OK, Google… They Surrender

I still don't get this, what are you supposed to do then? Cancel all paid links? No point having no follow crap.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I understand from this issue:

1) The income from TLA (Why not LinkWorth - they pay more?) is enough that JC does not care about being in Google.

2) The reason most people buy links are for the PR they provide.

3) If you add the nonfollow attribute, it doesn't pass PR and therefore no value for the link.

4) If you are not in the Google index, you get no PR, and therefore no value to the link.

So, if PR has any value, you are going to lose it either way, if you get dumped by Google or if you add the nofollow attribute.

My approach has been the same though, since we have seen NO drop in site traffic, we don't really care what the PR is. We just hope the clients keep buying the links anyway.

If Google had been thinking correctly, they would have started offering a text link brokering service. They would be making more money and not had all the bad PR(Public Relations).

I don't get this, how are they supposed to know who sells links and who just links to a site? Also then if you can't pay to initially get some links to get some traffic and PR then how are you supposed to initially market your site? Also who is Matt Cutts, and what makes him think everyone would know about his rule? There must be billions of pages who know nothing about Matt Cutts or this no follow crap. Now because Google doesnt like people somewhat exploiting their PR system, they want webmasters to do the hard work and put in stupid no follow crap? In fact what are you supposed to do again? Their algo is fine imo, if a site has put effort into making it rank high, then why punish if they sell links to make other sites high? lol, google lost plot

Nice :)
And this is the way how we react to it.
A 1/2 reaction :)
close down 2 of 1 ads
Want to join?

real men don't need no lube... :razz:
Seriously though, I have not given into those who we shall not speak of. I am not saying that I will not, I just don't want to yet, I would much prefer to investigate all other options first. Imagine how TLA's business is being hammered at the moment. This has similarities to MS in its bad old days before it started losing its power. If bloggers became serious about their objections and did not role over to the G, there would be an opportunity for another player to come in here and grab a fairly lucrative slice of the market. Wishful thinking perhaps, but who knows.

google keep on pushing bloggers, sooner or later something will give.

I am still waiting on Yahoo Publisher - are they out of beta yet?

The reason why Google was so good was their algorithm took all the SPAM out. Now, Google's algorithm is not working as well so they are simply blaming on bloggers. They really need a new algorithm if anything. I foresee integration of Google and StumbleUpon very soon. (although it is already integrated sorta if you use the toolbar)

I wrote a post last night about my how I feel regarding Godgle.... oups Google, sorry. Let's collaborate and forget about Google. I invite readers to my post on the subject, if you want to collaborate, I'm open to lots of things, just click my name and read my proposal.

The Google Surrender's Prayer

Oh most unholy Google

Supreme being of search engines

We have been humbled by your omnipotence

We cower in the shadow of your greatness

We tremble at the site of our low PR

We offer our 'follow' links as burnt sacrifice

A sign of our supplication and obedience

Please bless us with increased PR

And guide us with your wisdom

The online money making business is slowly turning to a dog-eat-dog arena. Google is just making sure that everybody still knows who the "big dog" is.

Google is just asking for the US and EU courts to go after them for anti-trust in the near future if they continue their approach of using control of search results damage competitors in the online advertising world.

You are right John, For you it would be way to costly however for most of the smaller guys... If they make 350-600 a month on sitewide sales it's worth it to be re-included as search traffic may bring more and depending on the market they are in and what tyhpe of site it may be worth it. For you on the other hand... Sounds weird but who cares about search engines when you are a household name and have 14,000+ subscribers... You get mentione don OTHER peoples blogs so much it doesn't matter.

It's a total catch-22.. Can't afford the dedicated servers and writers without advertising. Can't get advertising without PageRank. But can't get good PageRank if you're advertising. What's a blogger to do?

It's funny, PageRank is supposed to reflect your site's authority status. We're featured constantly in MAJOR sporting news publications, and have backlinks from the top sporting sites on te web, but because we're trying to support our business by advertising, we get dropped to a PR3?

The system is fucked, and surrendering to G is the last thing anyone should be doing. If everyone stands their ground, they'd be forced to rethink their "strategy", as everyone's ranks would drop simultaneously. And if you're not selling links, why do you care that your PR dropped in the first place?

No more text link ads, let's see what google have to say in the next update. :mrgreen:

"Do no evil". It is Google's motto right? It's funny that the tide is slowly but surely turning against Google. I actually wrote about this very thing about two years ago as it had the book scanning controversy and were preparing their foray into video search (before the YouTube acquisition). Ever since then, I've seen more and more negative commentary on Google.

It just seems to be the natural evolution of things that big companies eventually start upsetting a certain segment of the population. There was a time that most people loved Microsoft and Wal-Mart. For the most part, most people still do, otherwise these two entities wouldn't make as much money as they do. But there becomes a point where a very vocal minority tends to turn the tide.

Full Disclosure, I actually used to work at MS. But I recently quit because it was the company I thought it would be when I joined (I was an anti-ms guy before I joined, and held some hope it would be a good place to work)

It's easy to talk tough about not needing Google (for traffic) when you have 14000 RSS subscribers...until they "accidentally" drop your feed from feedburner :-)

^
Google needs to buyout facebook though if possible. Facebook is a much more threatening competitor than microsoft or yahoo.

Google has some arcane policies that make it hard to get traffic unless you'e one of the 'chosen' who shalt rank well

Google is the new Microsoft. Heck they are even more powerful now.
Surrendering to Google will cost too much money for me as well for my sites, so like the Borg.....you will be assimilated , HA HA HA (Evil Laugh) :evil:

Das Brain

Its interesting to watch this discussion as a newbie, because I started promoting my blog about three weeks ago, following the techniques from John's eBook rather an SEO book.

What is interesting for me is that John changed my concept of traffic - I used to worry about search engines sending me traffic, but you know today over 80% of my traffic are from referring sites and only 7.3% are from Google search engine. And get this - out of the 7.3% of hits I get from Google search engines, only about 2% actually spend more than 1 minute or browse to another page.

By following the techniques outlined in the ebook through social networking, commenting and linkbaiting, I've received a few stumbles, and my traffic is starting to build up slowly but surely. My direct hits have also increased. AND the quality of that traffic is way better. All visitors from referred sites stay between 3 to 15 minutes on my site, and the average number of pages browsed is 2.5. Granted, my traffic is building up really slowly (I have to juggle writing with promoting my site as well as a day job), I wished it was growing faster, but I'm happy with the quality of the readers I'm getting.

I only ever got a slap that really effected traffic once. The pagerank got effected this time on a few of my sites, but the traffic is still climbing. I laugh because I'm basically a nobody. Seeing all the somebodies scramble gives me a little thing to lighten my day.

I think after this latest round of google bitchslapping the problogging world, that PR may be on its way out. At least as advertisers are concerned. We've read too many places that after google dumped PR on several sites their market actually increased. It shows that advertisers aren't taking google PR for everything it USED to be. With other search sites out there (has anyone tried ask.com lately, that engine rocks) maybe its part of the evolution of the net.

On the other hand, this fluctuation has been happening for three weeks now, maybe its just another bump in the road.

I'd love to see a study among bloggers that actually showed whether or not Google sends "readers" or people that will stick. I know that I have traffic sources that send visitors that have triple and quadruple the page views per visit... hmmm

Google won't be relevant for long if she keeps acting like this.

Google becomes more and more a joke.. Surrender :lol: . They should first play straight.

John, I commend you on standing your ground against any entity that tries to dictate how we bloggers and entrepeneurs should maintain our businesses. I'd never wave a white flag and surrender, it's always more fun to fly a freak flag (like Jimi Hendrix sang about).

I learned about Johnchow.com from a bit he did on "Lab with Leo" on tech TV. I think effective marketing like that is probably just as (if not more) effective than the constant struggle to make your site conform to whatever arbitrary new rules Google comes up with.

I think that SEO is the real question here. After many discussions with friends on the subject of SEO, I think that you really can't trust what Google has to say on the subject. I think John's strategy is excellent. Get as much traffic from Digg, Google and the rest, as you can. When you get to the point that black hat techniques get you banned, complain to all your loyal readers and fellow bloggers and now he is one of the most famous bloggers in part for his defiant stand against the mighty corporations.

so I will never be stuck one day thinking up an idea.

John, I stole the black banner. I surrender too. (but only one blog out of a dozen :mrgreen: )

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: google is very-very high quality. I lose google :lol:

SEG's thought process, their willingness to share it with bloggers and the humour and angst invoved all are to be commended. It is sad however that they decided to surrender. I wish them well.

So what will happen to SEO? Existing SEO Experts are not experts anymore? :D

Tried to post my image in response to the surrender flag but it did not work so here is a link
www.tatumba.com/blog/images/googlewar.jpg

The Mad Ape

Exactly what is the Google Index anyway? I always had this naive impression that it was based on actual search popularity, back links etc...but nooooooooooooo. It has been bastardized for the sake of the almighty dollar.

They have a 'do as I say not as I do' mentality. They can do whatever they wish with someones website in order to make them comply.

Take a look at this one for example. As an advertiser I would want to be on one the best blogging sites about blogging to make money. However Google, in a childish move, relegates JohnChow.com to the basement for being a bad boy. A bad boy in who's eyes? In the eyes of the corporate greedy dastardly Google Police.

So if I am googling for a blog like this I will never find it. Maybe we should start a campaign to go anti-google. Forget the white flag. Put a a pirate flag and tell Google to shove it.

The Mad Ape
www.tatumba.com

I feel happy with my PR so far (because this is my first PR update),
so there's no need for me to surrender. :smile:

if you are actually making the amount of bucks which you boast about than dear you wont surrender even at gun point!

but who knows if Google may even reconsider your request or not EVEN IF YOU SURRENDER..they must be hating you :mrgreen:

by the way I DID NOT surrender to google as I never used any paid links and I wont be as I love my Google traffic!!

John, you really should be careful what you say about google. They probably read this blog.

Is Google the new Microsoft?

After all the microsoft bashing when Vista launch, now is the time for Google bashing.

I have a feeling netizen needs to bash some big bad companies once in a while to feel good about themselves.

In case I am too subtle above, YES, I surrender, oh mighty Google. :wink: