There is no doubt that Google has substituted what was once friendly communications with SEO/SEM community by very adversary accusations and ignorance attitude to publishers legitimate concerns.
And it seems Google has recently intensified its adversary propaganda war against the SEO/SEM community. By focusing on the bad elements and ignoring the vast hard working majority, Google has succeed to some extent to damage the reputation of the SEO/SEM industry. On Google web site and through its employees our industry are illustrated as a bunch of filthy spammers and blackhat SEOs.
Today Google communicates with the SEO/SEM community in the language of warnings, penalties and the infamous “Hurt and Rescue” approach.
We as a SEO/SEM community ought to make it very clear for Google and its employees that we refuse to accept Google adversary propaganda to destroy the reputation of our industry. We should make it very clear that Google employees are not welcome anymore on our forums and social networks, if they continue their adversary approach to the SEO/SEM industry. That’s the least we can do to protect our reputation and interests.
14 Comments
And it seems Google has recently intensified its adversary propaganda war against the SEO/SEM community. By focusing on the bad elements and ignoring the vast hard working majority, Google has succeed to some extent to damage the reputation of the SEO/SEM industry. On Google web site and through its employees our industry are illustrated as a bunch of filthy spammers and blackhat SEOs.
Today Google communicates with the SEO/SEM community in the language of warnings, penalties and the infamous “Hurt and Rescue” approach.
We as a SEO/SEM community ought to make it very clear for Google and its employees that we refuse to accept Google adversary propaganda to destroy the reputation of our industry. We should make it very clear that Google employees are not welcome anymore on our forums and social networks, if they continue their adversary approach to the SEO/SEM industry. That’s the least we can do to protect our reputation and interests.
14 Comments
Comments
I’ll Sphinn it as I think it’s a good discussion topic. I think however they are communicating much better now than ever before. Seems like information is evolving from coming unofficially from Matt Cutts’ blog and paid conferences to official sources like the official webmasters blog (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/) where they are even writing their summarys of conferences that thousands can read without being able to attend. The Googlers have been A LOT more active in the official webmaster help group (http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help/topics) Where we’d be lucky to hear from a Googler a week, now it’s several posts or more every day now. The numbers of contributing Googlers has gone up significantly in the last few months as well. I have a list with links to their comments here (http://www.jlh-design.com/2007/12/google-webmaster-helping-googlers/)
I’m with John, Harith. Google does more communicating with webmasters than ever before. It has gone from literally nothing to Matt to an army of Matts, as well as tools and the blog.I absolutely disagree with the suggestion that Google employees are not welcome. Anyone is welcome here, as long as they are polite, respectful and contribute the community. Certainly if you see what you feel is propaganda, you should poke back at that to deconstruct it. But I side with talking is better than side building.
John, Thanks for feedback and the Sphunn.At the time while the QUANTITY of Google’s employees posts might have increased, the adversary attitude toward the SEO/SEM community has remarkably become more visible too.Furthermore, it seems Google employees have been very selective on the subjects they post about. I would say the general trend in Google employees posts is mostly promoting Google an its products. But when it comes to serious concernes of the SEO community, Google empolyees meet such concerens with either silence or killing ignorance. Danny,I see you forgot to give my post the Sphinn love it deserves :-)Compared to the Almighty Google and its powerful employees, we as SEO community, not only on Sphinn, have very limited options to protest against Google’s adversary propoganda, defend our industry reputation and protect our interests. I’m not talking here about Sphinn in particular. But in general, for example, I can’t see the wisdom of keeping inviting Google’s employees to SEO/SEM conferences while the same Google employees keep attacking our industry and limiting its possibilities to generate revenues.
The emphasis has changed, but I am not so sure that it is for the worse. Sure, it is making life more difficult for certain classes of web entrepreneur, and that time has been a long time coming. I am more than happy to hear what Google is thinking about things they think are deceptive. Too many people have relied on the "I didn’t know that method X was wrong" excuse to justify what they were doing in the name of SEO. I’d like to see the end of that, and I think that in some areas it is already beginning to happen.
Harith, I didn’t spin it because I didn’t agree with it. Keep in mind, however, by commenting I do indeed add to the overall Sphinn score (comments are a factor). But since the conversation is picking up with more viewpoints, the discussion overall is worthwhile, so I’ll add a spin now.I still don’t agree, though. I think the most adversarily propaganda style issue we’ve had over the past year was the war on paid links. But I think Google’s also given plenty of believable, helpful advice on a range of other topics.As for the wisdom of not inviting them, Harith -- we have things like Webmaster Central directly out of the interaction of site owners with Google employees. If you think there’s a war, you don’t end a war by bunkering down and not engaging with the enemy. SEOs aren’t going to wipe out Google; Google’s not going to wipe out SEOs. We’re both in it for the long-haul. There’s going to be disagreements, but there’s a lot of common ground to be gained from talking.
Blaming Google is a cop-out and is as useless as filing spam reports. But if you want to keep filing these "google-is-being-bad" reports, be my guest. Meanwhile, professional SEOs are out there outranking you and taking your money.Google is not perfect, and its ok to make constructive criticisms. But most of what comes out of these discussions is anything but constructive. Instead what I hear are exaggerations, hyperboles, and propaganda.Andy Beard, for example, wanted Matt Cutts to nofollow outbound links on his blog. Yeah, that would really help me and the rest of the web make more money (Not). Not a single SEO in the SEO industry so far suggested a realistic, workable, algorithmic solution to the paid links debacle. Instead we just hear sneers and jeers from the peanut gallery. "Googe should rely less on links" is as practical as saying "oh, you’re fat? you should eat less and exercise more." Brilliant..And yeah, I do question the competence of people talking about Google instead of SEO. Some of them do nothing else but talk about Google’s stance on paid links - which sometimes makes me wonder if they know anything about SEO - and I think maybe they’re just a one-trick-poney bashing Danny, Google, Rand, the SEO industry, Shoemoney, Jason C, or whatever bigger than they are just to get some attention.
Halfdeck,C’mon. Be generous. I said it before...I need all the Sphinn love I can get :-)"Not a single SEO in the SEO industry so far suggested a realistic, workable, algorithmic solution to the paid links debacle."Did you mean that the SEO community should start doing what all those highly paid Googlers are supposed to do within their working hours? Googlers should work for their salaries too, you know :-)
Removing the lines of communication is possibly the worst thing we could do with Google at this time short of hacking their site.
Not sure how I missed your last paragraph but I did, where you say, "We should make it very clear that Google employees are not welcome anymore on our forums and social networks"I’m not quite sure why you’d even want to go there. If the trouble is poor communication what does not interacting solve? I personally enjoy the Googler’s contributions, JohnMu just chimed in here to add some clarity on another subject, a Sphinn which was pure speculation was now cleared up by him, what’s wrong with that?I have had a problem in the past with the seemingly scattered approach they have had with dispensing the information. For example, a Googler may latch onto a seomoz blogpost and start commenting about it, in the end offering help on the post. That’s all fine and good, but what about the rest of the world that doesn’t read seomoz. I’ve always felt that there should be some sort of central location, preferably official like googles own blog, where Googlers would document what they’ve said out there. They’ve said some great things in the social/forum sphere from WMW, Sphinn, blogs, etc but people coming to Google to find the information won’t find it. I’ve lobbied for a central clearing house of comments left and official tidbits and will continue to do so.
John,To be fair, I said:"We should make it very clear that Google employees are not welcome anymore on our forums and social networks, if they continue their adversary approach to the SEO/SEM industry."As such, Googlers wouldn’t contribute of anything of value to our forums and social networks. Just negative propoganda about the SEO/SEM community.Btw, I like your following suggestion and find it of great value:"I’ve lobbied for a central clearing house of comments left and official tidbits and will continue to do so."Gamermk,Google and Google employees current lines of communication with the SEO community are mostly based on threats, penalties, ignorance and "Hurt and Rescue" persuasion methods. Should we accept such lines of communication?
HarithI dont think Google wants to Hurt any one. Yeah there might be some advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take the good things and Ignore the rest. Some of the things Goolgle does will hurt some businesses, But I beleive Google is trying to solve most of the legit problems. The tools and advice they provide are to identify the problems and eventually trying to solve if someone innocent is affected by that. What would be better is, to inform those who are affected by their penalties that the issue is being considered and give an answer like how Matt explained the situations in few of the comments here in Sphinn,Come on Harith you started this post to get some Sphinns right? :) Just kidding.I guess there will be some good discussions here in this post
"Did you mean that the SEO community should start doing what all those highly paid Googlers are supposed to do within their working hours? Googlers should work for their salaries too, you know :-)"If you’re not out to change things then keep your bitching to two words: "google sucks." That saves me time from reading all the useless drivel.
I don’t think we have to ban them hate them or anything else like that.I think we have to stop thinking of them as our friend though, and stop having this odd loyalty to them. Do what you need to to profit, and not end up in jail (within your own personal boundaries). I’ve realized that I have no stake in helping Google improve. When they start doing SEO on my websites[my job], I will start playing by their rules to make the results pages better[their job].Until that point, they owe me nothing, and I owe them nothing.PS: Don’t call me filthy. Frequent showering is one of my better qualities.
Suresh,"Some of the things Goolgle does will hurt some businesses, But I beleive Google is trying to solve most of the legit problems."Thats exactly what neither Google nor its employees are doing! Lets take a look at just this week on Sphinn. Two critical issues were raised:- Asking Google to specify exactly which kind of directories and industry-specific experts sites it considers trusted.- Call for Official Google Policy on NoFollowWhat were Google and Google’s employees replies to resolve those issues? NOTHING!!!