Google Is Turning Into A Tyranny

April 19, 2007

In case you weren’t aware the entire webmaster world is on fire. The reason? Matt Cutts has posted on his blog here that paid links will be penalized from now on and that the Google algorithm will change in regards to this issue.

So where is the problem? Well, the lack of transparency is the biggest one. In the Google fashion we have been accustomed to there is absolutely no mention on how this penalty will take place. Best case scenario: the links are disregarded completely (similar to the nofollowl tag), worst case scenario: the sites involved in the trade suffer an overall penalty. And the catch is: absolutely nobody knows the answer.

The second big issue here is the lack of definition for what a “paid link” means. It seems obvious but it is not. The web has reached a degree of complexity where the line between paid-organic is completely blurred. Again Matt doesn’t think that us the stupid webmasters are worthy enough to know such things.

The third issue is the paranoia. Basically Matt encourages people to report links they “perceive” as paid. No proof needed, only a hunch will do. Better still, you can hunt for your competitor’s backlinks and report them in a frenzy. The potential for abuse is enormous.

The fourth issue. Paid links are almost impossible to detect via an algorithm if placed properly in context and if the deal is conducted in private. This means that there will a lot of false positives and undetected paid links. Blackhat marketers will rejoice.

The fifth issue. It is quite obvious that Google is attempting to hurt it’s direct competitors such as Text Link Ads, ReviewMe or PayPerPost as these links are the easiest to spot. This is a move with a definite intention of hurting the competition and the monopoly position that Google enjoys now in the search engine market is the only one that allows them to get away with it

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