Google is Becoming Wikipedia Without the Talk Page
In a recent post about paid links, Danny Sullivan wrote about how Google's army of engineers are going to start hand editing PageRank scores if they think you are selling links, which is a move that wreaks of desperation.
Google is only decreasing the PageRank for a subset of the sites they actually know about. ...
Google stressed, by the way, that the current set of PageRank decreases is not assigned completely automatically; the majority of these decreases happened after a human review. That should help prevent false matches from happening so easily.
In contrast, if you're a smaller site not deemed as important to relevancy, a harsher punishment of a ranking penalty may be dealt out.
Introducing the New, Corporate Web
If they actually follow through with any of this then Google, which touts the value of PageRank, clearly no longer believes in its value. They already show stale data in their toolbar, and might as well scrap the whole thing and start fresh. Their mind control exercise is getting a bit obnoxious.
Now they are editing PageRank and relevancy scores. They don't edit based on quality of information but based on method of promotion. And if it is a corporation breaking Google's arbitrary shifting ruleset then Google simply decides not to edit, or only fakes that they care.
Google is Wikipedia, but Worse
With this news of more hand editing, Google also shows that they are biased against small webmasters are and actively trying to screw over small webmasters to increase their corporate profits.
Google is becoming much like the Wikipedia, where generalists wrongly assume topical knowledge greater than that of the real topical experts. In some cases Wikipedia is saved by talk pages and community participation that allow the experts to be heard. Google has no talk page though, which means that Google search results will become a dried out and dumbed down version of the web.
The Real Problem With Half Truths & Hand Editing
The response to every move is a counter move. So if they actually try to squash link buying then webmasters will look for indirect ways to purchase links. Google also offers tips on how to sculpt PageRank, but sculpt to much and suddenly the intent is changed, and you are banned.
Why leave such a thing up to a single Google engineer making a judgement call? If they want to increase the quality of the web they need to be more innovative in encouraging the creation of good content, not make people afraid to invest into creating content only to watch a Google engineer kill it.
Link bait is good when you are a large corporation or are syndicating Google spin, but if you are too successful at link bait they will ban your site for it. They did it to one of my sites and they even banned one of their own site.
If you are a small webmaster and get judged by Google don't expect compassion. They have no talk page, and they already paid an AdSense publisher to steal all your content. They don't need you.
How to Do Well in Google
If you are a webmaster assume that Google is lying to you and ignore them. If their view of the web and webmaster advice are reduced to half truths and lies then we can only hope something a bit more honest will come out of their downfall.
Comments
something that you (and several others in the SEO/SEM community) espouse comes into play here: create sustainable traffic outside of search engines. that's certainly harder said than done... it takes time and dedication... but at the end of the day you won't fall prey to the whims and fancies of algorithm updates or face penalties for selling links which is exactly what google *hypocritically* does... i'm part of a start-up that's trying to live independently of google... i'll be sure to let you know how it goes...
I intend to launch a startup before the year is out that will rely on 0 Google traffic. But I can't say much more than that until it is live.
Google needs to stop worrying about paid links and start worrying about their competition. Those commercials on Ask.com are pretty effective for the average user. It didn't take long for everyone to switch to using Google for searches years ago, and it won't take them long to jump ship when they find something better. They have a strong brand, but online brand recognition isn't as strong or loyal as offline brand loyalty. They are barking up the wrong tree.
Hi Aaron,
This is the most relevant (ish) recent post I could find to post a few observations - general interest:
1) Wikipedia really is the pits if you're a topical expert, and the talk pages will grind you down and subvert you if you don't fit in with the Wikipedia mindset until your contribution disappears
2) In the context of manipulation of results, try these searches: Buy Php Form, Free Php Form and Php Form. You've probably covered this elsewhere or similar.
The "Free Php Form" has brilliant organic results, lots of underlined keywords, the works. If it's free you're looking for, Big G can't make money out of it, so Hey! Here's some highly relevant results.
The "Php Form" has educational results - how to make forms, basically. Hmm - G might be able to make money out of this, so the only information about buying forms is in the right bar.
The "Buy Php Form" result is a gem. Oops, you want to buy something? Oh deary me. Here - have some educational results. Very little underlining of any keywords - the word "Buy" doesn't appear in our index. Sorry, chum. How about Buy Music Software as the second result? Oh look - there - in the right bar .....
3) Loved Cory Doctorow's story. IMO Big G will also be the first to crack AI, 'cos it's got the resources.
4) Your comments are down - surely just taking a week or two off couldn't have done that!?
Hi Richard
As far as #4 goes, I think that is a result of me requiring registration to comment while doing many things other than this site (getting married to my wonderful wife being the big one), too many posts that were too honest and negative about Google, and writing at too high of a level for many people new to the field (as I think people new to the field are far more likely to comment than people who have been around for a long time).
Can you do an in depth blog post on #2 sometime?
Ummm - what dat mean?
I have the screenshots if you want :-)
You should have my registration emaail addy.
Incidentally, is it possible to get email notification of any further comments to a post that I've commented on?
I've already made my views plain over here http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/839/pagerank-penalty/#comment-404719 , I think that about covers my opinion.
Google is a blessing and a curse. All this noise about paid links makes me ill. I said it before, and I say it again... Isn't Google the worlds largest seller of paid links! Yet, they bring in the lions share of search traffic on my two sites... Like 90% of my search traffic comes from them!
Google is no Wikipedia. Their business models are so different to start with. Google's goal is profit. Wikipedia goal is free content for the public at no cost. I admire Wikipedia differently from Google
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