Google sells text links. It sells them on it's own websites VIA Adwords to the highest PPC bidder. It "brokers" the sale of them on others' websites VIA the Adsense marketing program. Google is a corporation that sells text link ads and is widely profitable. Can the current crackdown on paid links be seen as an attempt by Google to stifle competing websites who also sell text link ads and therefore protect or enhance its market share in this business? The recent situation is eerily similar to the "Browser Wars" of the late 1990s between Microsoft and Netscape. Microsoft struck one of the killing blows by integrating Internet Explorer into it's widely-used operating system and making it difficult for Windows users to function without using IE and using a competing browser instead. Microsoft was later sued in federal court by the Department of Justice and several civil plaintiffs over anti-trust issues. Here's a description of the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft Is Google heading in the same direction with guidelines that selectively punish websites that are direct competitors? Google is a private corporation, publically traded. And yes, it can do anything it wants with it's own search engine software. But it can't violate FTC anti-trust laws and use its position in the search industry to elevate it's own advertising sales and also crush its competitors. I feel Google is walking a thin line with it's latest efforts. What do you think?
However this doesn't affect SERPs pages. Google adwords is their business and perhaps the only survival kit. This statement applies to all SE who also do advertising via their search engine. Microsoft's case was different. They forced people to use IE. Google didnt ask you or me to visit them, neither they asked you to click on Ads. I dont think this case will hold any good against google. Wha'ts your opinion?
I see a lawsuit developing that will probably pit Yahoo and MSN against Google. Microsoft has some of the best anti-trust lawyers on retainer, and I can guarantee that when the sh!t hits the fan it will be extremely entertaining. But, I doubt that some of even the largest link brokers on the internet can take on Google unless a prosecutor gets a wild hair up his butt to go after them.
Every time there is a thread about this topic (and there are many many many) someone inevitably mentions that Google is selling text links. That is not accurate at all. No PR is passed to you from a Google Ad. A Google ad is NOT a direct link. You are free to have your opinions about the paid links question but I hope you can understand at least that Google Ads are not equivalent to paid links.
There is all kinds of competition in this realm. YPN comes to mind. There is nothing google is doing to limit the ability to sell online advertising. All they are saying is that they are not going to promote sites through their search results that they believe are attempting to harm their business model. Sell all the ads you want. Just don't do it in a way that diminishes the google product. Think Wal-mart would sell a book on its shelves titled "10 Ways To Shoplift At Wal-Mart"?
Just because there is an alternative to Google doesn't make these actions any less self-serving and anti-competitive. Back in the 90's when Microsoft was sued, people could still use Linux or go buy a Mac. Yet Microsoft still lost.
it is kind of doing SEO on their search. To bring relevance and give users a good search result. At the same time killing the completion. The part I don’t like is the way they do it. No information is passed at all.. Fell like they are using their monopoly and killing the competition
Actually I think there is at least an arguable case to be made that Google should be forced to disclose it's algorithm on account of its incredible market share and the fact that they keep using words like "quality" and "relevance". As websites begin to be thought of more as "products" then google is essentially evaluating the quality of Geico's product versus Progressive's product versus State Farm's product. Now imagine if the next issue of Consumer Reports came out ranking the quality of automobiles and didn't disclose the criteria used to rank the Ford above the Chevy, but instead said it was secret. Think Chevy might get the lawyers out? Again, it's not likely and I'm sure wouldn't work, but I think its more likely than it would be for big G to get in trouble over the issue with "text" ads.
How does it not affect search results? Its advertisment (paid links or so to speak) right above the organic search results. Some searchers view these results first and not the actual search results. So it does affect search result pages. perhaps....yeppie. they have so many other ways they make $ its not even funny. think, when you can throw 1.2 billion to buy a site like youtube, you must be making money elsewhere.
If Google ads are not same as the paid links then what about the sponsored links that are displayed in the Google Search result pages. ????
It doesn't affect the search results because it's not part of the search results, it's advertising space on the search results page with a clear indication that it's a sponsored link. They are not counted as backlinks when determining the search results. TLA's on the other hand affect search results when the algorithm counts them as backlinks, which is why Google is not against paid links. They're against paid links that affect search results and advise webmasters to use the nofollow tag on paid links.
In every thread talking about a Google monopoly, someone bizarrely points out how innocent Google is in the "link selling biz"... Who cares if it is a direct link or not - Google leverages it's online power to sell advertisements... just like a million other web companies.
Yes, but where does google say you can't sell advertisements? Google wants to block paid links that pass PR and affect SERPS! Most people use paid links for better SEPRs. This reduces the quality of the search results returned by Google. Google wants webmasters to stop this practice by using the NOFOLLOW tag on paid links. It's not saying you must stop buying/selling links, just don't buy/sell links for PR/SERPs.
people buy text links to manipulate PR > which then affects google rankings. This is bad if a site that is unuseful outranks a quality site when a non webmaster is looking. This is why google wants to null the effect of paid links > their aim is to provide the most naturally accurate results, not deliver the results where the webmaster is rich and is decieving their system.
Google sells Adwords for traffic that do not pass PR Google has repeatedly stated it is fine for ANYONE to sell links for traffic that do not pass PR Why is it so difficult for people to understand this - to anyone with an IQ over 23 it should be obvious
The Penalties discussion is much like politic or religion discussion for me, there is never a end... Anyway the whole story makes me think about some big bad guy that tells me, here this is the cake and this is the way how you can eat the cake, but now, if you touch that cake i will slap your hand. Of course it is their system, their algorithm and what so ever, so they have to protect it somehow. Now, who's fault is that people found that weak point of your system and start to manipulate it? Wouldn't it be easier to fix the hole in your end instead of punish all the others (and the number is endless, it might end up that the ban database will be bigger than the results database). What Google can achieve with the penalizations is to stop growing the small worms, but it can't do much about the big ones once they have grown up (became popular and maybe 40% of their traffic is direct type in, another 50% comes from advertisements or other resources and only 10% comes from search engines (collectively, including Google, Yahoo, MSN etc).) Lets take a look at a recent and well known case, John Chow. He was penalized in rankings (doesn't even rank for his name) but did that some how effected John? Sure it did, it made him lose like 100 hits a day from search engines for some search terms, but gained 500+ hits a day by gaining more popularity and more people linking to him when mentioning the penalization story. His traffic grew after the penalization, hes earnings grew after the penalization and his RSS readers grew after the penalization too. What i am trying to say is that Google is trying (might be wrong) to halt the small worms growing and frightening them by taking actions on the big worms (but not necessary harming them by the penalizations). I wonder how come WikiPedia has not been penalized yet when they are #1 for the term "web hosting service", for sake...the term itself searches for a company that provides web hosting service yet a online encyclopedia is the first result, is that what we should call a quality result? I have never heavily sold text link ads, at least not more than 3-5 links and it has been just on 1 site, but all this story is not convincing me to not sell links in the near feature when i will need to somehow to create a bill pay website that will at least manage to cover the costs of the site itself just because Google wants to serve us with quality search results but yet i will still find WikiPedia as #1 for terms where users actually search for service (not to mention the terms seo, search engine optimization, design...etc..). This is how i feel in regard to this story, i don't remember to have take part in subjects like this (i might tho) but since i see the words quality search results and wikipedia on first page as #1 result than i think i should mention that i do disagree with Google politics on all this.
This would be fine if Google makes all the rules on internet trade but, as of yet, they don't. See, we have this government body called the FTC that tries to make sure companies aren't being bad and abusing their positions to create an anti-competitive marketplace. They have some pretty particular rules about what you can and can't do. This should be pretty obvious to anyone older than 12.
I know its ironic that they are selling text ads but not allowing others to do so. But these big corporation would only do things the way it benefits them. Publicly sold ads are penalized because it will affect SERP (yeah because their algorithm is stupid and they are stopping you to do so). Im not sure what is their point but they want to keep their Search Engine listing to be accurately voted rather than bought. But text links are quite a big source of our webmaster revenues. Leaving us no option but to adopt branded text ads programs such as Adsense/Adbrites or anything else that is javascript based. BECAUSE GOOGLE BOTS DOESNT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VOTES AND ADS.
What is anti competitive - Google has never said dont sell links for traffic. They do have rules if you want to rank on their search engine for free. If your break those rules - you dont rank What is the problem?