Will the anti-Google movement have any impact?

Posted on October 13, 2007, 7:54 pm, by ABaN, under Blogging.

Oh, you didn’t know there was such a thing as an anti-Google movement? I guess you haven’t been paying attention to the grumblings around the blogosphere specifically and the internet in general.

If you still need more reading material just do a search for:

  1. google paid links@blogsearch.google.com
  2. Google’s website search for the term “google paid links”

    3. Did you notice these are both Google searches and not an enemy such as Yahoo Search?

So now that we’ve firmly established there is an anti-Google movement we should consider the cost vs. the benefits.

The Cost (aka: pissing Google off)
At this point I really doubt that Google has taken notice of this issue. I’m sure there are individuals who have, but the company as a whole probably doesn’t even pay any attention to it. Once they do however it could become costly for those participating in it. What can Google do to us?

  • Further tweak their search algorithm to penalize search result positions
  • Manually bury us within search results
  • Manually remove us altogether from search results
  • Ban us from Ad Sense

No doubt there are many more things Google can do to us if they are so inclined. If you’re not convinced ask John Chow about having his name removed from Google search results because he played the game a bit different than they had in mind. Want another “testimony”? David Airey can provide some insight as well. It is only fair to point out that David took pains to reverse his page rank penalty by following a series of very specific steps.

I won’t get into the hows and whys of things like a low(ered) page ranking can be a bad thing for websites and blogs. First off I don’t know the technical details of how it works and second off there are plenty of resources with that information available already.

There’s really no need to explain why being removed completely from Google search results could spell disaster for any online presence. At least I hope there’s no need. If you’re not quite sure just consider that around 60-70% of all searches come from Google. Depending on the percentage of traffic you get from Google that could be a huge hit if your site was removed. On A Blog about Nothing I get less than 3% of my traffic from Google so I don’t care one bit if they don’t like me. On the other hand my personal business website gets about 35% of its traffic from Google search results. Getting de-indexed or penalized there would be very painful.

The Benefits (aka: What do “I” get out of it?
We’ll keep this part short and sweet as “benefits” is a very personal term. What I consider to be a benefit you might not. What do I consider to be some benefits?

  • Freedom from worrying about tweaking SEO for Google’s Pageranking system
  • Freedom to choose who and what is advertised on your site
  • Freedom from constantly having to monitor your positioning and trying to get one step ahead of the other guy
  • Freedom from depending on one source for traffic even though it produces virtually no traffic

Those four things to me a huge benefits. There are probably 1,000,000 more to be considered, but I figure four is a good number to get going with.

Now back to the main question – Will the anti-Google movement have any impact? – Not on Google it won’t. Not enough people care, are aware, or know how to do anything to make it effective. The only people it will have any impact (negative impact) on are the little people who are particpating in it.

So who wants to join me?

Comment (RSS)  |  Trackback
  • David - I suppose that is true if you view your positioning within the search engine rankings as one of any importance.

    Besides Google doesn't penalize you for buying links. They penalize you for buying links from anyone but themselves via Adwords.
  • When google was counting paid links then the person with the most money to buy paid links had the advantage don't you think?

    David's last blog post..Hair loss organin #1 Profitable Niche
  • David - No problem, thanks for dropping by and saying hello. When you can learn from your mistakes that's always a good thing.
  • Thanks for the kind mention. I learnt a lot when Google penalised me, so there were certainly positives to take from my sudden drop in site visitors.

    Ciao for now.
  • Tarowash - Hi, thanks for taking the time to comment! I don't think there's actually an "official" anti-google movement. I think it's just a general overall dissatisfaction with the way they are doing business in some aspects.

    I agree, giant domination is always a bad thing. Just think "Ma Bell"
  • I hadn't heard about an anti-google movement before but I have always considered them the Giant. And I have always thought it dangerous when a Giant dominates All.
  • Google is not inclined to care about such things until and unless it hits them in the wallet.
  • Blackysky - I'm not saying Google isn't trying to do that, but when you take into account how big they are their decisions can have a far greater impact than simply search results.
  • The Paid links exist because people wanted to be listed at the top of “Google search engine”. Therefore they buy a maximum of links with their special keyword as an anchor. Every affiliate marketers used to do that. All those sites were pointed to their main affiliate website. So it is the “web masters “ who find a way to trick the Google search engine by doing an action to be at the top of Google search engine. Google is just trying to display “clean” search results. That's the way I see things.
  • Jaz - I've been watching how things were going before I decided to get in on it. For some foolish reason I had confidence that Google would stop being childish, but apparently I was wrong.

    Blacksky - It's not a question if the rules are "honest and clear", but the question is are they exerting undue influence on web masters with their rules? By telling us we can't sell text links without using a nofollow tag are they over-stepping their bounds?
  • That does remind me an anti Microsoft campaign... Strange no! What happen? Everyone jump on firefox, Linux and start using Google. Google was cool and msn search wasn’t...Personally I do thing Google rules are honest and clear. The paid links was created to mess with page rank system. It was a way to monetize what’s not supposed to be monetized. Will all know that people were running after links just to get a better page rank and get listed at the top? Consequences: Not the best website was listed at the top. Google tries to regulate everything and everybody is crying now. Just find a better way to monetize your website. Anyway Google only represent 50% (you have 50% with yahoo msn and many more) Now does Google become to strong and will be the next Microsoft, yes. Google buys everything around and beats new profit record each month. Like I always learn; everything that’s goes up will go down sooner or later. Ask Microsoft, Sony about that….
  • Jaz
    Already there. I've been posting against googoo for a while now. No, I do not believe it will make much difference but it does to me. They are trying to run the net with their rules and page ranks. I cannot stand that.

    I already do not do adsense so that's a non-issue. My page rank isn't supposed to matter on PPP soon so that doesn't matter either. My other company already doesn't concern itself with that so non-issue.

    I do not get that much traffic from googoo anyway. Sigh. Guess I wish I did have more traffic but I don't. So, there you are.

    http://offthecuff.lurasbookcase.com/2007/10/10/google-vipers-after-paid-bloggers-googlehypocrites/
    http://offthecuff.lurasbookcase.com/2007/10/10/quest-for-stupidest-page-on-net-3/
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