Hi Everyone,

With the Pubcon and Search Engine Strategies conferences both taking place this week many of our bloggers are on the road. Look for more recaps next week.

Have a great week!

Robert Clough

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In response to Google Finally Spells Out Their Paid Link Policy Crystal Clear

"I've always had a saying: "You can't be completely right if you're even a little bit wrong" (works great with kids :) ).

I think about this relative to Google's paid link position.

The problem, better stated by others is that they sell links (in the form of advertising). It's an obvious conflict of interest.

And their current position means they have to make judgment calls regarding what's advertising and what's editorial. With all the highly manipulated results in the index, what's to assure us their judgment will be better on paid links.

And what about deceptive AdWords (hmm, hmm)?

The position is tenuous at best and it's a good thing for Google we who talk about it are so small a minority.

Again - You can't be completely right if you're even a little bit wrong."

Will Scott
Search Influence Blog

"I think that although it seems harsh that Google has taken this stance, I think they are correct to do so. Its their search engine and we don't have to use it, plus they will do what is best for the greater good. Paid for links on a whole are damaging the Organic search results.

Google has always stated that it is in the business of providing good quality, relevant search results and that has never been different. If they feel that this change is being put in place to keep providing this then what's the big deal.

And for those of you complaining, Google has never charged for the service they provide, but always made it clear that their algo may change and that it may affect your ranking. A lot of you have been reaping the benefits of Google's sucess for years!

Also for those who put all of their business marketing chips into one supplier of traffic are making a simple mistake anyway! Google is not the only search engine, its not the only way to get traffic. Its simply for those who want to get free traffic without actually going out and investing in it! For example I ran a site a number of years ago, and was struggling to get any love from Google as the site was new. I invested a couple of grand in Mouse Matts with links on to put in student libraries and had hundreds of sales and signups that month.

Its time to simply adapt and ensure that all your marketing efforts arent put into Google. You should have various ways of traffic generation and a contingency for each one."

Mark Bowman

"As many people know, it's still okay to buy PageRank-passing links from Google-approved link selling sites like Yahoo! and ThomasNet. Google is not demanding that those link sellers disclose their paid links through use of "NOFOLLOW" or redirection.

Nor has Google resolved its ethical dilemma of NOT disclosing to its visitors that many pages are kept in the Supplemental Results Index, where they are not allowed to rank competitively on the basis of RELEVANCE with pages that are included in the Main Web Index (to which the only publicly stated criterion for inclusion is the accrual of PageRank).

Since Google has made it necessary for people to obtain PageRank in order to achieve basic search visibility -- and since they have distorted and diminished the quality of their search results by suppressing a large number of highly relevant documents from user search results -- it follows that Google should do the right thing and allow Supplemental Results pages to rank competitively.

At the very least they need to once again disclose that they do practice Web Apartheid by dividing the Web into elite Main Web Index pages (that have a more than reasonable chance to rank regardless of how relevant they are) and Supplemental Results Index (that are suppressed in search results even when they are more relevant than pages in the Main Web Index).

Google needs to stop dictating to other people how they are supposed to manage their Web sites and it needs to go back to being honest and ethical and FULLY DISCLOSE THAT THEY ARE SUPPRESSING RELEVANT INFORMATION."

Michael Martinez
SEO Theory

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