Summary: Keep publishing quality content. Maybe even put a Live Search box on your site.
Popularity: 19% [?]
Bravo, Dan!
There comes a time in every blogger’s life when he has to make a decision about whether he is willing to sacrifice his principles for page rank…a time when she simply must take a stand. I, for one, am not prepared to sacrifice my principles for Google. I write sponsored content on my blog, and regardless of what anyone says, I refuse to hide that fact merely to save myself from the wrath of Google, as some have suggested.
Up to this point, I’ve never accepted sponsored content that required either non-disclosure or sitewide disclosure only, and I don’t intend to start now. As far as I’m concerned, my readers deserve full disclosure, and that’s precisely what I intend to continue giving them. Will I be sorry to lose the PR 3 I finally acquired after nine months of blogging if Google should decide to penalize me? Yes, but that won’t stop me. As I see it, Google will do what Google has to do, and I will continue to do what I have to do. End of story.
Great post!
Jeanne
If you remember way back when, Google’s advice was always to put your readers first, to focus on quality and forthrightness and so on. But, now Google is forcing people to either hide things from their readers in order to maintain a high ranking in Google, or to do what it best for the reader and get punished by Google for it.
Google used to focus on its customers; now, its focus is on its shareholders.
I think with lots of businesses, you can see patterns emerge. Established businesses will make foolish mistakes that allow upstarts to grow and take their place. Then, those upstarts become established and, for whatever reason, believe they are acting differently when they begin to make the same mistakes the businesses they uprooted made. I suppose I am still in a minority, but I see Google making those mistakes, and I see the beginnings of its fall.
By the way, thanks for the link to my post!
Jeanne
Bowing to Google is akin to making their behavior the core of your business plan. It’s ridiculous and I wish there were more articles like this. I’m still baffled by the response from the probloggers out there when the pagerank/paid links story broke. They hyped it like it was the end of the world. Great post, Dan.
Ideally, one should be focusing on more than just one search engine. I get traffic from Google, but I also get traffic from Yahoo and MSN.
Thank you so much for putting this in perspective for me, one of the only sites I work with that I write sponsored content for stopped using google to determine quality blogs when that announcement broke, that made me stop worrying. I echo Peteej’s thoughts that more should care less, but I think you’ve written a stellar post here, thanks for the reality check, I believe you’re spot on.
As I’ve indicated in my comment below, PageRank can no longer be used as a reliable, or even guesstimatible, measure of a site’s quality or popularity. Instead, it is only a measure of how pleased Google is with the site.
So, sites are quite right in ceasing to use Google’s PageRank to determine a quality blog.
Well it’s a post that made me think for sometime. But it will take a lot more to take google down. Ofcourse reducing the pagerank of those webmasters who were offering paid links made most of us angry but it did good too. Those webmasters having hight pagerank now can no longer sell links. I think that it’s a good thing because now people will start focusing on the contents instead of increasing their pagerank.
Webmasters can continue to sell links if they choose to do so.
Think about it. Advertisers want the most bang for their buck, right? It used to be that PageRank was a good measure of the popularity of a site. Perhaps not the most accurate, but a reasonable estimation. It also gave some indication of quality.
What does PageRank mean now? Now it has become just a tool that Google uses to bully website owners. If a site had its PageRank lowered because it sold links, then PageRank has become meaningless. They lost PageRank not because their quality decreased, not because their popularity decreased, but because Google doesn’t like webmasters selling links.
If it were the other way around, if Google were punishing sites that bought links rather than “earned” links, that may be a different matter entirely. But, if Google is penalizing sites for selling links, they are punishing the wrong people. Think about it. If Google can recognize a paid link, then it can recognize those sites that are buying links. But, instead of punishing those sites, they chose instead to punish the sellers. Could it be because the sellers are Google’s competitors in the online advertising world? Hmmm? “Do no evil” is something that Google has long since tossed in the trash bin.
You’re right, if people start focusing more on quality content, that will be a good thing. But, people will still continue to focus on increasing traffic, and they will do that by buying links. It was mentioned on another blog that, if a good number of bloggers decide to stop selling links, that will mean that those that continue to sell links can charge more because of decreased supply.
Quality content is important. Buying and exchanging links will continue to be important too. PageRank’s importance is quickly declining.
Fascinating analysis. It certainly seems to be dividing the world between Google and non-Google.
Luckily for my readers, I don’t depend on Google to tell me how to treat them!
It will be very interesting to see where the “Big G” goes from here. I certainly agree that many people who respected Google in the past–including some fairly influential people–have become extremely disillusioned by the current PR fiasco. And this cannot bode well for Google.
Jeanne
The more I hear about google the more I dislike them. People for some reason seem to be afraid and don’t want to upset the “almighty” Google. I think you have the right atitude Dan, Google is irrelevant
I don’t even know how to figure out what my pagerank is and I don’t really care. Perhaps I will care if I ever get to the point where it matters, but I can’t see myself there.
At least now I know what it is. Back when all this broke, I wrote Google PageRank - what’s that?, because I didn’t have a clue.
Anyhow, nice article, Dan. (I thought about writing a short post about it and linking to yours, but I’ve already done at least one post today.)