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There has been quite the buzz recently about Google’s recent move to encourage use of the rel=”nofollow” tag on paid links. Matt Cutts, whose blog offers an insider look at SEO in the Google world, argues that buying links to boost page rank should be prevented, as it constitutes deception of the search engine’s algorithm, and prevents it from serving the most relevant links to searchers.

The Official Google Blog also has an article about the nofollow attribute, which clearly states that incoming links from sites that Google deems have been paid for will not be ‘credited’ towards the target site’s page rank. Now, my point here is not to argue that Google should be allowing comment spam and other obvious and highly exploitable means of link-spamming. However, the fact that Google (and now Yahoo! and MSN Search) have decided to support and enforce the nofollow attribute as the default for paid links means that the three major search engines on the Web, through which most of the people that find information on the Web locate the sites and content they want, have taken the stand that money shouldn’t be able to buy recognition on the Internet, or at least better search results on the Internet.

While this attitude seems quite reasonable, and is garnering a lot of support throughout the blogging community, where spam is an ever-present problem (thank you Akismet, 10,000+ pieces of junk automatically filtered and counting), few seem to be regarding it as the fundamental cultural paradigm shift that it represents. In the ‘real’ world, companies with large amounts of capital can fund massive marketing campaigns, using their clout to eliminate poorer and weaker competitors. It is a simple reality of capitalism that money continues to be used to buy influence in the offline world; in fact, large firms constantly flood the market with print, radio, and TV ads that cost billions per year across the board. Why is it then, that Google and other online search giants have decided that paying to be noticed is deceptive and wrong? Is it a moral stand against a cutthroat practice, or merely another assertion of corporate domination over a particular market by its largest players.

I, for one, will be curious to see how the forces at play in the market affect the decision Google has made on paid links, as sites like ReviewMe and Text-Link-Ads will have to decide whether to conform with Google’s ultimatum, risking the wrath of their advertising clientele, or to leave the nofollow attribute out of their links, thereby risking losing publishers who fear a declining page rank. All in all, I think the decision made by Google to filter search results by non-paid links only is noble, but it ignores the larger reality of our society, which is that money drives people to content all the time.

Take, for example, the recent advent of Gofbot.com, a site operated by McDonald’s as part of a marketing campaign featuring fake newscasts proclaiming Gofbot to be ‘bigger than the Big Mac.’ The point of the campaign, and the fake page counter on Gofbot.com, which always resets to 4 hits, is that nothing is bigger than the Big Mac, a tried and true ‘American classic.’ However, if you look it up, Gofbot has a relatively decent (for a site with NO content) Alexa ranking of 352,306, driven solely by the TV campaign and the buzz it created. The page takes you to McDonald’s website after you’ve seen the mini presentation, and voila! McDonald’s has paid to send you through a link to their site. And they did it by circumventing Google and placing their high-priced advertisement in a market that already accepts that money buys the attention of people in our society.

When you consider that the Web doesn’t live as an entity by itself, and that search engines are but one way that people are driven to websites, it certainly complicates the issue that Google is taking such a clear stand on. I would love to see a world in which advertising dollars don’t make you more relevant for a particular search term, but I’m not sure Google’s moral stand can survive in a world where money already buys the attention of millions of consumers every day.

SEO, google, search, paid links, gofbot.com, mcdonalds, mcdonald’s, msn search, yahoo, advertising, online advertising, nofollow

yahoo answers, yahoo, yahoo commercial, laser level

In a move that could be called ‘not not hypocritical,’ Microsoft has stated that Google’s recent acquisition of DoubleClick opens the door to monopoly in the web-based click-thru advertising industry. Microsoft alleges that Google’s purchase would hurt competition, an interesting standpoint for a company that itself tried to purchase DoubleClick.

No doubt, had Yahoo! or Microsoft been the successful high bidder, we’d be hearing nothing about this. In fact, if DoubleClick was such a prize, why didn’t companies like Yahoo! outbid Google to ensure that they’d have that tasty slice of the internet marketing pie? It seems slightly fishy that something so valuable, which was so recently on the open market, could have been so easily taken from under a company like Microsoft’s nose. Perhaps patching Vista has sucked away all of Microsoft’s operating capital?

google buys doubleclick, google, yahoo, microsoft, microsoft antitrust, anti-trust

It’s been well over three weeks since Google first announced that its next-generation calendar app known as CL2 was in the closed-beta phase. According to the company, around 200 individuals were given access to the calendar (the rest of us just get an invalid page error), with strict instructions on how to preserve secrecy. In spite of this, TechCrunch.com indicates that one of the beta testers provided access to Yahoo! While Yahoo! has since notified Google of this, it would be rediculous to assume they did so before carefully analyzing all of the new features.
The advantages offered by the new CL2 should be many and varied. Obviously, the calendar will be highly integrated with Google’s popular Gmail e-mail application, and will utilize the latest in AJAX programming techniques. TechCrunch also has a list of some of the features that Google is intending to include in the public release:

Creating Events

You can create events on your calendar in a number of ways.

Click ‘Create Event.‘ This brings you to the create event page, where you can enter information about your event.

Click on Quick Add (or type the letter Q). Quick Add gives you a text box where you can type all the information about your event in normal English, and we’ll fill out the form for you. We’re pretty excited about this feature, so please let us know how it works for you.

Drag-to-create. If you’re looking at the day where you want to create an event on your calendar, just click and drag your mouse from the desired start time to the end time. Once you’ve selected your time range, you can just choose a title for your new event.

Event Pages

Whenever you create an event, we create a web page which you’ll see when you click on the “more details” link on any event. This web page is only visible to you, unless you’ve invited other people to your event or made the event public, in which case you can use the page to share information about the event with people who are attending or the public at large. Note: you don’t have to be a CL2 user to be able to see event pages, so you can use these pages to share information with anyone involved with the event, regardless of what online tools (if any) they use. (Ever wish your favorite local band would learn how to use HTML and publish their calendar? Once we get your feedback and open CL2 to the world you can help them do just that.)

While it seems that Google’s release of its CL2 software is imminent, it’s probably a good idea to assume that some serious additional testing will have to be accomplished before that can become a reality. Plus, if the introduction of Gmail was any indication, we’re looking at a slow and steady release to the general public based on limited numbers of ‘invitations’ extended to those who already have accounts. This approach seemed to work excellently with Gmail, as the Google team was able to roll out additional addresses by offering users the ability to invite first 6, then 50 users to establish an account. The snowball effect of this type of rollout should not be ignored by future web-based application developers, as it provides a means for quickly expanding a software product’s reach, all while allowing the company to maintain control over just how rapidly the software proliferates. For most of us, though, this means either jumping on the bandwagon early, or getting shut out in the cold until a more widespread release.