Fight back against the Google Slap
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Well the blogsphere is alive with posts about the latest Google slap to people who have received compensation for linking to other sites. Now I don’t perform this practice on any of my sites so I have not personally suffered. I may by posting this post, but Google is really a small percentage of my traffic. I do like my little PR4 which should be 5 or 6 by now, but if it goes away so it goes away.
From reading the various blog posts the last few days it would seem a lot of people were hurt by this action. So why does Google do this to the little guy. This guys and girls are just trying to earn a little revenue for their work. The work of these little people are the reason Google even exists. These people may not have MEGA websites such as CNN or Microsoft, but collectively they do compose the majority of the content in Google’s index.
These little people built the web. They run Google’s Adsense ads for a paltry amount of revenue so Google can make billions. These little people also buy a lot of AdWords from Google just so they can get a few eyeballs to their content and perhaps earning little bit of money. They are forced to do this because they can’ beat out the big guys in the SE rankings, so they are forced to buy traffic in one way or another.
So I ask how is this practice any different from Google’s entire business model. Google has built their business from buying and selling links. Adwords sells links to the highest bidder and Google pays the publishers who display those links a paltry sum for their real estate space. How is this fundamentally different than what they are punishing people for?
One could assume the Google sees these third part companies as some sort of competitor if not today perhaps in the future. Many people have slammed Microsoft for years for unfair business practices, but what about Google? How is this any different. They control the advertising market on the web. How is this different than what Microsoft was accused with utilizing its Operating System reach to compete unfairly? I’m just a small little guy which I guess means my brain does not work the same as those boy Billionaires at Google or the Justice department because I just don’t get it.
Of course we only have ourselves to blame for this. The little guys control the content of the web so in essence we control the web collectively. We have allowed Google to do this to us, we use their search, we use their email, we use their YouTube. In short we allow them to have this power over us.
But does Google control the content you place on your website or blog? Do you have to use their email or do you have several email accounts from different providers you could us? does Google force you to use their search engine? Could you not use another SE such as Yahoo or Live to find what you need? The lack of competition is what has made this monster and competition is the only thing that can quell the beast.
I remember a time when the web was ruled by links. You linked to websites just because you liked the content or just to be nice. And people read content and followed those links to find other interesting sites. You did not always know what you where going to find which is what made it fun and built the web. We can have that again as we control the content and with the millions of blogs on the net Google can’t shut us up with a change of their algorithm. We could provide an unprecedented amount of link love which would give us all traffic to our content for years to come.
Of course this would have to be done in a manner that did not worry about whether we were losing a potential visitor to someone else. Not worry about this nickel lost, but with the belief that the nickel would be regained with someone else’s generosity. It would have to be a pay it forward type situation and everyone would need to participate. We could change the world if we all believed and started caring about our neighbor again.
Am I just dreaming is this an impossibility? Are we all so focused on ourselves that we can’t see that helping others just for the sake of helping, helps all of us as a society? The experts always have said that the Internet will change the world and it has. We are all so much better educated, we have access to people all over the world at the movement of a mouse. We have made contacts in countries that our respected governments have told us we should hate and we have learned from those people. We have learned that people are just people. We all have basic needs for which we need money, We all love, we all hurt when we lose something. We are all the same. It does not matter what your nationality, or race or creed. We are all the same. Are we prepared to allow a corporation such as Google rob us of our freedom. We are all free, together we are all powerful. Our governments tell us what to think. For the last few years I’ve been shunned in the US because I did not support the war in Iraq. I have been called unpatriotic and did not support the troops. I am more patriotic and support the troops more because I don’t want them to die in a needless war. I have been censored. And that is what we really have going on here with Google punishing the little person. We are being censored.
We are being told what we can and can’t do with our own property. But we don’t have to take it. We can fight back. Alone we are nothing but together we are unstoppable. We just need to get back to the point where we care about one another’s welfare and we refuse to let anyone bring down our society. We all need money and we can all still earn it together. A lot this sounds like the old nonconformist I used to be. Does this really sound radical? All change in this world has been made by radical thoughts. Gallieo was radical in his thoughts of the the movement of the earth. Columbus was radical when he thought the world was round. The colonist where radical when they thought they could build a country from 13 colonies and did not need England. And Yes I’m radical when I think the world is not a better place because Google exists and rules with tyranny. We are becoming slaves to the these types of corporate giants.
But I can’t do anything alone. I’m just one little guy. I can only make a small difference only in my little piece of cyberspace, but I will try to change this. I will start unselfishly link to other websites as I see fit. I will link liberally without regard to my own page rank. I will link with the belief that others will link to me and any traffic I lose will be returned. I will not set the link to open in a new browser. I will link not only link to places where I may earn some money. I will write compelling link text that will make people want to click these links. I will freely give away my traffic and it will be returned to me from others who oppose this tyranny as I do. In the words of Joel Olsten: first you must conceive, then you must believe, and only then will you receive.
But I’m only a little guy with a little bit of traffic in the entire scheme of things but most people who read this blog also have a blog or website or several of these. Will you help me to spread the word. Will you help me to make this post go viral and reach the masses. If we all combine our little bit of traffic we can change the world. Will you help or will you allow this aggression to go unchecked. what will be the next slap? Will it affect your lively hood. Will you stand up and make it different now?
Here is my first list of links and I found none of these utilizing Google, I found them just by opening one site and following links from that site and from the next etc Not a single of these links earn me a dime nor is there any hope they will earn anything for me.
Violations and Violation Procedures
Fender Guitar is a great instrument
Technorati tags: google, seo, advertising, link building, help your neighbor, slaves, cyberspace, Joel Olsten, link liberally, corporate giants, microsoft, blogging, pay it forward
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Really like the article. Personally, I’ve been a fan of Google for a while, but I’m slowly starting to rethink my decisions.
This quote pretty much sums what I was thinking earlier: “Many people have slammed Microsoft for years for unfair business practices, but what about Google? How is this any different.”
The reason we still use GMail, YouTube and the lot is because they’re simply great services - I much prefer the Gmail interface to the Yahoo/Hotmail but if Google carries on I think it’s only going to be a matter of time before the biggest of us ‘little people’ start fighting back.
Nice post!