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Went Hot: September 15, 2008 - 9:26 pm
Posted By: martinbowling 292 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.jimboykin.com)
Category: Google
Google’s policy on paid links is impossible to enforce. Or at least it’s impossible to enforce fairly and consistently.
If I review an amazing product that was given to me for the purpose of reviewing it, does it make my review any less valuable? Any less relevant? No, of course not. "
4 Comments
Comments
Jim's comments make for level-headed and intelligent commentary. :)
Why does it feel like those conversations about detecting paid links are a treadmill and we're all a bunch of hamsters fighting over who gets on it?
"Google’s policy on paid links is impossible to enforce. Or at least it’s impossible to enforce fairly and consistently."
Repalce "Google" with "Government" and "paid links" with "taxes" and you realise how dumb that argument is.
I guess an important difference is that the government has a bit less room to punish you based solely on suspicion, without any accountibility to anyone, without any opportunity to defend yourself, and without any chance for you to get to know the reasons behind your punishment.
Also, the government's only deterrent is punishment. At the same time, Google could choose to deter people by simply discounting paid links, thus making the investment in them worthless -- but somehow they get a perverse joy out of punishing people to the point where they even hurt their own relevancy.