The Dark Side Of Google
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The way that search marketers dream up conspiracy theories you'd think that we're all paranoid with nothing better to do.
Is there a true reason for concern? I think not, but reading other peoples paranoia is always entertaining. We all know search engines are "out to get webmasters". They have nothing better to do than to think of new ways that will infringe on websites rankings or play hide and seek with site's PageRank.
Google is at the forefront of the theorists' attention. And it's not very hard to see why.
It's Tough Being At The Top
Google's market share is certainly growing. It handled 60 percent of Internet search queries in November 2005, up from 47 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore Networks. Google's chief officers have expressed that they are committed to growing the company itself in a sustainable way.
Quoting CFO George Reyes: "Google would be spending more on research and development, and will invest heavily in its computing infrastructure.
Google's motto "do no evil" has been analysed and debated so many times. Forum posts and articles are always met with "Google does this" or "Google does that", the fact of the matter is that none of us know "what Google's intentions are, except Google themselves of course . . . but it's still nice to enter the guessing game to see exactly "how close, or far off" you are from the materialization.
Enter the Conspiracies
Everyone has their opinion on the matter - which makes for entertaining reading at least.
Jagger Update
The conspiracy: Google is out to destroy all the organic listings so that everyone will move over to PPC.
The real deal: Google updates their algorithm from time to time to help make search results more relevant. Each update usually receives a name by the SEO community - somewhat like naming hurricanes. The most recent update was called "Jagger". Many scraper directory sites and sites that bought those links were removed from the update.
If you had made use of any shady techniques it is most likely that your site was caught in Jagger. It was quite a harsh update if you had not employed solid SEO techniques. So needless to say there are a lot of angry webmasters out there. A good example is the German BMW site (bmw.de) which was recently removed for making use of spam techniques. Just goes to show SEO is SEO no matter what the language.
Google Adsense
The conspiracy: Google Adsense sites get priority in rankings that Google can make more money. And also Google are trying to take dominance and force webmasters to use Adsense rather than outbound links (link building).
The real deal: If this were true, regardless of how hard Google was to "try", they cannot force a greater number of people to Adwords through preventing the achievement of a favorable ranking.
Besides, when Adwords first was released, several SEO's tested this theory buy purchasing paid listings over varied lengths in time. The results? There was absolutely no correlation between purchasing an Adwords account and your organic search ranking.
IP Recording / Privacy Infringement
The Conspiracy: Search engines log IP addresses. The data collected can be used against you.
The Real Deal: There have been many theories that Google log searcher\'s IP addresses etc, to track their search behaviour, but the situation has gotten much bigger than that. With all the hype stemming from the Department of Justice requesting logs from the Big Shots of search to see what searches were conducted, the talk has shifted to legal implications should the court find in favour of government.
Every bit of network traffic you use is marked with your IP address; it can be used to link all of those disparate transactions together.
Filtering Results
The Conspiracy: If Google can filter the results for China, what stops them from filtering the rest of world?
The Real Deal: Well this is still very much a hot topic at the moment and I have not really made up my mind on this one quite yet. I can only refer to Google "Human Rights Caucus Briefing" in their Blog.
Excerpt From Blog: "In deciding how best to approach the Chinese - or any - market, we must balance our commitments to satisfy the interests of users, expand access to information, and respond to local conditions. Our strategy for doing business in China seeks to achieve that balance through improved disclosure, targeting of services, and local investment."
And "In order to operate Google.cn as a website in China, Google is required to remove some sensitive information from our search results. These restrictions are imposed by Chinese laws, regulations, and policies. However, when we remove content from Google.cn, we disclose that fact to our users."
This is nothing new, in fact Google have altered their search results to comply with local laws in France, Germany, and the United States previously. Also, is it not better to have censored information than none at all? At least this way Google have a starting point from which to fight the censorship.
Continue reading this article by Christine Stander, a professional search engine optimisation and online marketing strategist with experience in many facets of search marketing, user behaviour analysis and brand management.
Is there a true reason for concern? I think not, but reading other peoples paranoia is always entertaining. We all know search engines are "out to get webmasters". They have nothing better to do than to think of new ways that will infringe on websites rankings or play hide and seek with site's PageRank.
Google is at the forefront of the theorists' attention. And it's not very hard to see why.
It's Tough Being At The Top
Google's market share is certainly growing. It handled 60 percent of Internet search queries in November 2005, up from 47 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore Networks. Google's chief officers have expressed that they are committed to growing the company itself in a sustainable way.
Quoting CFO George Reyes: "Google would be spending more on research and development, and will invest heavily in its computing infrastructure.
Google's motto "do no evil" has been analysed and debated so many times. Forum posts and articles are always met with "Google does this" or "Google does that", the fact of the matter is that none of us know "what Google's intentions are, except Google themselves of course . . . but it's still nice to enter the guessing game to see exactly "how close, or far off" you are from the materialization.
Enter the Conspiracies
Everyone has their opinion on the matter - which makes for entertaining reading at least.
Jagger Update
The conspiracy: Google is out to destroy all the organic listings so that everyone will move over to PPC.
The real deal: Google updates their algorithm from time to time to help make search results more relevant. Each update usually receives a name by the SEO community - somewhat like naming hurricanes. The most recent update was called "Jagger". Many scraper directory sites and sites that bought those links were removed from the update.
If you had made use of any shady techniques it is most likely that your site was caught in Jagger. It was quite a harsh update if you had not employed solid SEO techniques. So needless to say there are a lot of angry webmasters out there. A good example is the German BMW site (bmw.de) which was recently removed for making use of spam techniques. Just goes to show SEO is SEO no matter what the language.
Google Adsense
The conspiracy: Google Adsense sites get priority in rankings that Google can make more money. And also Google are trying to take dominance and force webmasters to use Adsense rather than outbound links (link building).
The real deal: If this were true, regardless of how hard Google was to "try", they cannot force a greater number of people to Adwords through preventing the achievement of a favorable ranking.
Besides, when Adwords first was released, several SEO's tested this theory buy purchasing paid listings over varied lengths in time. The results? There was absolutely no correlation between purchasing an Adwords account and your organic search ranking.
IP Recording / Privacy Infringement
The Conspiracy: Search engines log IP addresses. The data collected can be used against you.
The Real Deal: There have been many theories that Google log searcher\'s IP addresses etc, to track their search behaviour, but the situation has gotten much bigger than that. With all the hype stemming from the Department of Justice requesting logs from the Big Shots of search to see what searches were conducted, the talk has shifted to legal implications should the court find in favour of government.
Every bit of network traffic you use is marked with your IP address; it can be used to link all of those disparate transactions together.
Filtering Results
The Conspiracy: If Google can filter the results for China, what stops them from filtering the rest of world?
The Real Deal: Well this is still very much a hot topic at the moment and I have not really made up my mind on this one quite yet. I can only refer to Google "Human Rights Caucus Briefing" in their Blog.
Excerpt From Blog: "In deciding how best to approach the Chinese - or any - market, we must balance our commitments to satisfy the interests of users, expand access to information, and respond to local conditions. Our strategy for doing business in China seeks to achieve that balance through improved disclosure, targeting of services, and local investment."
And "In order to operate Google.cn as a website in China, Google is required to remove some sensitive information from our search results. These restrictions are imposed by Chinese laws, regulations, and policies. However, when we remove content from Google.cn, we disclose that fact to our users."
This is nothing new, in fact Google have altered their search results to comply with local laws in France, Germany, and the United States previously. Also, is it not better to have censored information than none at all? At least this way Google have a starting point from which to fight the censorship.
Continue reading this article by Christine Stander, a professional search engine optimisation and online marketing strategist with experience in many facets of search marketing, user behaviour analysis and brand management.
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