Google are hypocrites
I’m sure that most readers are aware that John Chow got penalized from Google last month. The number one theory and the one which is probably right is that Google are punishing him for his ‘Make Money Online’ linkback campaign. From the very start of this blog I have been very critical of John using this technique to gain traffic as the only one who seemed to benefit from it was John Chow. Some bloggers seem to be very pleased with Google for doing this, as if John’s campaign somehow justifies Google’s actions. I think these people are missing the point.
I believe google to be 100% in the wrong here, their job is to provide relevant search results. I could understand if they simply penalized John for the term ‘Making Money Online’ but they have pushed JohnChow.com to page 7 for the search term ‘John Chow’.
John does not seem to be too concerned about this because all the results before his blog inevitably link to his blog anyways however I don’t think that’s the main issue here. How can Google expect webmasters to report paid links so that search results remain relevant if they are messing about with search results because someone found a loophole in their ranking system.
The bottom line is, JohnChow.com should be in the top 3 results for the search term ‘John Chow’ and I don’t know how anyone can argue differently. The fact it isn’t in the top 3 highlights that Google is not providing the most relevant search results (JohnChow.com is number 1 for the term ‘John Chow’ on every other major search engine).
Imagine the reaction from the media if Google somehow did not rank Disney number 1 for the term Disney!!!
Why JohnChow.com has to be number 1 for the search term ‘John Chow’
I can never complain about BloggingTips.com not being number 1 for the search term ‘Blogging Tips’ because BloggingTips is a generic term. In the domain industry, a generic term is a common group or class name, such as “book”, “desk”, “chair” and “automobile”, and cannot serve as a trademark (see here). ‘John Chow’ is not a generic term so it’s highly unlikely anyone would search for ‘John Chow’ if they were not searching for the John Chow from JohnChow.com.
The problem I have with all this is that it’s one rule for Google and another for everyone else, the old ‘Do as I say not as I do’ cliche. I do believe that Google has the right to manually change search results if someone has gamed or manipulated their way to the top of google for a search term but they should not remove a page or website from the top listings if the page is relevant to the search.
I’m sure that Google will correct all of this soon but I still think that Google have made a mistake. I’d love to hear an official response from Google regarding all of this 
BeachBum | July 16th, 2007 at 8:21 am #
I have to agree with you on this one. Google is not “do no evil” with this one. Like you said John Chow is a persons name and JohnChow.com should be the #1 listing for “John Chow”. Google is trying to control too much. As for reporting my paid links, no way. My business income is none of their business.
BeachBum
Rea Maor | July 16th, 2007 at 8:25 am #
Well, people are pushing SEO more and more these days and it seems that
and Google has the right to defend themselves, BUT
if it was anything else beside the term “John Chow” I would have back them up
cooliojones | July 16th, 2007 at 8:57 am #
Kevin, do you really think that Google will ‘correct’ this? The way their name has been in the news lately with this and banning various people (and also the ‘bounced check’ scandal), I really dunno.
Dave Starr --- ROI Guy | July 16th, 2007 at 9:31 am #
I really wonder myself if they will correct it. Google is already more concerned with sites marching in step with their music than they are with the relevancy of their search results.
They make a lot of money, so they have translated that into the idea that the fact they make money makes them right.
There’s a lot in common between the Google management and John Chow … the golden rule. He who has the gold, rules.
BD PC Services | July 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am #
Fair or not, right or wrong Google as a “private” company can set, amend, and break policies. Granted it makes them a poor example of a major corporation and in the end it will only hurt them, but they have the right to do it.
Tay | July 16th, 2007 at 3:06 pm #
I agree with you in most ways. Google has every right to punish John Chow if they think he is gaming their system, and they have every right to remove him from the term ‘make money online’.
But Google could also end up looking like fools and they’re definitely not providing the most relevant results when John Chow isn’t ranked first for his own name.
Darren | July 16th, 2007 at 6:38 pm #
Have to disagree with you - I think Google’s in a sticky situation. If they only penalize people for the words that they catch people trying to manipulate them on then there’s not much disincentive for them not to keep doing it. When a site is penalized this harshly it makes the web master seriously consider whether to continue their practices - if they only penalized them for one search term they’d just start working on some other term.
While not ranking him for his name is harsh they’ve done it before - I’m pretty sure it was with BMW when they were caught doing dodgy stuff. From memory Google not only penalized them in serps - they actually put their page rank back to 0!
They did change it back - but only when BMW made the changes back. Up until then they didn’t even rank for their own term either.
The only other thing that I’d say is that John I suspect that it’s not only that John did the linkback/review campaign that has him in trouble. He’s selling links on his blog and is charging people to have nofollow removed for starters. Google have publicly stated that they are not up for the buying and selling of links and will take action when they find sites doing it.
I’m not saying that I totally agree with Google’s decisions on this stuff - but I can sort of see where they are coming from. Ultimately they are the ones that set the rules for their own site (just as we each do for our own blogs) and if people want to benefit from it they need to interact with Google on those terms. They also need to send a strong message to those who break those rules and to others who see it happening. I guess that’s what they’ve done here.
Kevin | July 16th, 2007 at 7:22 pm #
I understand what you are saying Darren, that they cannot pick and choose what keywords to ban a site with.
I did not realise BMW suffered a similar penalty however this is what I have a problem with. I don’t condone BMW for using dodgy techniques to promote their website however if someone is searching for BMW and they cannot find it because Google has removed the listing from the top results then Google is failing it’s users in my opinion.
I’m not sure if that’s the reason John was banned from Google. If Google are going to crack down on websites selling links then why don’t they just browse all the sites listed on texast-link-ads, textlinkbrokers etc.
As you say, I can understand why Google does not want links to be sold on websites because it is a way of manipulating how google ranks pages. However, I don’t like this stance for 2 reasons
1) I don’t believe that any search engine has the right to tell any website owner what advertising they can sell. I understand that text links play a big part in their algorythm but whats the alternative - you either have to sell banner ads or you need to use a javascript based advertising soloution like adsense.
2) Google have a vested interest in text link ad sales dropping because it would mean an increase in javascript advertising companies like adbrite, yahoo publisher and of course google adsense.
I have used adsense as both an advertiser and a publisher and I have never had fantastic results so im not keen on adsense being my only other alternative for income.
Again, I hear what you are saying, they do need to punish websites who try and manipulate google however I strongly believe that they need to do this whilst maintaining relevant results for searchers.
I know I am straying from the original topic a little here but you have to remember that google was recently caught selling text links on google itself.
Have a look at this page : http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050824-155812
particularly “What? Google says buy links? Sure, indirectly right on its webmaster guidelines page:
Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.
The Yahoo Directory charges for listings, if you want to be in a commercial category. It’s $300 per year to be included. Not just evaluated, included. If you don’t pay year after year, you don’t stay in. And despite using redirection, last time I looked, these links still get counted by Google for link credit.
So it’s OK for Yahoo to sell links but not O’Reilly? Therein lies part of the debate. Perhaps it’s OK at Yahoo since it’s well regarded as classifying web sites by category. By no means are O’Reilly’s links mean to be any type of directory-style system.”
Tejvan Net Writing | July 17th, 2007 at 2:12 am #
The problem is when I search John Chow. I want to find johnchow.com. If I don’t next time i will use a different search engine. It won’t last, because it makes google look foolish.
SELaplana | July 17th, 2007 at 3:28 am #
that was what actually i was thinking after learning that john chow is not on the top serp when searching john chow.
i agree with you dude that if google will penalize someone, it should be on the gamed term only.
but john chow believe that things will be back to normal after sometimes.
Ram | July 17th, 2007 at 10:07 am #
I agree on what you say Kevin. Google has to display his blog on top for at least his name. Leave ‘make money online’. But surely Google is failing here to provide what their users want. John is not the only person who sells links and he’s not the only person who asks for a review to give a link back. Everyone does it. But John was the one who did it well and got so many links to his blog. So even if google don’t rank him for other words, they should at least rank him for his name.
TechZilo | July 17th, 2007 at 10:57 am #
I dont agree - Google should punish fraudsters everyway possible.
Otherwise, they’ll find some other way and cheat Google again
And after all, Google reserves right to modify SERPs.
I wrote a post about this issue here -
http://www.techzilo.com/is-google-next-technorati/
Hope you dont mind the link
Baz L | July 19th, 2007 at 6:56 pm #
One thing I don’t understand is:
Don’t sites that pay bloggers for reviews do the same thing? Don’t they request (demand rather) that you link to a certain site using a certain anchor text? Oh well.
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Baz L
Day In The Life of Baz
http://www.LifeOfBaz.com/