Does anyone else find the strictness of these policies disturbing? It sounds like they found one post that violated their policy and as a result you can't find Chrome on Google for the next two months. While I appreciate the evenhandedness in applying the rules to their own company, should these things allow for a bit more leniency and discretion in enforcement?
The problem with "leniency and discretion in enforcement" is exactly what we've seen: people will reflexively be outraged at Google when they appear to break their own rules.
Now, if Google's policy was to be lenient and to "give each offender a chance," think about how they would respond to two situations:
The first situation is some unknown marketing agency that's clearly violating the rules and arranging the selling of links to inflate their PageRank or their clients' PageRanks. This would be the typical case that their policy was designed to weed out, and Google's webspam department would have no reason to be lenient. And they likely wouldn't.
The second situation is when another department at Google appears to violate the Google webspam rules. Someone from Google webspam would see that Google Chrome is in violation, and of course they would feel the need to be lenient. Sure, it's a big company, but I'm sure any employee would assume they could work things out with the Chrome department.
This would just end up being the exact situation we've seen unfold today: Google Chrome would appear to get a pass, while the "obvious spammers" would be punished normally. I don't see how "leniency and discretion" could possibly result in anything other than unequal application of Google's policies.
"While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site."
Maybe. Maybe they don't go through the home page; maybe they go through the Google home page but don't look at it.
But the problem is the same when other companies that make an honest mistake in good faith, get punished in this manner:
1. there wasn't anything they could have done to prevent this mistake (if the Chrome team can't figure out the rules, who can??)
2. the people who end up being punished are Google's users themselves, who won't understand why they can't find BMW when searching for "bmw", and will probably think they did something wrong.
I'm not defending spammers, BTW, or even SEO (which I think is borderline evil regardless of the color of its hat).
What I'm trying to say is that Google should find a way to punish spammers without punishing its own users.
I can't speak for them, but I'd guess you have to be a lot harsher on yourself than you are with others when you have power, or else people are going to feel that you are using your power unfairly.
I think that their response is also proving a point to the general SEO community that this sort of activity is frowned upon. It's very unlikely that your typical website would get such a harsh punishment for something so small & trivial.
That Google applies the same rules to itself as to everyone else is commendable. What seems strange is how much of this needs to be done by hand.
In essence, Google is admitting that they're unable to detect spam / low quality content, and therefore their "policy" is to punish the perpetrators when/if they get caught.
This may be needed to enforce the rules, but it's an obvious disservice to Google's users, who are apparently considered "collateral damage".
The actual problematic link was a single link, apparently - I don't think it's reasonable to have automated systems ban a site from google for a _single_ link, which might well be a false positive. They're trying to show they don't have a double standard though, hence the manual action.
> I don't think it's reasonable to have automated systems ban a site from google for a _single_ link
No, but it would be reasonable to ban the post sporting the offending link.
It also would be in the benefit of Google's users to demote pages that are content-free. I thought this was what "Panda" was all about, but I'm not sure if it's working?
Meanwhile Google banning its own browser will generate more buzz and downloads in the next few weeks than the video campaign no one knew about could have.
I like how there's a link to an article pointing out that Chrome no longer ranks on the first page for searches of "browser". I confirmed the same for "web browser" and "new browser", however in every case, an ad for Chrome was at the top, while an ad for IE9 was at the very bottom of the page (below the bottom of most screens, and out of view). In other words, Chrome is still the first search result.
Which is fair. They are paying for the position via ppc. Companies that are docked for blackhat techniques can still do ppc, assuming they are reputable enough.
While I realize that it involves different business units entirely, but a company paying itself for its own products seem a bit weird to me, doesn't it?
The bit about shifting budget dollars around is an accounting issue. many (if not all) advertising businesses have "house ads" that they run for their own products.
It's similar to when you see an ad for an NBC show while watching a different NBC show, or an ad for Consumer Reports auto pricing service in Consumer Reports magazine.
Really like the transparency and applying the same rules, but at the same time when I search for "Google Chrome" the single ad in a yellow box above all of the results is for http://www.google.com/chrome. I guess I wonder if this page rank demotion will really make a difference since Google still controls that ad spot.
AdWords trumps PageRank, but understand that Google is (or rather, should be) technically outbidding the market to show that ad.
Though in many ways for them it's like taking money from their left pocket and putting it into their right pocket, so I suspect they will be able to outbid others until infinity.
True, but the question isn't whether or not they can afford it, as there's obviously very little that they can't afford, but one of whether it makes sense.
I'm assuming their bean counters have decided on an acceptable user acquisition cost, and likely won't bid above that. If, for example, they're willing to spend $1 on that spot, and somebody else is willing to give them $20 for it, I'm pretty certain they'd sell it out in a flat second.
As the vast majority of people think that the yellow boxes are to indicate the best result (including my parents who consistently click them as if they're the top result even though I've previously told them that they are ads), I'm guessing the impact won't be large.
Would Google of closed the AdWord account of a third-party over this?
[edit: for the down voter, if they would for a 3rd party, they should for themselves and remove the Ad. If they wouldn't take it away for a 3rd party, they should leave the Ad. Simple consistency]
I'm not the downvoter, but perhaps they were annoyed with "Would Google of" rather than "Would Google have." That particular error really gets on people's nerves.
60% of my interactions are with ESL or ETL engineers. Would of, could of, should of, on accident, and the like, are hallmarks of a generation holding the less well read attitude that grammar doesn't matter. The ESLs I work with thank one for a correction, incorporate it, and move on. Bad grammar is a bug. We all make them, reading clean code reduces them, and peer review helps too.
"Would of", "could of", "should of" are certainly errors when conjugating , but "on accident"? Either preposition "by" or "on" seems correct to me and the correct choice seems arbitrary -- though I find myself preferring "on".
From what I could find doing some (brief) research, this is a case in which the difference breaks down nearly perfectly along generational lines. Those ages thirty-five and under overwhelmingly prefer "on" and those younger prefer "by"[1]. Prepositional choice has always seemed a bit arbitrary to me, and the fact that there are dialectical differences reenforces that belief[2].
To suggest that this contributes to a "generation holding the less weel read attitude that grammar doesn't matter" strikes me as a bit misguided.
I chose "on accident" precisely to inject the generational notion into my comment, being well aware of its notability as an indicator of usage patterns by age.
First, in your citation 1, you have the generational aspect of "on" and "by" reversed. The original and correct[1] usage is "by accident". Acceptance by the younger generation doesn't make "on accident" correct, it is just accepted for lack of knowing otherwise. (This will, granted, eventually result it in showing up in dictionaries as a usage.)
The new generation, whether less read or less likely to have read the writings of prior generations, is less influenced by existing usage, and mistakenly verbalizes "on accident" to over-regularize with "on purpose".
"Over-regularization" is the kind of mistake a toddler makes until they learn correct usage by hearing and reading correct usages from multiple example experiences.[1] As the new generation reads less old material, and socializes textually with peers more and earlier, incorrect usages imprint to the point they gain defenders from the "everyone's doing it so don't call it wrong" camp.
I'm not making an argument ad populum and even if I were, I don't see how it holds any more weight than your argument from antiquity.
Language and grammar evolves and as far as linguistic changes go, the use of one preposition over another is pretty benign. Prepositional choice is already essentially arbitrary and varies from region to region.
English is a moving target. The current generation forming its own vernacular doesn't make in any more or less correct than when the previous generation did it. It's not as if English has its own académie française, and the flexibility of English is one of its most charming properties.
Leaving aside the condescending quip about toddlers, I don't see how over-regularization of prepositions is a bad thing. They're already confusing enough as it is and I personally would prefer a language with more consistent rules than not.
EDIT: A quick addendum: I didn't actually know this was a mistake and I appreciate having learned it anyway.
I was referencing toddlers and how that age group learns. The word toddlers is not condescending, it's simply the most appropriate word for the age group in question.
> I don't see how it holds any more weight than your argument from antiquity
The dictionary is nothing but "argument from antiquity", as would be the conventional definition of "correct usage", in contrast to the "many people doing it wrong makes it right!" definition you disavowed, skipped a graph, then repeated.
Prepositions are not "essentially arbitrary" even when used with metaphysical concepts. Particular prepositions work with particular types of concepts, and curiously, end up quite similarly used among a variety of cultures and languages. In English, for example, is the concept something you can possess, or a process that happens to you? If you consider other things that couple with "on" or "by", you'll see what I mean.
Certainly English is charming, and rapidly evolving. You've likely read Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue", but if not, you might enjoy it.
Is this a common ESL problem? It's based on audible similarity but I would expect non-native speakers to be exposed to comparatively more text than audio.
When people say this, I usually hear "Would Google've". It looks horrible that way, but captures the intention. I might use it orally (or in fiction dialogue), but not in writing.
Clearly Matt did the right thing here, but the cynic in me says that all press is Good Press ... and now Chrome is going to get lots of it for free. Mission accomplished.
Is there anything they could have done that would not have triggered the cynic in you? Don't punish -- Google is evil. Punish but leniently -- Google is applying its policies unevenly. Punish as they did -- it's all good press!
Will this really get picked up outside of tech press? While this will generate lots of chatter, it seems most of it will be visible only to people who already know about Chrome.
I think most of the reactions so far are overly cynical - it really seems like Google is trying to do the right thing here.
Regardless of what actions Google decided to take, this was going to make the news. They could either do this in a positive way by showing that they themselves are not above the law of PageRank, or they can do nothing at all and have Google Naysayers saying, "See! Their own rules don't apply to them."
This sends a strong message to the rest of the Internet: We won't stand for even the perception of impropriety when it comes to our money maker: search (well ads, but you know what I mean)
"In response, the webspam team has taken manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days. After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration request documenting their clean-up just like any other company would."
How can a site know if they've been demoted, manually or algorithmically? How can they find out why they've been demoted in order to clean up?
If you have the site registered in Google Webmaster Tools, you get a message within the GWT system about the penalty, and an area where you can appeal it. You also get warned about malware infections, and I think now old installs of Wordpress.
I had a client get caught in one a while ago, the notification isn't perfect and at the time (I don't know about now) they didn't e-mail the account holder as well, which I thought was a bit daft as they have your e-mail as it's your login.
For the client, when I cleaned up their site and wrote an appeal saying what had been done, the Webspam team were very quick at processing our appeal and restoring the site. It wasn't a buying links penalty though, it was about stuff they had on the site from some dodgy advice they'd had a few years before that I'd been trying to get them to remove, so it was easy to show they'd learnt their lesson in the appeal.
I'm curious as to whether this was misused by malicious website owners buying links for competitors and then reporting the competitor to the Webmaster team to get them lose their top ranking?
What steps does Google take to ensure this does not happen? A poster below asked the same question and someone else responded saying there are no documented cases of this happening, but let's just assume it's a hypothetical situation for now. What will Google do when something like this happens? How will they verify who was wronged?
Are there any provisions to this policy to ensure that it's not abused? It would be trivially easy to create "sponsored" links on behalf of your competitor in order to get them penalized.
This comes up as a hypothetical risk whenever stories like this break, but I know of no cases where it happens. That includes situations where individual link-buyers and link-buying sites have been publicly outed by commentators or competitors.
The economics of this only work out well if you have high marketshare (if you're 5% of the market, and you blow up a competitor, 95% of the benefit accrues to the other 95% of the market). So I think this threat is overblown.
Every time it comes up, I've asked for examples--if you hear of any after the fact, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd get in touch. Email's in the profile.
Isn't the relevant "market" searches for whatever keyword group you are considering?
The marketshare of clicks is mainly divided among the 10 sites on the front page. I imagine the benefit, when shared among only 1-9 sites, could be significant. Also consider the benefit of moving from ranking 11 to 10 or from 2 to 1, for example.
Though I can't speak for the efficacy of this technique, this fairly old article suggests submitting competitors articles to directories to reduce their perceived (by search engines) quality: http://www.bluehatseo.com/open-questions-when-to-never-do-ar...
I'm sorry but this is a complete joke. Matt, I know you read HN so I'd love to have an answer to this. How does demoting www.google.com/chrome improve the searcher's experience if they are in fact looking for information on Google Chrome? I thought Google was all about returning the best results possible. Also, why wouldn't you just devalue the link placed in the sponsored post? There's no way that one link was significantly holding up the ranking of that page.
Also, what if Google had asked the bloggers to put rel="nofollow" on the links but they forgot to add it. Would you guys still penalize the page that received the link?
I would see this in a more positive light if searching for the word "Chrome" did not find the Google Chrome homepage. However, they chose the word "browser", which isn't quite the same thing.
No, I think they demoted the URL, no matter what the search term; the initial searchengineland article was written while the demotion was still propagating, and "chrome" was still ranking. Now:
'In fact, the page no longer ranks for “chrome” or for “chrome browser,” either.'
