Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
[webmasterworld.com...]
I have my one site listed in google directory and the link information is wrong there. Could anyone tell me how we can contact the editors and change my link information for my website link in google directory....
Do you actually believe the dialogue on a Google Group or a Matt Cutts blog is moderated for anything other than to make webmasters conform to Google's corporate will? On WebmasterWorld, and other forums like DP, SEW, TW, and many others, we are free to discuss every aspect of search marketing. On Matt Cutts blog and the official Google forums you are not. Google controls the dialogue and the outcomes of the discussions. Google and Matt Cutts are not concerned with helping you rank better. They are concerned about the integrity of their algorithm, and making webmasters unpaid partners in protecting Google's algorithm through snitch networks and data mining enterprises like Webmaster Central.
When was the last time GoogleGuy or the other representatives did something on the webmaster forums to help or answer questions? Where have they gone? I will tell you where they are. They are hijacking our dialogue and moderating it on the official Matt Cutts blog and their other Kool-Aid forums. I believe it's a conscious effort to control what you think and gain webmaster mindshare for the benefit of Google.
Google is the Internet
Am I the only one who feels it's extraordinary how Google is becoming the arbiter of web ethics, coding practices, and the webmaster dialogue? Do webmasters really want an Internet that is defined and dicated according to what is good for Google?
[edited by: The_Shower_Scene at 8:11 pm (utc) on May 8, 2007]
The topic of "Todays webmaster & Their Relationship with Google" made me think back.
Remember when Google was a little known entity to those outside of tech? They were a small group of friendly folks with a goal of indexing the web and it's information while chanting "Do No Evil"
Flash ahead to today and they have become this huge conglomerate with the goal to index the worlds data.
Indexing websites and collecting data may seem like the same goal but it's a bit scary when you imagine what kind of information is gathered.
I have the same relationship with them today as I had in 1998. The only difference is now I look over my shoulder, I watch where I go, I watch who I link to very closely and I wonder if something I did last year or 4 years ago is now going to be considered against the rules.
It's kind of a big brother syndrome for me now when in the past it was more like a friendship.
Google charges me nothing to search.
Google charges me nothing to list my site in their results.
Somehow that reality doesn't make me want to bitch and cry in public.
I think webmasters should view it as another form of symbiotic relationships called "mutualism", where both members benefit and neither suffers. Google benefits by scraping/caching your content and using it to strengthen their search results. Webmasters benefit because Google's scraping/caching directs traffic their websites which helps generate pageviews and possible revenue.
Outside of that, webmasters should refrain from thinking of it as a "partnership", and think of it more as an symbiotic association. Associations aren't perfect and will change over time. The good thing is, both parties are free to leave whenever they choose. Especially if that mutualism feels like it's becoming more and more parasitic.
Like Tedster mentioned earlier in the thread,
... webmasters should not allow themselves to be hypnotized by Google into an unreal view of what running their own website means.
Even though I am long past my teenage years, I remember being a teen and hearing older people say: "Young folks spend so much time learning stupid song lyrics and know them so well. Now if they would just apply that same determination to studying, they'd have a lot better grades."
If webmasters stopped thinking so much about Google and SEOing their sites to death, and instead concentrated on producing quality web presences for their users -- the association with Google would generate much more peace of mind.
What "defense of Google"? I'm not defending Google;
I suppose many of us could cherry pick statements you have made in any number of threads to demonstrate the point.
No need. I find it interesting that you suggest it is appropriate for Google to clean up the Internet. Simply reinforces my main point regarding paternalism, don't you think?
My bias is exactly the opposite. I have little trust for multi-billion dollar international corporations. I avoid Walmart, Starbucks and mnay others as best as I can, choosing to stay small and local. In search that is increasingly difficult to do, though I still use Gigablast now and then.
WBF
No need. I find it interesting that you suggest it is appropriate for Google to clean up the Internet. Simply reinforces my main point regarding paternalism, don't you think?
I never suggested that it was Google's job to "clean up the Internet." However, Google certainly is entitled to clean up its search index, and if Web users benefit from the cleanup, what's wrong with that?
Some of you keep saying that "Google isn't God." You're right: Google isn't God--or Satan, for that matter--so why do you keep on acting as if Google were one or the other or both? Google Search isn't your daddy, either: It's just a search engine. It isn't even the only search engine, and it most definitely isn't the only way that intelligently-managed businesses (especially e-commerce businesses) can acquire traffic.
Reading the constant Google-bashing here is like listening to a smoker rail against the tobacco companies while refusing to give up cigarettes. I'm reminded of an old joke that Ronburk quoted in the AdSense forum: "The food here is terrible." "Yes, and the portions are so small!"
Reading the constant Google-bashing here is like listening to a smoker rail against the tobacco companies while refusing to give up cigarettes.
Good comparison. But it's also good to know where the Philip Morris Company currently is.
If you look at the Google/Webmaster symbiotic relationship and attempt to give it a name or association, it would not be considered "parasitic". A parasitic relationship is one in which one member of the association benefits while the other is being harmed.
Which is EXACTLY the situation; Attempted Google Spammy Webmasters tied their fortunes to Google, not for love, but to make a fast buck; when it all goes wrong, suddenly it's all Google's fault. Google, meanwhile was harmed, as their product (the serps) was being distorted by the parasite.
Goolgle makes no more out of those sites than any other,and where search is concerned, they get zilch from any site.
So the relationship of the "Attempted Google Spammer" to Google is entirely parasitic - and eventually, most parasites end up down the pan.
Honest webmasters do NOT depend on Google; they depend on their own efforts, and take responsibility for their own success - and failure.
That's neither symbiotic nor parasitic; it's independent existence, and I commend it to you.
As I learned more about website building (through searches on google) I started to see all the links about website optimizing and search engine placement and so on and so forth. I quickly came to the conclusion that Google was the search engine most people attempted to get to the top of, particularly as I read about them more and more in the newspapers.
During all this time, I also started reading about black hat and white hat and grey hat sites, link farming, hidden text, keyword stuffing and the miserable lot. I started reading about peoples experiences with what happened to their website(s) when they employee'd some of the tactics being used.
Me, I try to be a person of reasonable ethics. Alot of what I read in Googles guidelines make sense to me. I look at them and think "yea, thats something that I can adhere to if it means I'm not taken out of their index". (gotta make it in there first because some of the numbnuts out there insist on using questionable actions to rank higher then what their website rates).
I built a nice clean site, I don't participate in any link farms, no hidden text, set up a robots.tx, bot-trap and .htaccess file to keep the undesirable's out. I made sure the navigation on my site made sense. Nothing was more then 3 clicks away from the home page. A logical layout in design. I made sure that a lynx browser was able to view the site.
I did not build my site for Google, I built it to help people out in my sector. I rely on not only Google, but Yahoo and MSN as well for traffic. All other search engines are blocked.
As it stands today, I depend on the search engines to get traffic to my site. I am not yet a household name like some of the other companies out there. And I think that as long as I am dependent on the search engines referring me traffic (free of charge I should add) that I will do whatever I can to make sure that after the site has been written for the visitor, that the SE's can index it properly and not get the site penalized in the process.
And a final point of clarification, I would expect not only Google, but all the other SE's, to have some kind of standard for being in their index, because when I use the SE's I want quantity results as well.
Google Search isn't your daddy, either: It's just a search engine.
If only that were true. Google is far more than "just a search engine". It is fast becoming THE interface to the Internet.
It is exactly these type of statements that can be construed as defending Google. It demonstrates an utter refusal to acknowledge the dominance that Google has assumed on the Internet, just as you refuse to acknowledge how that dominance influences those that own Internet properties.
Which really is the point of this thread - the relationship between Google and webmasters.
WBF
It is fast becoming THE interface to the Internet.
I'm sorry, but if you walk into any home or office where they use the Internet - any non-webmaster space, in fact, and repeat that, and they'll laugh in your face.
There IS a world beyond the webmaster existence where Google is just one more company, one more service.
Get out more! Google is neither God nor the Devil. Really!
< continued here: [webmasterworld.com...] >
[edited by: tedster at 4:52 am (utc) on May 11, 2007]
