Sphinn - Google Is Not the Government, Nor My Mother

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Sphinn It!

Google Is Not the Government, Nor My Mother

Went Hot: May 23, 2008 - 7:14 am
Posted By: DavidWallace 144 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.bruceclay.com)
Category: Google

Lisa Barone writes, "The sensational outrage over Lyndon Antcliff's fake news story has officially reached a level that can now only be described as Utterly Ridiculous. Sparked by a comment by Matt Cutts over at Sphinn, Search Engine Land and others are now speculating that Google may or may not begin penalizing fake news stories that don't contain any type of disclosure. Oh, goodness."

11 Comments

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Comments

from SpostareDuro 144 days ago #

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"If people want to "trick" users, then they'll suffer the consequences on their own."

consequences? suffering? what kind of suffering has come from all the votes praise and support that lyndon has received? are you referring to the exposure of what he has done that got blogged about repeatedly? this is the only way i see any penalties coming his way. other than the suffering and consequences we ALL have yet to receive as a result of his 'hoax' (word too pretty).

from 0thelisa 144 days ago #

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Heh. By "consequences" and "suffering" I wasn't referring to the exposure Lyndon received. I was more talking about any loss of crediblity sites may receive if they become known for promoting/creating "false" news stories.

from Jill 144 days ago #

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Quite the leap some people are making in taking what Matt said at Sphinn about one specific link baiting incident, and trying to apply it to every article that ever gets published.

From what I read, Matt was simply providing his (and presumably) Google's stance on Lyndon's link bait that was posted on money.co.uk.

Sure, if someone else does something similar and it is obvious or promoted as such, then Google would take the same stance. But I didn't see Matt say anywhere that they were going to build some sort of moral compass into their algorithm. I find these discussions that suggest as much to be taking away from the real issue at hand, which has nothing to do with Google.

from Kimota 144 days ago #

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Jill, I couldn't have said it better myself.

It's as if the mere mention of the 'G' word is enough to prompt panicked predictions of the end of the internet through foam-flecked lips.

I appreciate Matt offering his opinion, but that is what it was. His opinion. No indication of Google response. No indication of penalties. No indication of a supposed moral compass held by Sergey, sending lightening bolts to any that don't conform to his view of the world.

from onreact 143 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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Oh no! It's official now: "Google Ministry of Truth to ban Jason Calacanis for spreading false information" - http://sphinn.com/story.php?id=48239

from incrediblehelp 143 days ago #

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"I appreciate Matt offering his opinion, but that is what it was. His opinion. No indication of Google response. No indication of penalties. No indication of a supposed moral compass held by Sergey, sending lightening bolts to any that don't conform to his view of the world."

Right and they couldnt stop it if they wanted to.

from NickWilsdon 143 days ago #

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@Kimota

Sorry, Matt's opinion has always been considered a clarification of Google policy. That has been the case since the "GoogleGuy" days in the WMW forums. I'm sure Matt is well aware of this and picks his public comments with care.

As to your other point, penalties. Well he agreed that this technique was against Google's Quality Guidelines, that alone suggests the possibility of penalties. I'll draw your attention to this paragraph at the top of the page:

"we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise penalized. If a site has been penalized, it may no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites."

Sure, you have the word "may" in there but penalties are the usual sanction for breaking the Quality Guidelines (aka Google's TOS). Sometimes circumstances mean you may not be penalised but these revolve around intent. Many large companies are cloaking for example but not gaming Google (IP Delivery).

I'll agree with you on the response part. We don't have any evidence of Google doing punishing a site (yet). I also have no opinion on what Sergey personally considers evil or his pending lightening bolts ;)

I'm out on the topic now though - it's Friday!

from SpostareDuro 143 days ago #

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othelisa, i wasn't being argumentative.

"I was more talking about any loss of crediblity sites may receive if they become known for promoting/creating "false" news stories."

it becomes known by way of media attention e.g. blogging, etc... you basically repeated what i said. if those sites are spanked, and he is responsible for that, his rep is affected as well.

from DarkMatter 143 days ago #

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If Lyndon hadn't shouted it from the rooftops Google would never have known about it. I suspect that others using this tactic will not make it publicly known. So Google is not much of a factor in this debate. But all of us are going to be reaping the "rewards" of this "brilliant" marketing tactic.

I'm already hated by bloggers because assholes spam blog comments. I'm hated by Stumblers and Diggers because assholes pay for junk submissions. Now every 2 bit SEO hack is going to inundate the web with fake stories and they will hate me for that.

from Kimota 143 days ago #

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**high fives DarkMatter**

Welcome to the sanity club. We have jackets.

Succinct comment that gets to the nub of the point.

I don;t care whether Google does or doesn;t know about any fake stories. I care that they are likely to become common place after tthe success of this piece and hat that means for quality of information on the net.

INformational inaccuracies are a minor inconvenience now, but if this became common practice, there would be a gradual erosion of the whole raison d'etre of the internet.

from bartimus 143 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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This entire debate is soooo funny!

On a regular basis, I see sites that use 1 pixil font with keywords in them. OR, I see sites with keywords blatently stuffed into pages in plain sight. There are also other examples of trickery seen regularly and by seen, I mean with my own eyes. Not hidden.

Google needs webmasters to report purchased links and I regularly see examples of followed, purchased links on some of the most trafficked websites. I am guessing no one has reported these sites to the big G, yet.

So just exactly how will Google index and understand the truthfulness of any one article or post?