Googlers like to think of their company as the Web’s library. But as Web sites come up with more ways to wring profit from online advertising and sales–often using methods that Google opposes–a better analogy might be the Web’s watchdog. In recent months, that watchdog has barked at sites it accuses of shady practices–and it may be starting to bite.Search engine marketing consultant and blogger Rand Fishkin recently compiled a list of more than 70 sites with names like LinksFactory.net and DirectoryDump.com, which have been relegated in the past three weeks to the hardly seen back pages of Google’s results, even when users search for them by name.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/10/02/internet-paid-search-tech-cx_ag_1003google.html
Google Purges The Payola
Googlers like to think of their company as the Web’s library. But as Web sites come up with more ways to wring profit from online advertising and sales–often using methods that Google opposes–a better analogy might be the Web’s watchdog. In recent months, that watchdog has barked at sites it accuses of shady practices–and it may be starting to bite.