70 replies to this topic

[Robert813]

I fail to see any legal precedent for such a view.

Legal precendent and laws are subject to change. Not to get political here in the least, I am only trying to point out an example here: This is why the fight over Supreme Court Judges is such a hot issue in the U.S. right now. Roe vs Wade, a precedent since 1973 has a pretty descent chance of being reversed if certain Judges are appointed to the bench. There are many precedents that have been reversed with time.

Google has become hugely important to the Internet. Perhaps a search engine is important enough to be treated as a regulated utility, the same way that water, gas, and the cables over which search requests travel are. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but as commerce continues to increase at 100% per year on the Internet like it has, I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised to see more regulation.

[projectphp]

But all those issues had precedent. Wade vs Roe was never a precedent free case, and even if reversed, will eb reversed based upon precedent, not whim. What is the precedent for Google and organic SERPs? There is none, plain and simple.

[qupte]Google has become hugely important to the Internet.[/quote]
So what? Newspapers are hugely important to local businesses. No one ever forces them to do free PR for local businesses. The argument trthat Googel is important leads nowhere, because there is no "therefore". They are important therefore nothing. Hard reality to deal with, but reality nonetheless.

Perhaps a search engine is important enough to be treated as a regulated utility,

Regulated utilities normally means price setting or, in the case of a comparable service like print media, the regulations relate to disclosure. It never applies to editorial content decisions. That is why Chomsky is always so mad, because editorial decisions are made that East Timor, a disaster that the West helped with, was almost completely overlooked.

IMHO, there is no way that any regualtory body could argue that Google's algorithm needs to be:
1. Static.
2. Publically available.
3. Comprehensive.

All three of those are what everyuone that makes statements like the above is asking for, and most every issue that ppl complain about is the result of one opf those three conditions being broken. The algorithm changes( 1 ), or a site can't be crawled ( 3 ) or a site isn't important enough to index (3 again) are usually the things people complain about. Unless sites pay Google for indexing, they have the right not to whatever the like, and ignore whatever they like, and whilst there is no law against it, they can change their algo whenever and for whatever reason they like.

Whenever the topic of regulation comes up, there are never any specifics, just wild speculation, and that bugs me no end. With no legal precedent and no supporting evidence, the chance of the sort of regulation that stops updates like Jagger is impossible to imagine, and difficult to even imagine. What could possibly be done to stop an update to an algo havign an effect? All change brings bad effects for someone, and any regulation, to work, would need to be so restrictive it would kill the industry.

So, IMHO, regulation of the sort randomly thrown out is simply never going to happen, and Mom & Pop are just going to have to face reality that relying upon the "charity of strangers" is a risky strategy.

[Randy]

Legal issues aside, I think a lot of it comes down to how one views their relationship with Google or any other search engine.

Many (most?) webmasters seem to view it as some sort of Adversarial relationship. One where the webmaster and the search engine are supposedly on opposite sides, always at odds with each other.

I've always taken a bit of a different approach and started out with a completely different mindset. In my view the search engines are much more akin to a Silent Partner in my business than they are an adversary. I look at it as being a case where we're both trying to deliver the best that we can for my users.

So if I do things the right way, making sure that the users get a primo experience --hopefully at least as much if not more than they expected-- I'm doing my job correctly. And because I'm doing my job correctly and have been doing so for long enough to prove my dedication to a quality user experience, my Silent Partners (the search engines) reward me by sending me more of the type of traffic that I'm interested in. It doesn't happen overnight, but it will happen as long as I stay on the path.

In this light, I tend to appreciate it if/when my Silent Partners take the time and make the effort to help me improve my business. That their motivations for doing so may be something else entirely (ie improving their own business) is fine with me. Because in a way all of us are also their Silent --or many times Not-So-Silent Partners.

[ChipJohns]

Argh. 

Don't you see that Google isn't expecting anyone to practice proper ethics?  They're just trying to build a search engine that is useful to their visitors.

If this was completely true, why did Matt even make the request. Is he patronizing all of us. Well then why do we even bother to listen to what he says, or what he doesn't say. When I read what Matt has to say, I personally get the sense that he is not dispasionate to website owners. He wants them to succeed. IMO and you may disagree, but that's okay..

That is not correct.  I, as a Webmaster with numerous listings in Google, have never been asked to sign any sort of contract with them.  Google has no responsibility to me whatsoever, with respect how to operate its search engine.

These kinds of faux rationalizations don't help the Webmaster community deal with reality in the least.

True from a legal standpoint. And, I realize that ethics/morals are relative to each and everyone of us. I knew someone who started a local magazine and it started doing very well. It was taking marketing revenue from a larger magazine and they didn't like it. How did they respond? QUite interesting as some big businesses tend to do, they sued the small magazine. A completely fraudulent claim. They knew that legal expenses alone would put this small magazine out of business, and it did.

Legal issue? No. Ethical issue? I personally feel so.

Do this to a competitor and save your customers. Do this to your customers and you loose.

You can think what you want, but without SEO most web sites would not do well in the search engines. I can see this just by looking at a few of my customers with sites that were new and just developed recently. A lot of web developers do not understand what is needed to get pages ranked. The algo is their main tool. But this algo will only work if site are PROPERLY opimized. Even if there were no black hat tactics out there at all. Even with great content, if sites are not optimized they will not perform in the engines, and so Google would not be able to provide the best content possible.

If Google makes it impossilbe or too difficult to rank through seo, site owners are not going to spend money to have their sites optimized, and Google cannot provide the best content...

------------------------

Arguing that Google has some sort of moral responsibility to Webmasters is a waste of time.  They don't owe us anything.

If you don't think they owe us anything, well then they certainly will not either.

I also believe that Google understands the landscape of this issue. They are not imposing ethical issues, or legal isueds. They are just trying to stay ahead (get ahead) of the game.

If anyone has played fooltabll you realize that, when blocking forinstance, you may try to find a way to "hold" your opponent, which creates a penalty. You try to find a way to do it without being detected... If you are being held illegally you tell the ref and he trys to catch your opponent doing it. It is the refs job to keep the playing field level..


Google is trying to deter as many of the techniqes that people use that cause false serp listings. (A lisiting in the serp that really shouldn't be there, or is just elevated more than it rightfully should be.) ANd if you think this is subjective, I guess it is, but all of us have to admit that we have seen a page in the serp and said, "Why the heck is that listed.?"

This is the business of search engines. It's what they do. It is not discrimination or unjust.

It is just trying to find the best way to control something as massive as the internet to the best of their abilities...!

[Jill]

If this was completely true, why did Matt even make the request. Is he patronizing all of us. Well then why do we even bother to listen to what he says, or what he doesn't say. When I read what Matt has to say, I personally get the sense that he is not dispasionate to website owners. He wants them to succeed. IMO and you may disagree, but that's okay..

Matt may very well wish that.

But Google, the search engine, has a different agenda. And it has nothing to do with whether any site is ethical or not. You're free to be ethical or not with your site, and Google is free to list it or not.

[pemburung]

Product placement comes to mind in this discussion. You are a soda company, and the producers of a new show tell you it costs $5000 to get your soda into the hands of a cast member. You bite. The show becomess very popular, and the producers decide to charge $10,000; they can make extra money due to the show's popularity. Then the television station, who would rather sell its own ad for the soda than see it advertised within the show itself, says "well, if you sell product placement, I'm going to deduct some points for your show's ratings, regardless of how many people are actually watching (we have to imagine that the station also conducts the ratings surveys, which in effect is what a SE does). We've decided that shows rate well in part because viewers relate to things they know, and products are things they know. So the more products, the more at ease viewers are, the more real the show seems, and so the better it rates. So, you have to flash a warning each time the soda is seen that says "paid advertisement. If you don't, eventually this could mean your show gets moved to a lesser time slot." That doesn't worry the station, because some other show will occupy the prime time slot, and they'll sell ads there anyway. There's so many good shows around, something will fill the slot well enough for them to benefit from it. "Of course, if you put the product in there without it being paid for, then we won't deduct the points. Unfortunately, we can't tell if you were paid or not, so you need to tell us. But if we suspect you were paid - and you know, we're tending to take that view for all products that you include, especially if your other advertising tells people to watch the show as your product is in it - we'll take the points off anyway."

In addition, any other shows that you produce from the same studio, regardless of their relationship to the product in question, will also see their ratings reduced.

Note that the show became popular purely due to the good work of the producers, in production, PR, buzz, and a host of other things. All the television station did was broadcast it, and make money from ads surrounding it. The station actually contributed no material thing to the quality or popularity of the show, but makes a lot of money from the producer's hard work.

Change stations? Well, the station you are on is the leader, and what they do tends to get picked up by the others anyway. And you can't really wait until some entrepreneur decides to start another tv network, and eventually gets into millions of homes.

Now having said all that, I personally think all paid advertising should be obvious to the reader/viewer. But virtually all external SEO is invisible to the reader, from distributed articles down. Should there be warnings on a page to the effect: "This page has come to your attention on the search engine before other pages as the owner has paid a company to write relevant articles and distribute them widely, causing the page you see to be better ranked on this SE. They have also worked diligently on several other methods to get this page in front of you, which do not bear on the immediate relevancy of the written text of the page you are looking at, or the term you searched for. You may wish to look way down the results pages for very relevant pages that have not had this benefit, but may be just what you are looking for."

[qwerty]

Now having said all that, I personally think all paid advertising should be obvious to the reader/viewer. But virtually all external SEO is invisible to the reader, from distributed articles down. Should there be warnings on a page to the effect: "This page has come to your attention on the search engine before other pages as the owner has paid a company to write relevant articles and distribute them widely, causing the page you see to be better ranked on this SE. They have also worked diligently on several other methods to get this page in front of you, which do not bear on the immediate relevancy of the written text of the page you are looking at, or the term you searched for. You may wish to look way down the results pages for very relevant pages that have not had this benefit, but may be just what you are looking for."

Yeah, you betcha

Of course, most aspects of SEO (the kind we promote around here) aren't advertising. They're improvements. Labeling sites that have had that done would be like putting a warning label on a novel stating that the author didn't create the work in a single sitting and an editor made suggestions to change some of it.

In the case of product placement, people in the know are pretty well aware of the fact that if you see an actual product, it's a paid placement.

But how about this: you're walking along the street, and you overhear the two people in front of you conversing.
1: Hey, is that the new Spammo and the Cloakers CD?

2: That it is, mon frere. I picked it up this morning.

1: I've been looking for it all over town and I can't find it anywhere.

2: Yeah, it's pretty popular, but they had a decent number of copies over at Tad's when I was there.

1: Tads... where is that?

2: This is your lucky day, Bud. It's a block from here.


They were hired by a marketing agency. How do you label that?

[ChipJohns]

Product placement comes to mind in this discussion.

Kinda. But the reference is what is important.

If it were a sitcom I'd say paid advertisement... (Bud or a Coke)

If it were a sporting event. I'd say sponsor... (Gatorade)

A specific athlete using it I'd call it an endorsement (Nike)

If it were a product I seen someone using of his own accord in a documentary I'd call it a personal recommendation (Many types of products from clothing to tools to computers, etc.)

Each has it's value. The value would be dertermined by the venue and audience.

On a Given Thursday night a paid advertisement on a sitcom would probably be worth more because of the number of people watching the sitcom vs. the number of people watching a pbs special at 8pm on Thursday night!

Seeing a news spot after a natural disaster and the relief crews were all using any specific product of their own accord would pack a big punch... Especially if you were in a profession that used that product.

They all have a great place to promoting a product. There are so many variable it is hard to say which one is more important.

And, this is a prime example of the situation. Which products sell the most? Usually not the best products. Usually the most popular products.

This really brings us to part of this issue; Which web sites should be at the top of the serps? The best or the most popular...?

To tell the truth, I don't know how I would answer this question ...

[pemburung]

Seeing a news spot after a natural disaster and the relief crews were all using any specific product of their own accord would pack a big punch... Especially if you were in a profession that used that product.


And, this is a prime example of the situation. Which products sell the most? Usually not the best products. Usually the most popular products.

This really brings us to part of this issue; Which web sites should be at the top of the serps? The best or the most popular...?

To tell the truth, I don't know how I would answer this question ...

And if the television station noticed that quite often when they show disaster clips, the crew are using the same product, even if they are different disasters, and decided to use less of the report producers work because they thought the product company was paying crews to use their product? Perhaps that even happens to some degree, but all use the product because it works very well. Is it anything to do with the TV station? Or is just the news their concern? Now, if crews were being paid to burn down houses to get on the news, that would be different.


Great thought that last part. Consider - for three out of four years Britney Spears has been the no 1 searched term on Yahoo. Other personalities fill 6 or 7 of the top ten. So the most popular sites are about dear old Britney. Are they the best sites on the web? No, but a system that served you up sites based on popularity would serve you up Britney, Linday Lohan, etc. Does this thought augur well for a sytem that ranks sites based in heavily weighted part on popularity of web sites? I wonder.

Even in academia the most oft-cited papers are often either simply the earliest papers written on a subject, and therefore have many of the basics in them that need to be referred to later due to academic politeness, or were the first on the subject, etc. They are rarely the most up to date, and currently best, available information on the topic. Many develop their numbers due to the fact that authors must cite them just to show readers that they are familiar with them and not due to particularly relevant or up to date content; they are often cited in the context of error or "previously thought" sort of sentiments.

[Relevancy]

Quick Question.

So buying a listing in Yahoo's Directory is spam now to Google? Even when they suggest doing so? http://www.google.co...guidelines.html

"Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites. "

(BTW I don't buy links in Yahoo's Directory cuz it messes the world up )

So are all one way relevant directories worthless? I don't buy it. I run a relevant directory that does not do any mass out bound linking and only accepts sites that are relevant to the topic. I get paid for these listings and I don't think I am fudging the system at all.

[qwerty]

Nope. Yahoo refers to that as a submission fee, not a listing fee. If you give them your money and they turn your site down, you don't get your money back. You can call that an advertisement if you want, but apparently Google does not. If Google chooses to accept the judgment of Yahoo's editors, that's their prerogative, and they don't have to view it as an ad just because money changed hands.