This has been bothering me for a little while; actually it goes back to about 2 weeks before the 2006 elections when a liberal blogger called for a Google bombing of certain Republican candidate's natural search results. Basically the strategy went like this: identify candidates to attack, decide which negative article to link to, and then have an army of blogger drones link to the article in a post. That's a Google Bomb. Of course, there was responses that I won't write about and based on my own browsing of the results, some of the Bombing was very successful while others, not so successful. It wasn't for lack of trying, but some results are so large and top listings so entrenched that it is difficult to impact without a lot of time. Google Bombing is the first thing that bugs me
Next up, about a week ago another liberal blogger noticed that certain political ads were running on their site due to a Google PPC campaign running in their ad sense placements. Of course they were upset and explained to their readers how it works, but went a step too far when they described a money making scheme using the ads that would kill three birds with one click - get site owner money, take money from advertiser, and stick it to a candidate they didn't endorse. Telling someone to click on Google PPC is the second thing that bugs me.
Why is this bothersome? Well, it doesn't look to me like Google cares enough to throw the gauntlet down hard on folks like this. Google Bombing and letting people think that they can cash in on a big advertiser with fraudulent clicks impacts their brand in a big way. It continually reinforces that as Google gets bigger and bigger that they become less efficient and can easily be manipulated right under their noses. This happens to all companies when they start to grow and look ways to tap into new markets. However, Google owes it to its investors, users, and searches to protect their main product which the last time I look still brought in 99% of their revenue.
I wish Google would slow down the ever expanding list of products which right now hardly anyone uses and instead put renewed zeal on defending their brand. If people think they can manipulate your results, then stop them because if they perceive they can then you will scare off advertisers based on whatever reality shows up.
For Google Bombing come out and say you have a new process for protecting the results and it is against your policy. Try revising this sadly outdated post on your Google Bombing Policy because it was cute then, but now you are big business. How about hand selecting the results for the next 8 weeks or so until the bombing is over. Freeze the results where they are. Or, if someone writes how you can earn money via AdSense and hurt the competition, shut their AdSense account off forever. Slam them. Slam them hard.
If you want advertisers to spend money with you by shifting offline dollars online, than stop people from harming your product and manipulating your brand. It sure would make agency's and client's lives easier if they didn't have to explain huge Google ad dollars that can easily be manipulated.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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