Google-Approved Links
Invent the hyperlink and you have invented the WWW.
Links are the lifeblood of the web, the reason for its existence. Links aren’t sexy and oh-so-very Web2.0 like mashups or collaborative videoblogging, they’re just what it’s all based on. So when you start messing around with hyperlinks (and you happen to be a large corporation based on the hyperlink) you are taking your life in your hands…
First, there was the nofollow business, detailed shortly after its introduction in this article which still holds true today. The nofollow attribute applied to a link would instruct a search engine spider to (largely, but not entirely) ignore the linked page and its content.
We now have the eccentric situation where referrer spam comes complete with its own nofollow attributes already supplied. But, worse, nofollow is proposed to be used as a sign of link sponsorship as opposed to pure, organic links generated by honest endeavour.
Have your paid links by all means, but don’t assign any authority to them - like a TV ad with a celebrity gushing on about their chosen product, but holding up a sign saying, Don’t actually believe a word of it!!!
Taken together with the enhanced “denounce a competitor” scheme, detailed in our previous post, the situation becomes bizarre.
Some Paid Links Bad, some Good.
To be accurate: they aren’t against purchased links - not those purchased for the purpose of creating human traffic - they are against links purchased to enhance search positions. “Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank.”
Well, round here, a couple of years ago the banks introduced “chip and pin” verification for credit card transactions - it would make it impossible for criminals to operate, cut fraud overnight etc etc. And, predictably, fraud went down. Then it went up again. Identity cards will reduce personal data fraud - yes, for as long it takes the various black hats to adjust to the new regime.
You cannot separate links placed for SEO purposes from links placed for human traffic purposes - you cannot get 100% victory, and since the people at Google are not stupid, they know that well enough. (Any artificial mechanism, whether applied for “good” motives or not, will not succeed - yes, a truism, because it has an innate artificiality to it. Perhaps there’s even an uncertainty principle at work - progress towards a goal seeming to obscure that goal.)
Google’s aim is merely to make a dent in broad statistical terms, to hold back the tide a little. It will be little obstacle to those with large resources, a significant one to those less favoured. In the recurring theme of Google’s business practice, it rewards the status quo.
What revolts so much about this proposal?
Firstly, that “webmasters” should inform on others - a bit Soviet Union, don’t we think?
Secondly, that our time and resources should be expended in rectifying a problem of Google’s creation. In creating PageRank, they created a commodity based explicitly on links, to be bought and sold in a market.
Thirdly, the hypocrisy. Despite the tacit claim that there’s no parallel, Google major revenue stream - Adwords/Adsense - is founded on identical principles to those they loudly decry. There’s enough Designed-For-Adsense sites out there surviving happily - tackling them too strenuously would hurt Google in the wallet.
The new Google-Approved Link
The logical endpoint, maybe the only endpoint, of this ridiculous path, is the Google-Approved link. It will look like this:
<a rel=”g_45rfd55dd4″ href=”http://iworshipgoogle.com/”>
The validation key for this link is available at the very reasonable price (insert irony here…) of $4.95 per year and permits the webmaster to include their links in Google Search results. Our premium service, AdWords, is unaffected by the introduction of this new service… See details in your local currency (at our curious exchange rates…)
And Google will therefore revert to being a micropayment directory - essentially the same as the Yahoo(!) directory it supplanted.
This all might seem a fuss about a technical detail of coding - were it not that the link is the foundation of the Web. We shall see; the Google-Approved link might be around in 2010 at the present rate of progression…
Related:
1. A swift dismissal of this development from those close to Text Link Ads.
2. A good account of the history of Google vs the hyperlink
(Yes, we’ve got AdSense on this site - we think we knew that).
Carol — April 23, 2007 @ 11:28 am
Couldn’t resist finding out whether you practice what you preach and have junked the default nofollow on wp comments!! - sorry
Michael Hampton — April 23, 2007 @ 2:57 pm
Ads placed on AdWords gain no search engine ranking whatsoever, since search engines can’t see or follow the links.
Lewis — April 23, 2007 @ 5:32 pm
@Carol - good try….
@Michael Hampton
Of course - but the problem with AdWords is that Google is on both sides of the argument, as it were, and it would be very surprising if launching page PR didn’t play some role in “smart pricing” - they regularly drop hints about “content is king” when discussing it.
But since we don’t know this for certain, I agree, you’re right - the statement is too strong as it stands and needs some editing.
Juan — April 23, 2007 @ 8:36 pm
Google doesnt need to see or follow the Adsense links, it has already sent the links