Recently Google has been exerting their will on the internet with increasing authority by de-indexing blog networks and other sites. Often they have very legitimate reasons for doing this.
Many blog networks have been used for the sole purpose of creating backlinks so websites can rank better. Use of blog networks in this manner are an unnatural way to get backlinks, and thus a violation of Google’s Quality Guidelines.
Sites can also be de-indexed if they are found to be duplicating content: An excerpt from their quality guidelines: “In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we’ll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index”.
Some other common reasons they may choose to de-indexed your site:
- If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index
- Cloaking, or providing the search engines with different content than a user sees.
- Keyword stuffing, or overuse of keywords.
- Sites containing malware
With the continuing rollout of Panda, Google’s guidelines continue to evolve. However, there is one consistent thread. Google wants to see rich, original, relevant content. This, they feel, will provide the user with the best possible experience.
So far so good. All reasonable stuff. Here is where it becomes more complex:
While it is all well and good to have these guidelines, ultimately it is up to Google to determine what is and is not a violation. This makes them judge and jury. Imagine spending countless hours and money building your websites, getting traffic through automated link building, making them profitable, building a following, only to have Google decide you have done something wrong and wipe you off the internet map. A violation is not always clear-cut and it appears guilty until proven innocent is the rule of thumb.
It gets worse. Let’s examine more closely their guideline of having rich, original content on your website. On the surface this is also a perfectly reasonable guideline. However, how many times have you conducted a search and clicked on the first result only to find a big advertisement lunge at you like a tiger?
- Are they using their own original content? They use the website owners orginal content, and the advertisers original content. Perhaps it can be argued their original content is that which brings the searcher and content owner together.
- Are they serving up the most relevant results? Maybe, maybe not. It is completely up to them and how they derive this is a bigger secret than the formula for Coca Cola.
- Are they providing the user with the best possible experience? Hmm, I suppose if they were serving up Super Bowl ads, the experience may be great. Otherwise, I think I would prefer to see the rich, original, relevant content. This is a judgement call.
There is a doctrine called “Fair Use” which essentially attempts to clarify whether use of copyrighted material should be considered an infringement. There are no clear-cut distinctions. There are, however, some examples of what is considered to be fair use:
- quotation of excerpts for purposes of illustration or comment
- quotations of excerpts in scholarly work for illustration or clarification of the authors observations
- use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied
- use in legislative and judicial proceedings
- incidental reproduction
One of the key distinctions is whether use of the copyrighted material is for commercial or educational purposes.
Going back to the adwords question, is Google indeed using copyrighted material for commercial purposes? Is this a violation of the Fair Use Doctrine?
Now, suppose a website or blog network that has been serving up Google ads gets de-indexed. What a dilemma this is. They have been using the sites so they obviously know about them. They serve up relevant ads so they know what the sites are about, and how searchers arrive there. They then decide the site owner has done something wrong and penalize them, sometimes severely. They then of course penalize themselves for violating the very same rules the website owner violated, don’t they?
My prediction is it won’t be long before some kind of class action suit is brought against Google. I hope it doesn’t happen because I am not at all a fan of lawsuits.
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