"Google's Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome" by Danny
Sullivan (Search Engine Land, Jan. 2, 2012)
http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-post-campaign-for-chrome-106348
This article talks about how Google paid a company to add links to pages
on their sites that point to a specific advertisement about Google
Chrome. The author of this article says: "The campaign [...] probably
had instructions that just said people should write about whatever they
want, positive or negative, with the only requirement being that the
Chrome video be included as part of their post." The actual problem is
that the people who added the paid links to their post did not add a
"rel=nofollow" attribute to the links, which prevents the Google search
engine from counting it in their page ranking algorithm. This is one of
the ways that Google attempts to get rid of "link spam", i.e. to prevent
companies from paying people to increase the number of links to their
sites, which in turn will raise their ranking in a Google search result.
J.C. Penney was punished severely for doing this with their "dresses"
campaign (links are in the article).
The question was: would Google in essence, punish itself for the same
transgression?
(By the way, unfortunately, the posting the author mentions appears to
have been withdrawn, but you can still see it in Google's cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PJ0ghB4GsTUJ:www.humphriesnation.com/2011/12/27/google-chrome/.
It's curious that the link the author points out in his screen clip "Ah,
<link>Google Chrome</link>. Where would our online life be without it?"
is actually *not* a link in the cached version at least, but this is
beside the point)
In a posting by the same fellow the next day
http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pagerank-reduced-due-to-sponsored-posts-106551,
it turned out that Google actually had punished itself, lowering their
own sites' results for the words, "chrome" "google chrome" and "browser".
The reason I am discussing this is because if library catalogers did
something similar to our records, by punishing what we deemed bad books
and articles--well, the very idea is simply outrageous! Any cataloger
who did something similar should be fired on the spot. But Google can do
this on its own, with no review and little chance for appeal. This shows
how much things have changed.
Also, after looking at the ad for Google,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFLP7HD1s7k, which talks about how Google
helped a little flour store in Vermont by making their goods available
to everybody in the world, which is quite heartwarming, I cannot keep
myself from wondering what would happen if this little flour business
somehow did something that made Google mad and the little store was
punished. What would happen to all those extra goods in their stockroom?
What would happen to the people who worked and their families? And the
entire community? To me, this video is actually not about the store, but
about the frightening power of Google, who could shut all that off in a
second if they suddenly didn't like you. That kind of power approaches
the literal meaning of the term, "awe inspiring".
Besides, the needs of the person searching are left out in this "test of
powers," as one commenter wrote:
http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pagerank-reduced-due-to-sponsored-posts-106551#comment-21590
"Those of you calling for a ranking penalty, stop and think for a minute.
Would it really make sense for a chrome page to NOT rank for "google chrome"
That would do nothing but confuse and irritate searchers who are
actually looking for the product by name. Remember searchers? Their
interests always come first -- regardless of anything else.
"Google Chrome" isn't an ambiguous term. like "Dresses" of JC Penney
fame. Banning it all together would create a negative search experience
for the people who are actually looking for the browser.
Lowering the pagerank will probably prevent it from ranking for terms
like "browser" -- and that's an adequate penalty."
This person has the view of the librarian, in my opinion, actually
thinking about the poor person doing the search and looking at the
results. Rewards for "good behavior" and punishments for "being bad" are
dangerous, from the librarian's point of view.
Does this mean that Google should not be doing this? Google is a private
business and can do whatever they want, but there needs to be a
librarian's viewpoint as well.
There is a lot of work out there for librarians, if they choose to take it.
--
*James Weinheimer* weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
*First Thus* http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
*Cooperative Cataloging Rules*
http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Received on Wed Jan 04 2012 - 04:13:58 EST