The Big G looms even bigger…

BEFORE the recently-concluded You Got Blogged! Review-a-Blog Competition was over, I received a strange inquiry from a blogger who had wanted to participate. Let’s call him “Manny”. Manny asked me if he could link to the contest sponsors with a nofollow attribute within the link tags. I told him if he did that, it would invalidate his entry. He didn’t participate.

The reason for Manny’s wanting to use the nofollow attribute was his fear of a possible “retaliation” by Google on his blog’s PageRank. He said he was afraid Google might penalize him for providing links.

Wow. This is really getting out of hand. People have gotten so confused — no, bewildered — over the recent upheavals in blog PR values that they have no idea what the real deal is anymore. Neither do I. And this confusion, in my opinion, is caused by Google’s overemphasis on secrecy.

One thing the Big G has made clear, however, is that paid links are a no-no. The search engine giant has issued not-so-veiled threats against blogs that accommodate paid links, to the effect that such blogs will lose PR. Being ejected from Google’s search engine index has also been hinted at. As you might already be aware of, not appearing in Google’s SERPs is detrimental to blogs, especially those that are being monetized.

From what limited I know, the Big G despises paid links because they “game” SERPs. In other words, the accuracy of search engine results is reportedly being lowered due to non-contextual linking, and Google blames this on paid links. OK, this is a huge debate, so I’ll just leave it at that for now.

My point here is, if only Google would explain their actions in more open terms, the prevailing state of confusion could be avoided. Let’s go back to our blogger, Manny.

I believe that his fear was unfounded. The YGB! competition was based on the noble objective of promoting content that deals with Mindanao. Had Manny participated, he would have contributed to the increased visibility of Mindanao-based blogs. The ultimate purpose of YGB! and MindanaoBloggers.com is to inform the world about the island and her people, through the promotion of Mindanao blogs. You can’t get more contextual than that.

There was no question of paid links here either. The three required links for YGB! entries are the following: to the blog being reviewed (contextual and natural linking); to MindanaoBloggers.com (highly contextual linking); and to the event sponsor (necessary link – otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to conduct the contest). The sponsor, DigitalFilipino.com Club, is an organization that aims to develop Philippine I.T., including the I.T. industries outside Metro Manila.

Google has long since become the #1 search engine. In other areas of the Internet as well, they are fast approaching leadership status. I think it would be in their best interest to be more open in the way they interface with their users.

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