Is Google A Bully That You Have To Suck Up To?
Last night I published a review post inside of which I remarked on the fact that Google search results aren’t still showing the most valuable stuff at the top or near the top in spite of all their recent updates. I also mentioned the subject for which posts in languages other than English were higher in search results than some posts in English and that keyword baiting posts were close to the top. I added two more unflattering remarks about Google further down the post which you can read here.
The punishment for doing that was swift. Within a few short hours the PR of my blog was degraded and the search results for my main keywords, like email list building, went down by 4 pages.
I wrote those things because they were true and because it was something that I could plainly see and couldn’t ignore and not because I like Google bashing or hate Google. In fact, if you go back through my blog and read what I wrote about Google, you will find that, with a few exceptions that express my puzzlement about why they do certain things, what I wrote about them is pretty positive.
Update: After a long time the distorted display in Chrome of some pages that I wrote about in one of my previous posts has been finally fixed and Chrome now displays them as well as Firefox. I have noticed it just now at 1:50 p.m PST on Monday, February 04, 2013, although it could have been fixed a few days ago but not much longer than that.
Update 2:
Since this particular post was published my blog was knocked down by further 6 pages in Google search results. Any comments on that? This update is as of February 06, 2013. Below is the text of the original post.
A few months ago I created a category called “Understanding Google” because I’m not the only one who doesn’t always understand what they are doing and especially the reasons why they do it.
I do not begrudge Google their dominant position and I always wanted to believe that they didn’t abuse it. However, if they do abuse their position I’m not going to turn a blind eye to it.
What do you think is going on? Could it be a pure coincidence that within hours of my post in which I state what I clearly observe about Google, which happens to be unflattering to them, my blog’s PR is degraded and my blog’s placement in search results for my key keyword phrases is knocked down by 3 to 4 pages?
If it’s not a coincidence but a punishment for daring to say what I believe is the truth, then I wonder where we are. That would be a very depressing state of affairs. It would be like living in a communist system during the Cold War where everything is censored, where almost everybody is afraid to speak the truth because they don’t want to go to jail and have the members of their own family and even distant relatives punished for it too.
Today I have also noticed that the blogs whose authors are in a large number of Google+ circles are placed high in Google search results. That could be just a reward for being popular. But the fact that a very few significant online people that I know are very active on Google+ makes me wonder if Google rewards those who are very active there the same way that very active communist party members were rewarded in the Cold War era by the communist monster machine.
Could we be in Orwell’s kind of era with Google lording it over?
I hope not but it sure seems to increasingly look like it.
What do you think, am I stretching this too far or is there something to what I just wrote? Go ahead and make a comment.
Are you going to stay low and like a sheep bleat whatever Google wants to hear or are you going to speak the truth as you see it, no matter how you may be punished for it by the almighty Google?
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Authored by Vance Sova
Filed under: Understanding Google
It’s very nice that you seek the truth and question it. It’s brave and we all should do that. on the other hand I can say that sometimes you have to be careful, and ‘not bite the hand that feeds you’, or accept the consequences.
Javier´s last blog post ..Finding a priest for your wedding
Vance Reply:
February 5th, 2013 at 9:44 am
Hi Javier,
Thank you for the insightful comment. It’s very unfortunate that most people are afraid to, as you say, bite the hand that feeds them. The fact is that this particular hand is feeding on us. I still would like to believe that the thing that happened was a pure coincidence. But if it was indeed a punishment for daring to say what anybody could plainly see, then we are indeed being lorded over by an entity that has become not only powerful but also evil in spite of having a do no evil motto.
Completely agree with you Vance, but do distrust anyone who says ‘there’s no evil in me’
Vance Reply:
February 5th, 2013 at 10:41 am
Hi Javier,
I feel the same way. They have the motto which says do no evil. During the Cold War there were a lot of countries that had the word democratic in their name but there was no democracy in them. There is some evil in everyone but what matters is the overall focus and direction. When an institution is or becomes evil then it becomes their focus. It’s not just a matter of an occasional slip from an overall focus on doing good. They may still maintain the good talk but their actions are the opposite of that. Historically there were some countries talking of workers paradise and sending people to forced labor camps.
I think there’s nothing wrong on saying the truth. Although I always search on google, I partly agree about what you have posted. Sometimes, I’m also get irritated when I search in google because there are a lot of irrelevant datas that are presented. And I also think that the valuable datas that we are searching are not put in the top part of the results. That is why, sometimes I get tired of searching because I have to scan some pages to see what I’m searching for.
Vance Reply:
February 6th, 2013 at 1:11 am
Hi Jed,
Thank you for the comment. Saying what is the truth is not wrong but you can get punished for it by those who can’t handle the truth. I think that what you mean about not finding what you’re looking for using Google is a bit different than what I wrote about but it’s true too. There are enough things which you can’t really find because Google shows results that aren’t even really related to your search. Unfortunately, to be fair, other search engines can’t always come up with what you’re looking for either.
How do you think they found that you are bad mouthing about google? If they can do that so easily, why can’t they use the same algorithm to list the best pages instead of keyword stuffed stupid pages ( to which I agree 🙂 ).
Vance Reply:
February 6th, 2013 at 9:54 pm
Hi Arun,
Thank you so much for the smart comment. They can find out very easily. I’m sure you’ve heard of Google Alerts. They very likely have even smarter system than that to show them right way what people say about them. They could even use twitter for that. My blog posts are tweeted. There is no question that they can do it very, very easily. And it’s probably automated too so no human necessarily has to intervene or do anything. The robot just knocks you down if you don’t behave like a very dull and slavishly obedient sheep, perhaps. One bleat out of tune which they want you to sing and you can be out of favor with the beast.
As to why they can’t show decent search results, I have no answer for that. If you read my previous post about how even non English language posts show up when I search in English in addition to obviously keyword baiting posts, and several of them, not just one, appearing close to the top of the search results you just have to shake your head. On the other hand they punish decent and informative sites by degrading them in search results and knocking down their page rank. I’m not talking about my blog right now. There are thousands of them.
So all this is a big puzzle that may never be solved. Google obviously has no interest in that or they just can’t do it.
Cheers,
Vance.
I feel for you Vance. I don’t understand their logic either. Today I ranked high on one keyprhase on my laptop using Chrome, but on IE 8 page 13, on my desktop on Chrome page 11. What’s up with that?
If you need any extra backlinks, I’d love to have you guest post on my site for a post titled, “Vance Sova’s Top Ten Blogs to Read While Eating Pizza.”
I sure hope your rankings come back. I really do.
Brian@pizza blog´s last blog post ..Play Pizza Games: The Pizza Jigsaw Puzzle
Vance Reply:
February 11th, 2013 at 11:35 am
Thank you Brian. I think that trying to understand what Google does and why and their search results etc. is an exercise in futility. It’s OK to once in a while look at it and be amused but to seriously occupy a lot of one’s time with it would likely cause insanity.
Thanks for the offer to guest post on your blog. I really appreciate it. I may take you up on it when I have more time. I can’t do it right now.
Cheers,
Vance.
totally agree with you, google techniques are farther not the best