Is Google’s Vulnerability A Lesson For You?
December 11th, 2007 | by ScottIt appears that you're new here, if you like what you read, please subscribe to the news feed or sign up for the Leap eTips news and updates email list. Thank you for visiting :)
I’ve written a little already about the whole Google PageRank mess that’s all the talk in the blogosphere right now, but I’ve tried not to get too deep into the issue here simply because it isn’t that heavily connected to the topics I want (and think readers agree) this blog to be covering.
However, I do enjoy seeing the two sides (pro-RankSlap vs. Google-Goofed-This-Time) square off. I’ve been following a lot of blogs closely and have come to a couple of my own conclusions about the whole thing that I do think relate to the topic of this blog–owning your own online business–and should be pondered by anyone who plans to one day start a web site or online business, or even already has one going.
The point that I want to cover here is about fundamental ideas and decisions every site or business owner must eventually make for themselves, and understanding that we must be prepared to deal with whatever consequences result from the actions we take along the way.
Since I don’t want to regurgitate what’s being said everywhere else already, I’ll try to keep from getting too deep into the latest Google smack-down and resulting debates in this post. There’s plenty out there to find if you’re interested, and I’ll even point you to one of the better threads I’ve seen for both initial posting and follow-up commentary over at Michael’s blog. By the way, if you’ve ever wondered about linkbaiting, Michael’s post is a perfect example.
So, what conclusions have I drawn from all of this noise about Google’s latest rankings move that I think site and business owners should care about?
No business exists in a vacuum. Everything is connected to something out there. No, there wasn’t extra fruity in my morning Fruit-Loops, just hear me out for a second.
As you build and grow your online presence you’re also building a reputation for yourself and your business. This is what a lot of folks refer to as the brand–though I personally cringe every time I hear a blogger or marketer speak of themselves in the third person as a brand–but essentially you’re building a relationship of trust and authority in your field or niche with those who visit your site.
At some point–and most likely on a fairly regular basis–you’re going to have to make decisions about resource linking in your site content. These choices will cause your visitors to perform actions, and that equates to having effects on your reputation. If you send off visitors with links of value to them it will improve your standing with those people, and if you send them off to garbage it’ll cause them to turn up their noses to you. Remember, you own–and are responsible for–what you ultimately provide to your visitors.
Now, how does this relate to the Google PageRank issue? Not to take sides in the debating, but it’s obvious to me that Google has “blown it” with respect to ranking the value of web sites for searchers. Which seems important since at its core Google’s primary function is to provide searchers with the most valuable results based on their search requests.
But the decisions Google made in the past for how they would rank the value of web sites have ultimately led to a point where outsiders were able to manipulate Google into returning less valuable results to searchers, which supposedly prompted Google to take actions to correct itself. There’s nothing technically wrong with Google doing this, however it is a reactionary move that displays a position of being behind; a vulnerability to any business that’s expected to be on the leading edge of its industry.
You may be wondering why I feel Google blew it and is displaying a vulnerability if outsiders manipulated the results? That’s a fair question, but I’ve already provided the answer above: you own–and are responsible for–what you ultimately provide to your visitors. That same standard absolutely applies to Google just as much as it does to you and your site(s).
When Google made the decision to rank and value web sites as part of their business model, they also assumed the responsibility to prevent obvious manipulations just the same as a shop owner has some responsibility to install locks on the doors and a security system to protect his inventory from burglars at night.
Sure, any security can be broken and I wouldn’t hold someone to the fire if they take reasonable steps to prevent an intrusion, but Google didn’t do so much as “close the front door” when building their system. They created it with the most obvious of methods for outside manipulations built in. Not just built in, but also having paramount effects on the whole thing. Where anybody with a dollar could come along and change search results. That’s the equivalent of basically letting everybody have direct access to the database tables holding their ranking values.
If you owned a membership web site would you knowingly allow perfect strangers who weren’t even logged into your site to come along and edit your member’s profile information as they pleased? Google did.
With all of their resources, Google built a faulty foundation for their core business function. If I owned or worked for Google I wouldn’t be begging web site owners to help me fix my business like they are now. Didn’t this problem begin with the ability for outside influences to affect rankings? So where would the logic be in depending on outside influences to get it right for me now–no matter how safe I thought the fix-method was?
And are Google’s recent actions to correct the problem really any smarter than the initial decisions that caused them? I’m not so sure. On the surface it may seem logical that Google can better filter results if site owners use “nofollow” tags to remove improper link-juice flows and by devaluing sites that sell text links, but that whole fix starts from an assumption… that sold links are NOT relevant. I know first hand however, that many sold links ARE relevant, so in-fact the fix really adds to the problem in some ways.
Think of this, there’s current Site A online which is an established authority on some niche topic, but suddenly Google devalues links from Site A because they believe the site is accepting money for links. So far that sounds like a good idea for preventing manipulation on search results… but then along comes some new startup we’ll call Site B who may have the most informative and useful content ever created on the niche topic, but because it’s a new site the owner wants to get the word out to others and approaches related sites such as Site A to purchase some advertising. If Google’s fix is devaluing that advertising either by devaluing links on Site A or by Site A placing “nofollow” tags on those links now, then isn’t it also acting as an obstacle for what might be the most valuable site on a topic from climbing up the search results? And if so, isn’t that causing less valuable results to be returned to searchers? So, in some instances the fix is causing the same issue as the original problem… searchers aren’t being provided with the best and most relevant results.
No, if I owned or worked for Google than instead of trying to correct a problem of outside manipulations with outside band-aids I’d hang my head in shame and quietly go back to the drawing board to find an internal solution that I held full control over. This way, for better or worse and with no excuses I could own and be responsible for my own future again.
Who owns your site/business? This may seem obvious and trivial, but a major driving force behind my decision to leave a cushy day-job and form my own company was the desire to be absolutely responsible for–and in control of–my life. To not be dependent on anyone for anything, including my paycheck and financial future.
Since I believe I own my business and web sites, I base my decisions on what I feel are right and best for me, my associates and my customers. I don’t care if Google (or any site I don’t own) is broken and wants my help. That may seem like a cold-hearted stance, but lets remember that this is business.
Google blew it with some bad choices, and so far instead of taking responsibility for blowing it they’ve pointed the finger of blame at others and are placing responsibility for correcting it on everyone else.
Again, how does this impact you and why should you care? Simple, if you own a business or web site, or plan to start one there are several valuable lessons in what’s happened, how it happened, and how it’s been handled:
First, plan for every possible way to lose control of your content and then secure against it. Don’t leave open doors for anybody to come along and manipulate the data that you will be displaying to your visitors and customers, because what visitors see–not what you may have intended–is what they’ll ultimately judge you by.
Second, own the good and bad results of your decisions. I honestly believe the fact that Google hasn’t stepped out in-front of this and said “our bad” is the primary fuel keeping the debate burning across the web right now.
Sure some folks just like to take pot-shots at giants any chance they get, but a lot of the people balking at Google right now also make a large portion of their revenue via Google and I bet they would likely be more ready to “help” in some meaningful and intelligent ways if they weren’t feeling as though they were being blamed.
In other words, as my Grandpa used to say, “a small slice of humble pie holds more nutrition than a pot full of excuses.”
And finally, every person and business will have a share of mistakes over time. Very few mistakes are ever large enough on their own to define the future for us, but how you handle them and whether or not you learn from them will.
I like Google, I always have even though I’ve always preferred Yahoo!, and lately I think that the Social Web holds more promise for the future of online traffic flow than search engines do. But, I’m sincere when I say that I hope Google will learn something from all of this beyond the art of finger pointing and blame shifting. And more importantly, I hope reading this has given you some things to think about in your business planning as well.
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