I think it is more along the lines of Google watching out for its users. The company doesn’t exist for Webmasters, though you are quite right in your point that Google makes a lot of money from Ad Sense. But, every one of those points you listed above is in place to ensure that the results that come back from a search are as accurate as possible. Google is serving those who search, first and foremost.

As someone who has developed a couple of plugins and various scripts and snippets over the years and released them for free, it is tempting to follow the linkware approach – it doesn’t cost the consumer anything, while it benefits me. the problem lies in the fact that enough of these packages were using the platform to game the system, that Google had to put a stop to it. Plus, all too often a script or theme would be released that was linkware, generating thousands of extra links back ot the main site, which had nothing more than a download link. So, for example, if I was searching for something related to WordPress, or PHP I may run into a few sites that are all about plugins for the platform, as they had been released as linkware, yet what I was looking for was how to build my own plugin, which would be buried.

Linkware is a neat idea, but relying on an auto-inclusion option is detrimental to the community. Instead, authors of freely released code ad themes should request a quick blog post/review of the plugin. While far fewer of these will be generated compared to automatic inclusion, they will actually prove more beneficial, as the site’s readers will notice it and the keywords surround and used within the link text will have more variety, providing a better funnel for traffic.

Note: I’ve been a Web professional for ten years now and use Ad Sense on most of my sites – this was written while I wore my user ha, not my Webmaster hat. :)

[...] In his post – Does Google Hate Webmasters – Chrispian outlines some of the things that Google has done recently that has had – in some cases some profound effects on bloggers: Here is some of the shenangins Google has pulled lately: [...]

I definitely see what you’re saying, so some of my following points are along the lines of plying devil’s advocate. :)

Search engines shouldn’t just reward hard work unless that work is made up of content useful for the people searching for specific terms and phrases. A lot of the apps and themes that are/were setup as linkware didn’t have any content behind the pages that were linked to. The number one job of a search engine is indexing everything and serving the right content for the end-user.

Linkware isn’t that different from buying straight up text link ads – it’s trading a link to the site for something of value, in this case, instead of cash it’s a program. While there is nothing wrong about the trade, all too often it doesn’t result in favorable results for Google’s end-user.

The same holds true for link directories. At one time they were the best way to find useful information, but with the rise of search engines, they became less useful in comparison. When people realized that they could join a bunch of directories in order to show up higher in the rankings, Google reacted in order to ensure that the search results were useful to their users.

I think a lot of the changes that Google has done have hurt the spammers, but it is important to realize how fast the spammers change up. It doesn’t take long for them to find a new way to exploit the system, which Google has to then react to. For example, I’ve noticed in my comment spam of late, an interesting trend of linking to Google or Yahoo with the query pre-filled with a URL or very specific search terms.

Ok, I’m done blathering, and will wrap up with one thought – I think Google aims for and typically holds the middle ground that we all seek, but the changes they make to hold that spot seem jarring – change and the unknown can be scary. :)

I’m also starting to lose faith in the company whose motto was “Don’t Be Evil”. Because of some warnings from Matt Cutts and Google, I’ve stopped selling Text Link Ads. It definitely is going to hurt the small-time web publishers – the people that think $100 a month in TLA revenue is a big deal.

Out of curiosity, would you say one of the biggest issues was lack of fore-knowledge of the impending change? If you had been given say a months notice that Google would start penalizing sites running Text Link Ads, would you have had enough time to find n alternative income stream and avoided the loss of page rank?

I agree with Chrispian. I believe the warnings were given. For ages Google has said: “Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank.” That is the whole point of Text-Link-Ads.

I think the problems were:

1) Google didn’t actively and drastically penalize those selling TLA or linking to other sites that aren’t relevant
2) Website operators were making some income via TLA or direct sells.

If there wasn’t a market and people weren’t making money from it, then most people wouldn’t care. I mean, when you buy/sell on TLA you aren’t really wanting traffic. You are wanting backlinks without no-follow tags. If you were in it for the traffic, you’d use other services. You also want to make a quick buck.

In the mean time, people were seeing their PageRank increase via linking schemes. To them, Google wasn’t enforcing the rules while they got a high PageRank and/or earned some money on the side.

I think people are a little more aware of this now that several major blogs were recently penalized for buying/selling links.

However, I think more of the web will soon be aware. Google and Yahoo! are both experimenting with their SERP’s by filtering them with social networking data. For instance, Yahoo! is now incorporating DEL.ICIO.US bookmarking stats on their SERP’s. Google is adding a “vote” feature to their SERP pages.

I think in time, the mass public – the website visitors – will overpower the website operators power to influence the SERP’s. Regardless of how many links sold/traded on a website, the conglomeration of social web users will have the biggest impact on the SERP ranking behind the search engine algorithm.

In the vein of ‘one search engine rules the Web’ – what are viable alternatives? Obviously we know of Yahoo and MSN, but do/would you actively choose to use them as a default? Are there others on the horizon? I know of unique concepts like Mahalo or even using services like Ma.gnolia and Del.ico.us – are they feasible options?

I guess the bigger question is, should the folks who work on the Web look at the landscape and decide that things need to be balanced?

Yeah, I know this is a bit of a tangent, but it’s an interesting one.

As a website publisher I have mixed feelings about the big G and their policies. I agree relevant search results are very important, but at what cost? It is us webmasters that are paying them for adwords and adsense campaigns; sometimes it seems they are the only company allowed to make money. On the other hand, they are a corporation and they have every right to make whatever rules they want. If I want my sites to rank well there, I have to play by their rules.

as for the linkware, what I do is include my link in themes I release, but they can remove them. I only put them in there (Theme provided by….). I figure some people might leave them in. On the plugins though, I haven’t included a link.

I do wonder though what comes next, will we get penalized for having blog rolls? Even if we think they are quality and relevant sites?

I’m with you Alex. I think in the past I found content via a search engine. Even in the recent past, Google was the key way to searching the web.

But now I find content from other places. For instance, I find most of my content via social services – overwhelming majority being from my RSS reader. This is the new content related to topics that I’m interested in (Gadgets, Web 2.0, Huntsville, politics, etc.). Stuff that I like and want to know more about. This info generally
comes from weblogs. And is very fresh to the web – literally just published to the web.

I also find new content through Reddit and Digg (yuck). This content is usually stuff that would otherwise be off my radar yet is interesting (viral videos, techmeme’s, odd news, etc.). This content is a mix of fresh and old content (BTW: most of the old content on these kinds of sites are static. Also, a large percentage of it is media — digital images or archive data).

Most all of that content (from my RSS reader or social aggregating sites like Reddit or Digg) comes to me automatically. That is, I tell iGoogle, Google Reader, or my personal aggregators to bring that content to me. In the case of Reddit or Digg, someone else (the social community) does the work for me, links to the story, and then I’ll eventually find it.

Still, most all of that content recently created – very fresh to the web.

Here’s my point:

When I actively go out and search for new content, I try to consider the age of the content in which I’m searching. That will give me a clue as to where to go to look for the most accurate result and for the most informative result.

If I think something is not fresh the web (I don’t know, maybe over 12 months old), I’ll almost exclusively use Google to try to locate my information.

But it is something that is fresh to the web or if it is something that I think may have at one time made it “big” on a popular community driven site (like del.icio.us or Reddit), I may try to go back to those sites to find the new content versus going through Google.

So, I think web content creators should consider WHEN they want people to discover their content – not just HOW. I think we all know what link bait is. We know that some articles are written just to get on Digg or Reddit or social media sites.

Look at Smashing Magazine. Their articles are really informative and creative. But, they are surfing on the Digg wave and the “fresh web”. Are their stories really going to be that relevant years from now? Since their content deals with the web today, I doubt they will consider how much the web changes in just a few years. You go to Smashing to learn about the web today.

I think in some cases, we should consider writing for prosperity. But, we’ll have to put faith in Google and the major search engines to not discriminate against the age of content (BTW: look at all the great blogs that have date stamps in their URI). If Google and Yahoo! start experimenting with blog results in the SERPs and social media links (like Yahoo! is doing with del.icio.us in their SERPs) does this dilute the PageRank that old content has the web?

I’m still processing all this.

Quick. Let’s write a thesis on this. It might make it on Digg!