Halfdeck you make a lot of really good points and I appreciate you taking the time to share them here. For me there’s a lot more questions in this whole debate than there are answers, which is why in part I think it’s easy to get lost in the debate.

I agree that link buying should be done underground anyway and the better SEOs are and will be buying and selling that way. But aren’t those really the links Google is after more than any other? They seem to be fighting against all others except for who they’re really after.

I hope I don’t come across as trying to tell Google what they should do with their business. Maybe I am, but it’s not my intention. I think Google has every right to do what they want with their business, the same way you and I can do what we want with ours. But I think Google is being arrogant here. They are bullying people and they have attempted to get us to turn each other in. Google could have discounted paid links or penalized sites or whatever without some of the fear tactics or having us report each other.

I understand that Google takes issue with paid links that affect search ranking and not paid links in general. The problem is the two often overlap. I have nothing against Google not wanting to be manipulated. But I think they are beginning to take things to the point where honest people who are not at all trying to manipulate them are going to get punished.

I admit some of this is conjecture on my part.

Let’s say you and I agree to exchange money for links and the only reason for the exchange is to manipulate Google. In that case then I agree Google has the right to do what they want to protect against that manipulation.

But take the case of average mom and pop webmaster. You or I approaches mom because we want to advertise on her site. We send her a banner and ask her to display it on her site with a link. Mom agrees. She’s made no attempt whatsoever to manipulate anything. She’s simply selling advertising on her site. Mom has never heard of a nofollow and there’s no reason should have. But mom could now find her site penalized in some way for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

Again I agree there’s some speculation on my part since there’s no real proof Mom would be penalized, but it’s beginning to seem like she might be.

It’s unrealistic of Google to think that every link seller is going to use nofollow just like you say, but I think Google is going to pass judgment on sites based on nofollow anyway. So they may be punishing people over something unrealistic.

I understand Google is entitled to their mistakes. I think we all have the right to be wrong. I think when SEOs are critical of Google in many cases it’s people trying to let Google know why something they’re doing is wrong. And yes in many cases it’s just people whining that they can’t get away with something the used to. But there are plenty of SEOs who would honestly like to see a better Google. When Google ignores those people and refuses to look inward at the possibility it made a mistake that is arrogance.

“it will be driven further underground”

This is how paid links should be bought anyway, under the covers, not through some text link broker (e.g. tnx’s 10,000 crappy TBPR 0 links for $10 bucks deals). Lazy SEOs may be frustrated by that because the process becomes less automated and harder to scale. And sellers may not like it because brokers like TLA give mom & pop link sellers increased visibility to link buyers. I’ve sold a few links through TLA but I have yet to receive any buy offers via email.

SEO needs to be done with stealth. And those who are more experienced with under the radar link buying will have an edge over newbie SEOs who depend on no-effort-involved mass-link-buy opportunities with short lifespan.

“And add that Google is showing an uncharming arrogance”

I think its arrogant for webmasters to try to tell someone else how they *should* run their website. Google has never done that though apparently SEOs will spend weeks on end telling Google how Google should be run. Hypocrisy at its best.

It is not wrong or right to sell/buy links. It is an effective tool with a level of risk – not like any other type of investment, be it stocks or real estate. And it is neither right or wrong to run a website one way or another. While SEO’s get agitated over Google making business decisions, SEOs seems to have no problems passing ethical judgements against Google. Sometimes I think white hat SEOs are the Christian rights of online marketing. Google is moving forward, acting on profit margins and market share, while SEOs are sitting still, paralyzed by questions of ethics.

“Google is also being very hypocritical given they sell more links than anyone through AdWords.”

Whoever argues this line will lose credibility over time. First, Google has no policy against selling links or paid links. Let’s get that down. Google is not against paid links. Google will not penalize you for paid links.

What Google has a problem with are paid links that effect search results. Adwords links do not pass PageRank.

“Google is taking things to the extreme”

This is just the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t hit “extreme” until all link buyers get perma banned from search results.

No question, Google is making some bad judgement calls. Expecting all link sellers to use nofollow is just plain unrealistic; its never going to happen. I will never put nofollow on links I sell. That’s just bad business, considering the fact that only a fraction of my traffic to my blog comes from Google. If Google banned my site I won’t even bat an eyelid.

But they are entiled to their mistakes, as I am entitled to make mine. And as long as Google’s end users continue to prefer Google over Yahoo/Live and as long as you and me keep supplying Google with content to index, and as long as Google’s stock prices hold up (what is it now, $625?), Google has little reason to rethink its business decisions.

Sure, we are free to criticize Google for its mistakes, but questioning the ethics of a company is a waste of time. If lack of ethics was a crime, we’d all hang side by side.

Mom and Pop do sell advertising. Everyone sells advertising and Google taught us all how. Now they’re telling us you can only advertise the way we say you can advertise, which isn’t right. The thing is I think it is beginning to happen where Google is removing people from from search results.

John Chow can no longer be found if you search for his name where he used to rank well for quite a few things. It appears he was penalized for selling links. Now Google does have the right to do anything they want, but they claim to want to provide the most relevant results. johnchow.com is certainly one of the most relevant results for John Chow.

What bothers me most is Google doesn’t have to go to the extent they’re going. Just don’t count those links. I really don’t think most people would have a problem with that. But Google is taking the approach of basically telling people how they can run their business. They’re making people think twice about making money from advertising.

Their approach also requires all of us to take a specific action (adding nofollow) which seems innocent enough except Google shouldn’t really be requiring an action to avoid a penalty. Most people will never know they need to do that something.

From what I’m reading this is starting to get past a text link. It seems like it might be crossing over into banner ads since those do link back to the site.

Why don’t you think Google will ban a site for something they don’t agree with? Google does have an interest in maintaining the perception of quality in their results. It’s why the New York Times or the Wikipedia or Forbes magazine won’t get banned, but to the average person your site and mine wouldn’t be missed so Google can safely remove us while still maintaining that perception of quality.

“Google is showing that it will take all that traffic away if they decide they don’t like something you are doing on your site.” That may or may not be true in this case, but I don’t think this is going to ever happen to anyone I ‘know’ online. Google has a genuine interest in protecting the quality of their search. This sounds like a pretty extreme of the malware label they use.