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.

–

Baz L

Day In The Life of Baz
http://www.LifeOfBaz.com/

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

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.

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/050824-155…

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

BeachBum