Google gets sinister! Options

There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that those lovely people at Google visit this forum. How do I know? Well, I don't know for sure, but what I do know is that they've noticed me. They could have come across my site elsewhere, I suppose, but I like to think that they spotted me here.

The bad news is that they don't like me I wonder why 8)

I've been away for almost 2 weeks so I don't know when this occured but I've just discovered that someone at Google has been through my webworkshop.net site and PR0ed 8 of its pages by hand, and probably dumped another page out of the index. Since the construction of all the site's pages is the same, and many of them are untouched PRwise, it is obviously a hand-job.

And it gets worse...

The pages that have been penalised are the ones where I am critical of Google, plus the ones where my opinions of certain SEO techniques are expounded. The untouched pages are not critical of Google, and they are not specifically about SEO.

examples of untouched pages:- pagerank article and calculator, articles about seo copywriting, Google dance, fresh crawl, etc.

examples of penalised pages:- articles about cloaking, search engine spam, why Google should embrace SEO, etc.

The difference in the natures (topics) of the untouched pages and the penalised ones is incredibly marked. So marked that it is obvious that Google has penalised the pages solely because they express opinions that Google doesn't like - and that's extremely sinister!

Check it out. Go to http://www.webworkshop.net/directory.html and go through the pages one-by-one. You'll see what I mean. There's one penalised page that isn't listed on the directory page but it's available from the home page. It's <http://www.webworkshop.net/search_engine_optimization_articles.html>.

The difference between the penalised pages and the untouched ones is so marked that it is clear that Google will penalise pages for simply expressing views that they don't like. I haven't come across that before. I think it's new, and it's a very sinister development. We can argue all we like about whether Google is right or wrong to penalise sites and pages for breaking their rules, but when they start to penalise them for expressing views and opinions that Google doesn't like, they are stepping way over the line.

To be honest, I'm not annoyed because the pages are PR0ed. In fact, I'm quite flattered that they would even notice me, but the big Internet picture that they are painting by penalising pages because they contain views and opinions that Google doesn't share, has got to be of great concern to everyone who uses the Internet.

Phil.

Now think about the poor business that are online that have been destroyed by these irresponsible acts by Google! Maybe readers will now start to believe that even though Google openly denied that they would EVER manually manipulate ones ranking and/or PR they in fact do and do it quite frequently!

It may have been a hand job, but it could have been a dictionary attack. Either one is totally unethical, of course, but the dictionary angle is a bigger story if you can get evidence to support it. Google doesn't like to do hand jobs; they like algorithms that are scalable.

Get an idea of which words Google might not like. Narrow down the list to those that appear on each of the penalized pages. Look in Inktomi and Alltheweb for other pages that contain all of these words. Then look at these other sites with the Google toolbar and see if they had an experience similar to yours.

If Google has a dictionary of words that they consider a threat to their growing monopoly, then I think you've found something that would interest a journalist. Since Google's PageRanks are now frozen for 30 days, you have plenty of time to do this research.

A recent quote from me:

"...[My criticism of Google on the Google Watch site] has had no effect whatsoever on Google. If you have a 75 percent monopoly, and it's growing, and perhaps there's an IPO around the corner, you keep your mouth shut and hope for the best. That's what Google is doing. The other problem is that geeks have a poor record on social ethics, and Google is very geeky. They don't know what the word 'public interest' means; it's completely outside their frame of reference. Most of those PhDs at Google wouldn't recognize a philosophical principle if they ran over one in their SUVs. It's all binary to them -- either they're gaining market share or they're losing it. If they're gaining, then all is well with the world. Ethics is too fuzzy a concept for Silicon Valley geeks."

<http://www.counterpunch.org/hand01032003.html>

Ethics is too fuzzy a concept for Silicon Valley geeks.

Ethics is below their level of intelligence, if you don't agree with the normal ethical standards then they force feed us to accept their definition. This comes from too many years of sitting in your bedroom at mom's house in your underwear trying to decipher the meaning of life according to Garp

SearchEngineBlog = PR7

Interview with Mike Grehan = PR0

Interview still searchable in Googles index. Blip? Censorship? C'mon Google, surely you're better than this?

Hey Phil, I am sorry that your site has been PR0'd but I must say, with respect, what did you expect? Sorry if that cooks you even more but I know that the Google people visit the forums I mean, it would be crazy not too? Would you if you had a search engine. I would be inclined to run a site of all the contentious stuff ( an in that I mean anything to do with algorhythm cracking) off its own domain.....with hindsight. Another way to look at it is if the pages were PR0'd you must have been saying something of truth so you are on the right tracks. Why not check your logs for some correlation between IP requesting the page and the pages banned. Then if you can see a positive hit (it could be a glitch) correlation, then you could shout it from the mountain top. I heard someone say the other day that the only difference between Microsoft and Google was the logo and experience! Makes you think.

Cya.

Hey Phil, I am sorry that your site has been PR0'd but I must say, with respect, what did you expect?

I expect to be able to state opinions that are contrary to Google's without being penalized for it.

Incidentally, it isn't the site that is penalized - just certain pages that Google doesn't like the content of.

Phil.

You surprise me!

But then I guess I don't really know you very well.

:shock:

It may have been a hand job, but it could have been a dictionary attack. Either one is totally unethical, of course, but the dictionary angle is a bigger story if you can get evidence to support it. Google doesn't like to do hand jobs; they like algorithms that are scalable.

Unfortunately, I don't see how it can have been a dictionary attack because, although there are words on the pages that Google might have decided to censor, the words appear on other, untouched pages too. It's got to have been a hand job.

Phil.

You surprise me! 

But then I guess I don't really know you very well.

:shock:

I guess not 8)

Up until last night, I'd never come across censorship penalties except for those well publicized political and religious ones, but they were different in that they weren't anything to do with Google's own views and opinions.

Now it seems that, if a person openly speaks against Google or the way they operating their engine, they will censor that freedom of speech in whatever way they can. At the same time they defend their own freedom of speech (their first amendment rights) in court in the SearchKing case.

Phil.

SearchEngineBlog = PR7

Interview with Mike Grehan = PR0

Interview still searchable in Googles index. Blip? Censorship? C'mon Google, surely you're better than this?

Until you mentioned this, I'd assumed that someone at Google had simply noticed my outspokenness and decided to take a look at my site. Your case now makes me wonder if they going on the offensive against any pages that express certain SEO views. I wonder of Mike Grehan's site has received any PR0s.

Phil.

Now you guys are just getting paranoid.

It takes time for new pages to get indexed and get a proper PR. C'mon, you all know this...your SEOs for cryin' out loud!

Talk to me next month when those pages all have PageRank. :roll:

That's very clever Jill. You were conspicuous by your absence in this thread because it appeared that Google really were being unscrupulous. Now you post a 'smart' response AFTER you've just read a theory that I came up with that might account for the PR0s without them being a penalty. Very clever - not!

Talk to me next month when those pages all have PageRank

Talk to me BEFORE you read my explantions of what might have happened - then you really will be clever.

Phil.

That's very clever Jill. You were conspicuous by your absence in this thread because it appeared that Google really were being unscrupulous. Now you post a 'smart' response AFTER you've just read a theory that I came up with that might account for the PR0s without them being a penalty. Very clever - not!

There you go again, attributing sinister motives where none exist.

Do you hear voices too?

Jill

Last night, when you were posting in the forum, you didn't post anything in this thread, which surpirsed me since it's one of your pet subjects (and mine).

Today you read a post that I made elsewhere, that possibly explains the PR0s without them being penalties. You replied to that post and then quickly came into this thread to post what I had said elsewhere, making it appear that you knew what was going on all the time, when you had no idea - very smart.

If suspecting/assuming something when pages drop from PR5 to PR0 is "hearing voices", then yes, I hear voices.

Phil.

If suspecting/assuming something when pages drop from PR5 to PR0 is \"hearing voices\", then yes, I hear voices.

Alrighty then. That solves that! :rainbowafro:

Here's another example:

Since I speak out about Google too, in my Blog, I just checked it and lo and behold, an entire archive file has been PR0'd.

cre8pc.com/blog/archive/2002_12_01_archive.html

None of the other archives have been effected. Only the posts for December, many of which are about Google. The post from when I blasted Google for the Googlism about Cre8pc being a porn site is in this archive, and is a post even Fantomaster had linked to in his newsletter I believe.

Earlier jabs at Google from previous blog posts have not been PR0'd. Just December posts.

I don't remember seeing a PR0 on any of my pages of any of my sites before, so this is likely something new. If it doesn't disappear in the next reindex, I'm going to be pretty suspicious of the motives.

I link to Phil's site and some of his articles in that Dec. archive too. All of those pages I linked to from his site seem to be safe. I checked other sites I linked to also, and they all seemed fine too.

Kim

I'm pretty sure that I've discovered why my pages, Peter's page and Kim's page have PR0 - and they aren't penalties. Google have started to do something different with new pages.

When a new page is first spidered by Google (usually by the fresh crawler, although not always), a ghost PR value is shown in the Toolbar. After that, the new page goes through the next update, but doesn't fully enter the index until it has been main-crawled and has gone through the update following the main crawl.

It now appears that Google apply a PR0 to new pages that have gone through one update but that can't yet fully enter into the index because they haven't been main-crawled. That would account for Kim's December archive and my pages having PR0, and I think it will account for Peter's page too.

However, my pages were all main-crawled on December 11th and I would have expected them to be fully indexed at the last update. But the December 11th crawl came after several days of the main crawler's absence, so I suspect that it wasn't part of the 'main' main-crawl - if you see what I mean.

The good news is that I now believe that these PR0s are not penalties, but that they are a new way that Google handle's the Toolbar PR during a certain period of a new page's life.

The bad news is, I am disappointed that the mighty Google hasn't noticed little me after all

Phil.

And the logic of this would be...?????

I'd hate like heck to be the person receiving all the emails from people freaked out over their PR0, fearing their page(s) were penalized, when in fact this is another notch in the life of a page.

Why can't they make the color something like purple or green or blue, instead and have it mean - "We're working on it. Hang in there!" or "Don't be afraid to link to this page. It's in Google-Labor." ??

Kim

I'd hate like heck to be the person receiving all the emails from people freaked out over their PR0, fearing their page(s) were penalized, when in fact this is another notch in the life of a page.

Good point! It's gonna mean a zillion questions to me, I bet too. I always get lots of new work when Google does stuff like this because people all think they did something wrong. Perhaps Google is trying to give SEOs some additional work?

Jill