John Chow gives some tips on how to stay under the radar… the Google radar that is…

I’ve heard this time and time again, but didn’t pay attention to it as I focused my efforts mainly in terms of optimizing my positioning in search engines… and like most webmasters, I focused on Google: “Never rely on one source of traffic only.” Easier said than done, I agree, but in the long run, it’s the smart thing to do. What if tomorrow you lose your rankings in Google for some reason? Well, if that happens, you’re screwed.

The main reasons why most webmasters rely on search engines are as follows:

• Traffic from search engines is free. Yep, no need to pay a dime, so technically, everybody is put on an equal footing and if you work hard, you can make it. I said “technically” because we all know that in practice, the more money you have, the more you can allocate to SEO, but anyways…
• Traffic from search engines is the main source of traffic for most websites as people nowadays go straight to search engines to locate information on the Web.
• Traffic from search engines is at the core of the goodwill of many sites. Traffic = Goodwill = $$$.

But how to get traffic from other sources? Pay-per-click, pay-per-impression, affiliate programs, etc…?? Well, that won’t work because those techniques work best when you sell products online. What if you don’t sell anything? What if your plan was to get traffic through SEO and make money out of that traffic by selling ads? –> 0 + $5 = $5

If that’s the case, you’re trapped and it will be very difficult to get out of it. If your business model if to make money selling ads through high traffic sites, it won’t make sense buying traffic to then resell it. –> -5$ + $5 = 0

That’s the big headache many people are now faced with. The solution? Get out, change your business model, or revisit your SEO strategy…

Search engines are there to retrieve the most relevant information when people do searches online.  Their role is to search for information.  It seems that they now want to have a say on content also.  Believe it or not, advertising is content.  A link is content.  Whether that link is relevant or not, it remains that the link is content.  The fact that Google started to penalize websites for selling links has resulted in many taking those links out or rearranging their sites to address Google’s new guidelines.  This is the start of search engines becoming active participants on the Web.  Now, we have to take Google’s views into consideration, in addition to making sure that our visitors find what they’re looking for.

According to Google, whatever they do is to make sure that they can continue to provide good search results…  So it’s our job now to ensure Google’s success?  This is not the only thing.  Google also has mechanisms to allow webmasters to rat on each other…  Common, please, spare me the ##$#@$@#$.  Google has become way too intrusive and there is growing discontent.  Yes, not only me!  Sure… the aim is to provide for better results, but when we follow their guidelines, it leads us nowhere… and next thing we see?  Spam sites ranking on the first page of Google’s results.  Penalizing good sites is not the way to go, whether they sell links or not.  GOOGLE: Go against spam sites, sites that are BAD, and please, please kick out spammers out of your Adsense program because by keeping them in there, you are actually feeding their spamming.  So please, before going against good content on the Web for whatever reason, just target poor content first.

When I wrote the initial post, I never would have thought that I would have so much to say that it would splash over onto another post… yet, that’s what’s happening. The position taken by Google on this issue is what suddenly started to make me think that Google has grown too big for everyone’s sake.

Image Source: Slate.com

To go back to the issue of penalizing anybody involved in link sales, meaning link sellers and link buyers, this across the board approach has the effect of alienating many of Google’s own partners. Yes, that’s right, some of those same webmasters who are part of Google’s Adsense or Adwords program. Is this good? I wouldn’t think so. Those webmasters now probably hold a grudge against Google and may just be waiting to jump ship. Google’s goodwill took a big hit the past few weeks and it still remains to be seen whether sites selling links will stop doing so.

One of the major problems is the issue of who’s really at the source of the current problem. The people that are at the core of the current problem are those that want to buy links, not those that want to sell them.

What’s wrong when you have a site to want to sell advertising space on that site? Furthermore, what’s wrong if you want to sell advertising space in the form of links without putting the “no-follow” attribute? As a webmaster, if someone wants to buy links on my site, it’s just a matter of courtesy to give him/ her a normal link, not a “half breed.” Since when do webmasters have to start doing search engines’ job (for free might I add) and help them increase the accuracy of their results? Webmasters’ first priorities are to add good content to their sites and monetize their sites to make them profitable. The requirement that webmasters have to abide by guidelines imposed upon them by a third party is nonsense, especially when this third party is a private entity in the business of making money (and already making tons of it). There’s no deference required here.

“Webmasters can do whatever they please and Google can do whatever it wants.” Wrong, to the extent that Google is such a major player online, it should be held to higher standards.

Notwithstanding all the above, one of the main reasons that Google failed in its latest approach to link selling is because, once again, it targeted the wrong people. Cracking down against sites selling links will just reduce the supply, which will make links more expensive. The key is reducing the demand.  If Google penalizes link buyers, this will directly defeat their purpose, which is to rank higher. From a business standpoint, the decision to no longer buy links also makes more sense since instead of buying links, they will just shift their budget to doing good SEO. That decision is easier to take since they just have to redirect their money flow. On the other hand, penalizing websites selling links doesn’t make sense because it’s telling them to refuse money. Since when does it make business sense to refuse easy money?

The current crackdown will just make the link ads market go underground. It will not eliminate link selling. The best Google can hope for is a reduction of those instances. This is a patched up solution.

The past few weeks were pretty hard on many webmasters. As Google put its threats to execution, many of us saw our PR decrease on some of our sites either due to those sites selling links or those sites being linked to sites that are selling links. As the Web is a big network, a penalty imposed on one site will have a ricochet impact on other sites linked to that one and so forth. The magnitude of that impact depends on how close the sites are to one another. Think of it as an earthquake. The site being penalized is the center of the earthquake and sites linked directly to that site are at close proximity… you get the picture. So, if we adopt the above comparison, the most recent PR update by Google translated into a multitude of earthquakes all over the Web. This is indeed a major event and online discussions on this issue is a good indicator of its magnitude.

The way Google dealt with the issue of link sales is troubling however in many respects. It penalized link sellers as well as link buyers. I believe this is a mistake. Search engines’ main focus should be to retrieve accurate results when people do searches online. The fact that a website is selling links in no way prejudices its relevancy or the relevancy of its content. In fact, it’s the opposite. If people are buying links on those sites, oftentimes, it’s because those sites offer something good (we are not talking about junk sites here). Penalizing sites that sell links will have the impact of lowering their rankings in search engine results based on factors totally unrelated to relevancy. BIG MISTAKE. This is a sign that Google has lost its focus… the thing that brought it to the forefront on the Web in the first place.

The thing that Google should have done is limit itself to penalizing sites that are buying links. This makes sense because those sites don’t deserve those links in the first place and whatever benefits their derived from those paid links are just artificial. Had Google taken a stronger stance on only penalizing sites buying links, but penalizing them strongly, many webmasters who buy links would have stopped. This would have been the better solution as it would truly have improved search results in Google.

On a last note, the stance taken by Google is very harsh because many sites’ main source of revenue is link selling. To ask those sites to no longer sell links is like to tell them to declare bankruptcy. This is just not realistic.