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Comments
Interesting article, but unfortunately you aren’t providing any proof regarding the topic. I don’t dispute that it’s possible that Google would prefer that the FTC offer guidelines, but this article doesn’t reference any proof that Google is actually pushing such.
the FTC offered up an opinion, it’s not a law that binding in any way. For example I may be of the opinion that my neighbor should cut his grass every 3 days and not let it get higher than 2.5". My neighbor can do whatever he or she wants no matter what I think.
Tim, there is proof -- though it’s actually been Matt Cutts in particular who has been pushing this, rather than Google as a company. But Matt speaks for Google -- he is the person who helps shape the company’s policy in regards to webmaster guidelines and what webmasters think about Google. I think he started on the FTC push more heavily back here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ Before that, I think he’d mentioned it in passing a few times in regards to pay per post links. These link in particular are worrisome to Google because when embedded in editorial policy, you can’t tell if they’re paid or not (and so can’t discount them). Back to his post, he said: "The other best practice I’d advise is to provide human readable disclosure that a link/review/article is paid. You could put a badge on your site to disclose that some links, posts, or reviews are paid, but including the disclosure on a per-post level would better. Even something as simple as “This is a paid review” fulfills the human-readable aspect of disclosing a paid article. Google’s quality guidelines are more concerned with the machine-readable aspect of disclosing paid links/posts, but the Federal Trade Commission has said that human-readable disclosure is important too" I left a comment in response: http://services.google.com/payperaction/faq.html "I understand the FTC’s guidelines on paid links. But are you specifically saying that those concerned about Google rankings need to do this as well, have some human-readable disclosure? I’m OK with the idea that people ought to make appropriate disclosures but less so with the idea that Google might be trying to dictate this on the human readable side." That was part of it. To be clear, I agree that if you’re paid to do a review, you ought to disclose that. But linking the FTC advice to Google’s "machine readable disclosure" guidelines could make some people feel nofollow is required by law in the US. It’s not. It’s only something you have to do if you’re in particular worried about keeping Google happy. As for why follow US legislation, well -- plenty of US companies are collected EU VAT from EU customers even though they aren’t based in the EU, just to be on the safe side. Laws in one country are often enforced or followed by publishers in another country because of the cross-border nature of the web. Most publishers can probably safely ignore the FTC guidance (it’s guidance, not a law). But I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s UK trading standards guidance that might cover proper disclosure. In the end, if you’re trying to do right by your readers, why not disclose?
Google is all about machine readable disclosure, and much less concerned with humans. In the paid links panel Matt made an example of someone who had "sponsored by" in an image format.
"The other best practice I’d advise is to provide human readable disclosure that a link/review/article is paid." Shouldn’t this also therefore apply to other forms of contextual advertising, such as Adsense publishing? Would Google also accept that as part of the paid links argument they are making regarding the FTC?
Actually, Danny, it goes back farther than that. Undisclosed paid links & the FTC came up a couple years ago when we were at the Consumer Reports WebWatch panel (along with Matt). I brought it up because Alan Perkins had pointed it out to me. The FTC’s requirement of disclosure for paid ads on SERPs seemed like a reasonable standard for any "editorial" content on the web.
The problem is where do you draw the line on paid links vs nepotism, business relationships, etc.?
I don’t think you can Aaron. Take a web dev agency for example. Each time they finish a project they write it up on their blog, linking out to the work and describing the functionality. These links will often be wildly off-topic for their theme and by all appearences this would look like a paid post. Too many cases like that to make me think you can deal with this algorithmically. Hands jobs don’t scale so we have the FUD tactics. I remember a sociology study about shop lifting and CCTV cameras. They found it was far more effective when you had many signs up telling people they were on video. In fact just as effective as not having the actual cameras there in the first place. The key was making people believe they were being watched, then they policed themselves.
A lot of US companies have been trying to enforce US legislation outside the US - not just Google. And its not just legislation some try to enforce, its also US culture and values. One example is how Google forbid the bidding on certain words and industries in my country (Denmark) even through they are fully legal and culturally accepted (e.g. you can buy ads for wine but not for beer!) As Danny points out there are examples where one countries laws do actually have a legal impact on companies in other countries but the examples I can recall is ALL about a company in one country marketing its stuff or site in another. If you are a US company selling to people in Denmark (or any other EEC country) you have to follow the local marketing laws and VAT laws. However, I don’t see why Google want us (in Denmark) to follow US culture and laws that do not apply here and are not cross-border by any nature. Its at best laughable. Its only makes them look foolish (the wine/beer thing for example gave Google a lot of bad press here - was it worth it G?)
A line will be drawn at some point, at least in the US by the FTC. It just won’t be where Google wants it to be drawn.