This is certainly a pretty heady discussion. Google can do what they want. So can the other SE's. It's their party and we have play by their rules. Anyone that does not like the rules is free to build their own SE and start their own party. It's really that simple.
Since your main concern is the lost weight it seems to me that you have a bigger issue with the Co-op than google, since co-op bases the weight on google results. I think that maybe you should petition here for a class action suit against Shawn for using Google's data to weigh the members of the coop and not for example the number of posts in the forums. Google is not forcing anybody to be in their index and neither is coop forcing anybody to be a part of it. If you don't like what google is doing there is a simple solution called robots.txt User Agent: Googlebot Disallow: / If you don't like the coop remove the ads. All your problems will be solved. As far as the sandbox theory goes it is still just a theory. There is no proof that it exists. I think that Google is massively discounting site-wide links (to the extent that it counts possibly as 1 link), so the coop gives us the advantage of having links across a wide range of domains and IPs. That may be the reason for people getting out of the sandbox, because of the coop. But, for coop to help you, you need weight, if you don't have you own weight, buy advertising spots on other websites and put coop there. This is of course just a theory about the massive dicounting of site-wide links, which is called by many the sandbox. The truth is that we will never know the secrets of Google's algo and I like it better that way.
Firstly I commend everyone for keeping their cool on such an informative and sensitive thread/topic. Personally, I agree with mopacfan, "its their party" if we want to join their house party - we need to follow the house rules. I see both sides of the fence here and there are legit arguements for what is being discussed. IMHO Google will need to start playing a little more fair and relax (tweak) their algo. I think they are realizing that they are not the only kid on the block. With the new MS and "Become" SEs kicking in, competition will start getting fierce. I think back to the famous "Webcrawler" SE many years ago, where is it now? Personally I don't play board games with too many rules - if G puts too many rules in the game, I will simply opt to submit and list on other SEs, others SEOs may opt to do the same and G may find itself struggling for eyeballs. Granted they are public, they have tons of $ but if you are not responsive to the users - it won't matter how much money you throw at it. What i find most disappointing with G is that there is an abondance of good sites with extreemely good information that have not been indexed by G. I strongly believe that sites should be classified as "Commercial" and "Non-Commercial". I have check sites not indexed in G and it seems that for the most part the author has not optimized the content for indexing. I think that once SEs figure how to index these hidden gems we will see another evolution in the SEs. My 2 cents! cheers Frank
Even though I recognize that G plays an important role in the field of SE's, personally, I don't use them. I never get results I want, and I still use the yahoo directory a LOT for what I'm looking for. I only started using G when I started caring about where my page ranks, so I go there to do searches for keywords, but other then that, I will continue to stick with yahoo. only point being what has been said, G ain't the only game in town. gchaney - I think some people have taken your initial post out of context. I didn't take it that you were complaining or whinning or anything. Good for you for staying calm when it seems others have been negative. wendy
Google have a vested interest in moving people to PPC. This is corrupting the free option and if they continue in this vein it will be useless. Now that Google is a public company the onus is on increasing revenue and PPC is the best direction for Google to take. Have a look at the figures below that were released today. Their income from PPC has doubled. >>>Google the internet search engine company reported big increases in its sales and earnings after the bell, as it benefited from continuing growth in its paid advertising business. The company reported net income of $204 million or 71 cents per share. Sales for the quarter more than doubled to $1.032 billion. Revenue after traffic acquisition costs, which is the portion of its sales that Google shares with its partners, amounted to $634 million, well ahead of the consensus estimate of $592 million <<<