Matt Cutts: provide machine-readable disclosure
Today I was looking at my Digg friends and saw an article that really peaked my interest. I clicked on Google Wants to Tell You How to Run Your Website and was just blown away. That article is extremely detailed and very important for you to read if you are a paid blogger, SEO expert, or just anyone who has a blog or website.
The article is a response to an article written this week by Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, entitled Hidden Links. (No follow on that one baby!) This article at first talks about how links are hidden inside the text so the user isn’t really aware that they are there, but takes quite a turn and basically tells us, the webmasters, to start using “machine-readable disclosure” for links that are paid for so they don’t get counted by Google?
Many have already pointed out some pretty big quotes out of Google’s own “Best Practices” policy in which it states:
Make pages for users, not for search engines … Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
Sounds like quite a contradiction to his previous statement does it not? What exactly is going on here? I’ll tell you what is going on here. Google is telling you how to run your website based on their search engine limitations. They are trying to take money out of your pocket simply because they can’t program a way to do it so they are asking you to screw yourself. They are also talking about reporting webmasters to them if they have links you suspect they were paid for here. Can you believe this? When did Google become part of the government? A communist government at that.
Please blog about this people. This is not cool.
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Filed under: Blogging Tips and SEO, Computers and Internet by JMH
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hi jimi thanks for adding my blog into ur technorati favourites
No problem. Thanks for adding mine
.
So we are suppose to leave marketing to simple luck? I rather game the system to win. I fail to see how a paid link can be less important than a natural one.
Ban Google. I mean it…start using other search engines right now.
Watch the backlash on this, if enough people have the stones to quit using Google and Google services.
Oh well… On the one handm, Google is going to do what it’s going to do.
I don’t think they are going to get people to go to the effort to type in nofollow tags though. It’s tedious.
I’ve been reading a lot about this on different sites, and I believe that as long as we disclose on EACH PAID POST, things will be okay.
My issue with it is the post he has about reporting people who you think may have paid links. You can report anyone. It’s a witch hunt.
The whole thing is hypocritical. They have Google Adsense links in every ad we have on our sites. I like the Snap Shot thing myself to tell people that are brain dead it is an outgoing link.
Google is getting too big. I think they are going to regret many of their antics.
Somewhere down the road there is going to be a problem for them. May be some type of consumer revolt, or a boycott of their services.
Things are just getting too crazy with all of the control that they have.
Wiki is supposed to be coming out with a search engine this year sometime. They have some big hopes with theirs and are talking openly about going after Google. Seems they have some pretty big backers.
Do they have a chance? Possibly. Something to keep on eye on I guess.
Jules,
I don’t mind having to say it is a sponsored post by any means. What Google is talking about is making those post something that won’t be indexed.
Still there is not much they can do with it. They still have to depend on us to put that code in. There is no difference between us getting paid links and them using Adwords either.
Someone tried to get me to post about some software yesterday, BTW…lol
Told me I would get some extra traffic from it, but I e-mailed them back and said I would do it for a fee or free software. Never heard back obviously. It was an affiliate program they were running and they weren’t the company producing the software. All it took was one click and I found the affiliate program. Doesn’t make much sense to do that for free now does it?
Re: Wiki Search Engine
Good news, I think. Do you have any more information on it?
Here’s an article on it from a month or so ago:
Wiki Search Story
Thanks JMH. Hope this happens. I had a glance at the article.
It’s insane, but I’ve already seen some webmasters reporting others to Google on this thing. I can’t believe people are falling for it. What a great way to report competition.
however, there is always a balancing. things will even out somehow.
I just faved you. Please return the favor. Thanks.
Duke Amiene Rev
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that’s nuts. google is destroying the net.
Why don’t they just say, Please disclose so we can penalize you.
I like Sara’s comment. Also, check out a new search engine based on artificial intelligence instead of just indexing.
Do a search on Hakia.
I think they are doing this so that they destroy ad networks like text-link-ads. If I put text-link-ads on my site and I tell google that these are paid links then they will now follow them and give them no PR. This way the text-link-ads will not be worth anymore.