Google gets a taste of it's own Autolink Medicine Options

[Tim]

This has already been reported on a few forums, but I don't think it's made it's way here yet.

Mark Pilgrim of DiveIntoMark.org has written a Firefox extention called Butler that dramatically alters the pages on many Google services. Features include:
* removes ads on most Google pages
* fixes fonts on most Google pages
...
This is cleary an attack on Google's widely condemed Autolink feature that allows users to change links on your pages to those chosen by Google.

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/1896

Google Blogoscoped says the following:

Now the catch-22 in Mark’s approach is obvious: would Google complain about his Butler add-on, they’d be offering arguments that could be used against their Toolbar, effectively hurting their own product. And if they don’t react, they’re allowing Mark to set an example of what’s possible and legal to do in terms of changing Google’s content, opening up a door for others to follow. Just imagine Microsoft would be implementing such Google ad removal as default behavior for Internet Explorer 7 – they’d be depriving their competitor of nearly all of their revenues. The AutoLink discussion continues.

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-0...-03-15-n77.html

Really, what a funny payback

[bwelford]

To quote that great new entrant on the customer-centric field... yes, I'm talking Microsoft.

Marketing is a dialogue with your customers. It's not nice to be in conflict with your friends.

[AbleReach]

Cool! Mark Pilgrim's script came up on the thread about Danny Sullivan's Review of Google Toolbar's AutoLink. It will need a thread of its own, and here we are.

As of right now,
link:diveintomark.org/projects/butler/
on MSN gives 3,718 results.
on Google shows zippo (but maybe this is a pr thing? )
alltheweb shows 166

Yahoo had the page cached almost instantly.
Google has yet to go beyond "Sorry, no information is available for the URL diveintomark.org/projects/butler/"

As Brad said, Heh, with all the inbound blog links Google could hardly miss it."

LOl re Bwelford's "it's not nice to be in conflict with your customers."

I may be enjoying this too much...

Naaaa

Elizabeth

[AbleReach]

In the hours between my last post and this one Google grabbed the page.

Google has:

Butler [dive into mark]
... Butler. Butler enhances Google search results by adding links to competitors.
It also removes ads, changes typography, and a few other useful things. ...
(almost the exact words that Yahoo picked out)

Cached March 15th.
no "link to" results
23 "contain the term 'diveintomark.org/projects/butler/'"

Just a li'l update...


Elizabeth

[Mike521]

I have it installed at home, it's a very nice add on.. I never look at PPC ads, and I can easily do my search on yahoo and msn if I want. great!