Google! Google! Google! Google can be the kindest and the best at times, but potentially, the search engine giant can be an equally notorious and evil giant too. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land noted that Google is attempting a notorious act to campaign for its browser, Chrome.
In his post, he noted about the a point mentions about the campaign posted at SEO Book, written by Aaron Wall. The post focuses on bringing a specific detail to the notice of the users. Aaron spotted how a search for “This post is sponsored by Google” brings back over 400 pages written apparently as part of a Google marketing campaign. The same can be noted by having a look at the first screenshot posted below.
Google might not be behind this stuff, but there is no confirmation or denial from the search engine giant on the reported issue. One can expect the same to be backed by Google. To be specific, the post is sponsored by Google Chrome.
There were a few allegations against Google in this regards. Danny notes that with such an act, Google potentially violates Google’s guidelines against paid links. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, has been quite vocal that sponsored posts shouldn’t be a way for people to gain links in response for payment.
The guidelines has specifically noted the point mentioned below:
Some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.
The question is that, if the act is done by Google, then the search engine giant is violating its own rules in a way. This, as mentioned in the point, can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results. But would Google care for the same? Hopefully!
Surprisingly, the video is not hosted by YouTube, which is Google’s property. This rose another suspicion, which was rightly noted. This point noted Google’s indirect way to direct people to download Google Chrome. However, that comes into notice, only when a visitor clicks on the video.
Google has been harsh in other similar cases, which saw the search engine giant penalizing , as well as Forbes and Overstock for making use of paid links. That was not all, Google has earlier even penalized Google Japan in 2009, in regards to the latter promoting a new Google widget, after it attempted earning popularity for the said widget by paying bloggers to write about it. Google didn’t bulge from banning BeatThatQuote, one of its own companies last year, over the issue.
But the most important question is, Will Google Ban Google Chrome?