The Hindu News Update Service
News Update Service Thursday, December 13, 2007 : 0945 Hrs Sci. & Tech. Is Google a Grinch or a good guy? By Sean Hargrave in London Guardian News Service: The giant search engine has been accused of 'stealing Christmas' from companies by changing how it ranks results. Sean Hargrave finds out if their complaints are valid. December is the cruellest month for companies that rely on their rankings in Google results for sales. The reason: it's when the dominant search engine - with 85% of the UK search market - often decides to rejig its algorithm and to downgrade links to sites that it judges are only there to give them a high placement in search results, so-called "link spam". If Google decides your site's incoming links aren't a spontaneous or"honest" expression of that site's desire to link to you and it reduces their value in its algorithm, your site will fall in the search result lists. For a company that relies on business from such so-called "organic" search results, that can mean a dramatic - perhaps fatal - drop in trade because while the number one spot in the average search results will attract roughly half of all clicks, at the bottom of the first page sites can only expect 2% of clicks. Fall on to the second page and it's less than 1%. Boosting result positions:Google never explains why brands suddenly find themselves plummeting down its results pages; but it is fair to assume that the search engine believed the brand had been buying or selling links. Google is now in what Warren Cowan, chief executive of London-based Greenlight, is calling a "Mexican standoff" with the rest of the search industry, as everyone waits to see if it will back up previous warnings with substantial downgrades in sites' PageRank (a credibility score out of 10 Google gives to each site it indexes) or even delisting for worst offenders. Greenlight is one of the many search engine optimisation companies that try to push companies' and brands' rankings up the results, and help decide when and what links or link adverts to buy. It's a multi-billion pound business, and being able to react faster than rivals is crucial. So everyone is tense. Google claims there are no imminent changes in strategy due to be announced - but the search engine is renowned for taking action during December to counter what it sees as undemocratic means of boosting search result positions. And it reiterated its rules last month about its opposition to link spam and link farming, where companies buy multiple links to their site to make it appear more popular than it naturally is (tinyurl.com/2s3ls3). This time last year it changed its advertising system, AdSense, to crack down on sites built solely around attracting the adverts it served. Three years ago it shocked the online world with a new release of its algorithm just ahead of Christmas, earning the search engine the nickname of "The Grinch" (tinyurl.com/2ottdk). The move brought accusations of double standards from search engine optimisation experts such as James Keehan at London-based The Search Works. "It's an odd grey area, because it is very happy to take advertising money off the sites that it says other people shouldn't be using to boost their search engine rankings," he argues. Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the blog SearchEngineLand, agrees. He believes that while Google is right in trying to combat link spam, it is still wrong to allow link farms to advertise. "Google doesn't sell cigarette or alcohol advertising on ethical grounds, so why allow link spammers to advertise when they're trying to tell sites to avoid this route?" Google has also divided search marketing experts by calling for webmasters to report sites they believe are buying links to boost their position in search results. While some think this is a reasonable request, many consider it odd to ask sites to police a problem which they believe Google has caused for itself. "They've completely made a rod for their own back, and they're expecting all of us to sort it out," says Cowan of Greenlight. "The founders of Google never realised how commercial the net would become. People out there are not linking to sites for altruistic reasons; it's a business. Whenever you try to build up natural links for people there's nearly always a discussion about money. It's almost impossible forGoogle to police it, so they're expecting us to police it for them." Those in search marketing who are critical of Google identify the crux of the problem as being, ironically, the way in which Google shows its displeasure at sites that are suspected of having sold links or transgressed other rules. "They probably didn't mean to, but by publishing PageRank figures they're helping to price the market in paid links," points out Kevin Gibbons of SEOptimise, which is based in Oxford. "If you're looking to buy or sell links, the first thing you would do is look at the credibility score Google gives a site to see how powerful those links are. It's a way for Google to hit the sites selling links, by decreasing their PageRank, but it also has the effect of letting link buyers know the reputation score Google gives to that site and hence how much they should pay for the links." But Google's reiteration last month (NOV) of its opposition to link spam has some backers. Carolyn Watt, group account director at London-based Netrank, believes that the web giant's actions are a good reminder of what it expects of sites. "Google gets a lot of criticism, but what it's trying to do is ensure its search results are fair and democratic," she says. Firing blanks?Google points out that it allows companies that sell links by the hundreds of thousands to advertise because they are not doing anything "bad", but the search engine's recent announcements are there to remind site owners that it does not want the paid links they provide to count towards a site's position in search results. Instead, it says "no follow" tags should be added to such links. Google adds: "We're always getting better at spotting violations of our guidelines, and as we do the sites that focus on meeting user needs will naturally rise to the top." However, search experts are used to Google issuing warnings with little action, according to Nilhan Jayasinghe at Spannerworks in Brighton."Nobody's sure if Google's just firing blanks," he says. "It's hard for us persuade clients to stick by the rules, as we want them to do, because the benefit of links can appear to outweigh the risks." James Keehan, commercial product director at The Search Works in London agrees. "We need a good shakeup," he says. "Google really has to make an example of someone and my money would be on Christmas or early New Year. If not, what's the point of the warnings? Brands will only toe the line if you make a major example of someone." To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
