Comments on: I am not responsible for making Google better

By: Greg Yardley

Greg Yardley — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:33:05 +0000

Rod: I get value out of the Technorati tags in the form of a small trickle of additional traffic. Seven visitors today, three yesterday, nine the day before that, etc. I could get the same benefit by leaving in the rel=”tag” attributes and sending the links somewhere else but modifying the WordPress plugin I’m using is way down my list of priorities.

By: Rod

Rod — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:09:28 +0000

I’m sorry, but you completely undermine your argument by having Technorati tags at the bottom of your post. Who’s getting value out of them? Not me, not you. It benefits Technorati and their crappy search engine.

By: paul grham

paul grham — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 21:49:16 +0000

I think it would be useful to both you and your readers if you examined what you mean by “valid choice.”

By: The Pre-Commerce Blog

The Pre-Commerce Blog — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 04:05:26 +0000

Links List

We don’t work for Google. Part I and Part II. (Greg Yardley) You ARE a marketer. (headrush) We’re all Clueless. (Seth Godin) All of these are excellent A++ posts, and I hope to add my thoughts about all three of these insightful items in the coming d…

By: Tom Coates

Tom Coates — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 10:55:06 +0000

I completely disagree. An index may be proprietorial, but the web is a commons – anything that people do that makes it harder to index is a blight on all of us.

By: Will Spencer

Will Spencer — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 10:02:10 +0000

This “problem” will _never_ be solved by attacking publishers.

This “problem” will _only_ be solved when Google/Yahoo/MSN/etc modify their algorithms to make buying and sellings links ineffective.

When that happens, advertisers will quit buying links for the purpose of gaining keyword relevancy, and publishers will no longer be able to sell links for that purpose.

At that point, I suspect we will see a significant drop in the quantity and quality of web content.

If good publishers can’t make money publishing online, they will exit the business.

By: ashusta's I.S. life

ashusta's I.S. life — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:11:39 +0000

Ads for Bots

Content creators shouldn’t winge about revenue from ads. If they’re legitimately concerned with adverse impacts on user experience then they have a duty to themselves to evaluate advertisers more carefully, not to whine to the blogosphere.

By: kottke.org

kottke.org — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:42:58 +0000

These are the people in my (Web) neighborhood

In reaction to some ads of questionable value being placed on some of O’Reilly’s sites (response from Tim O’Reilly), Greg Yardley has written a thoughtful piece on selling PageRank called I am not responsible for making Google better: Google, Yahoo,…

By: Philipp Lenssen

Philipp Lenssen — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 12:36:16 +0000

Search engine spam doesn’t attack Google, the company. It attacks people searching with Google, and any other search engine. It’s our responsibility to keep the web clean, and yes, at the same time we need to improve the tools to defend ourselves against it.

And as far as the current case is concerned, if O’Relly don’t remove the links, well maybe Google should blacklist them — then they’d lose their PageRank. If it’s not about morals as you suggest but about private companies trying to make their stuff work, then that would make a good point as well.

By: Crew

Crew — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 01:53:22 +0000

Excellent points in the original post. I would like to add a few thoughts to the idea that Google is a for-profit company... 1) The majority of searchers do NOT understand the difference between natural and paid-for search results. 2) Google has made changes to its paid-for search results to make them blend in more with natural results and has increased the number of paid results to 3 on some listings. So, if Google doesn't have any problem taking actions that increase the likelihood that THEIR OWN USERS will go to paid-for (not-natural) search results without knowing about it, why am I supposed to care if my actions have the exact same end effect? Should I feel bad about sending some searchers to manipulated/'not natural' results, when Google themselves do the same thing to half their users? As an aside, this quote from the Google spokesman struck me..."For highly commercial queries, we believe an additional ad above the search results is good for both. (user experience and ad effectiveness)" It's interesting that mesothelioma is considered a 'highly commercial query' (because it shows 3 paid-for results). Maybe they just mean 'highly commercial' for Google. Seriously, the gamma or whatever is too high on my laptop and I can barely see the difference in color between white and the sponsored background. The first time I saw 3 of them, I almost thought they were all natural results.