Something has been bugging me for a while, and it took a few hours after I read this article to figure out what it was.
I love the coining of a new term: "organized spam", and I love calling out things that are wrong, but I wonder if we're not taking this crime metaphor a bit too far.
Look guys, it's a search engine. You type in a search term, it gives you results. There's nothing magic or special about it -- anybody with a smidgen of database training can make one (although nowhere near as Google's, granted)
Although some of these examples involve people ripping other people off, I get the feeling that somehow Google has become such a part of our lives that we feel as if somehow these folks trading links and trying to get attention are acting criminally. That anything that gets in the way of my getting instant information is a crime against humanity. That really bugs me.
It's not. Get over yourself. Sure, large parts of this may be well-funded, but there's nothing necessarily criminal going on. For instance lots of poor people in lots of third-world countries are making money dropping by my blog each day and telling me how awesome I am. It's not expected, but I'm happy they're making a few dollars. I can live with the inconvenience or try to fix it on my end. I don't need to blame them.
I don't like the state of Google search right now either, although I'm still a loyal customer. But what I see in the marketplace is humans reacting logically to their best interests. If you're going to monetize google search so that billions of dollars flows through it, there's going to be some ancillary effects that nobody predicted. Instead of blaming the people, understand that the people are just regular, intelligent folks doing the best they can. Hell, my wife is in a social group with a lady who made several thousand dollars adding advertiser text to her blogs -- until Google delisted her. She saw nothing wrong with it, and still is pretty pissed at Google. From her standpoint Google crapped all over her party.
And yes, Google has every right to delist sites and such. More power to them. I hope they continue to delist and evolve their search engine. I hope they get a handle on this. But I think we should all separate our well-wishes for Google's success from our opinions of our fellow man. I've heard linkspammers and spammers called "subhuman" and all sorts of nasty things. While there are criminals who are trying to rip you off, there's no evidence that there are more criminals on the web that anywhere else. Most of these people are trying to make a living. The fact they might inconvenience you on your way to get an answer to a technical question or find the latest mp3 you have to have is really not that high on their list of priorities -- nor should it be.
Google needs to do a better job. Period. There seems to be this "conversation machine" right now where people post articles showing how bad search is, then folks come out and rant, then Google makes an announcement. Repeat and rinse. It's as if we went down to the local newstand and asked the grocer for a magazine on trucks. He gives us a bunch of magazines on boats, so -- we blame the magazine publishers! It's simply not logical. A little perspective, please. Google is the provider here and those of us who like them should try to help out. But we shouldn't cross the line into thinking that anybody that annoys Google or searcher is somehow evil or criminal. That's crazy. Much better to understand people as rational actors than to demonize anybody who tricks some random American internet company.
I'm not going to comment on your entire post, nor am I against what you're saying, but I did want to comment on this bit:
>It's as if we went down to the local newstand and asked the grocer for a magazine on trucks. He gives us a bunch of magazines on boats, so -- we blame the magazine publishers!
This analogy would be more true to the situation at hand if you say that the magazine publishers are using methods that they know will increase their chances of getting boat magazines in front of your eyes when you're seeking truck magazines. Do you think my assertion is off-base?
The magazine publishers are free to configure their magazines and the world around them in any way they wish. The newstand operator is responsible for what goes on inside his stand. If he's serving up junk, do we go blaming the rest of the world for the quality of his service?
Somehow we've taken Google out of the picture as an independent agent, It's as if whatever program they are running is somehow golden, and by outsiders changing the inputs that Google uses so that it doesn't work correctly that somehow the outsiders are at fault. But outisders don't set the inputs -- Google does. Outsiders don't write the ranking algorithm -- Google does. Outsiders don't make money from having ads alongside search results and tracking individual's search behavior -- Google does. Outsiders are free to do whatever they want -- that's the entire reason for picking one search provider over another, the fact that one engine can take the world as it is and do a better job of organizing it than another one can.
If we don't expect Google to be responsible for how they process data -- if we somehow place Google's poor results and put the blame on the world at large, then exactly what of value is Google providing here in our relationship?
Like I said, I'm a fan. I want them to do well. I'm happy to help if I can. But hell if I'm going to let Google off the hook for providing good search results simply because the nature of the internet has changed. Things change. That's what they're supposed to do.
This is like writing a web app that is open to SQL injection attacks and then getting pissed at everybody else when they crash your system. Except there's one big difference: with an SQL injection attack there is an outsider directly interacting with your system, perhaps malevolently. With Google, outsiders don't even enter data in, Google goes and gets it. We've got the shoe on the wrong foot, as my mother used to say.
I understand what you're getting at, but you're way off the mark here:
> The magazine publishers are free to configure their magazines and the world around them in any way they wish. The newstand operator is responsible for what goes on inside his stand. If he's serving up junk, do we go blaming the rest of the world for the quality of his service?
There's a difference between selling junk and selling something that's obviously criminal. If you walked into a store where every magazine had "VIAGRA - 50% OFF. MAIL US YOUR MONEY". Do you honestly mean to tell me that the magazines in question were perfectly ok and it was the magazine vendor who did something wrong?
It's good that you realize that it's humans that are committing crimes, and not subhuman beings. But that doesn't excuse them nor should you.
Yes, Google has some level of responsibility here and they should be held accountable. But they're not the ones actually committing the crime.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that these sites are selling fake merchandise or downright stealing people's money. White-gray-black-hat SEO is not the point, I think you're conflating the nuts and bolts aspect of this article with the general geek indignation about Google's plummeting search results; but the latter is a tempest in a teapot—despite there being a very vocal minority within hacker circles brandishing a fuming vitriolic hatred of spammers of all types, not too many people really believe there's anything criminal about SEO per se.
Google created an ecosystem, spammers take steps that are criminal in this particular ecosystem and work against it's 'citizens'. Maybe their actions are not criminal in general terms, but it's at least scammy (not to say worse) when you look at it considering only this narrow subject (getting information through the internet). Google needs to do a better job, yes, just like lawmakers need to do it IRL, but it doesn't change the fact that IRL also mostly criminals are the ones that force the law system to adjust. Your post makes a lot of sense, but IMO there's nothing wrong in blaming spammers for the current situation.
Something has been bugging me for a while, and it took a few hours after I read this article to figure out what it was.
I love the coining of a new term: "organized spam", and I love calling out things that are wrong, but I wonder if we're not taking this crime metaphor a bit too far.
Look guys, it's a search engine. You type in a search term, it gives you results. There's nothing magic or special about it -- anybody with a smidgen of database training can make one (although nowhere near as Google's, granted)
Although some of these examples involve people ripping other people off, I get the feeling that somehow Google has become such a part of our lives that we feel as if somehow these folks trading links and trying to get attention are acting criminally. That anything that gets in the way of my getting instant information is a crime against humanity. That really bugs me.
It's not. Get over yourself. Sure, large parts of this may be well-funded, but there's nothing necessarily criminal going on. For instance lots of poor people in lots of third-world countries are making money dropping by my blog each day and telling me how awesome I am. It's not expected, but I'm happy they're making a few dollars. I can live with the inconvenience or try to fix it on my end. I don't need to blame them.
I don't like the state of Google search right now either, although I'm still a loyal customer. But what I see in the marketplace is humans reacting logically to their best interests. If you're going to monetize google search so that billions of dollars flows through it, there's going to be some ancillary effects that nobody predicted. Instead of blaming the people, understand that the people are just regular, intelligent folks doing the best they can. Hell, my wife is in a social group with a lady who made several thousand dollars adding advertiser text to her blogs -- until Google delisted her. She saw nothing wrong with it, and still is pretty pissed at Google. From her standpoint Google crapped all over her party.
And yes, Google has every right to delist sites and such. More power to them. I hope they continue to delist and evolve their search engine. I hope they get a handle on this. But I think we should all separate our well-wishes for Google's success from our opinions of our fellow man. I've heard linkspammers and spammers called "subhuman" and all sorts of nasty things. While there are criminals who are trying to rip you off, there's no evidence that there are more criminals on the web that anywhere else. Most of these people are trying to make a living. The fact they might inconvenience you on your way to get an answer to a technical question or find the latest mp3 you have to have is really not that high on their list of priorities -- nor should it be.
Google needs to do a better job. Period. There seems to be this "conversation machine" right now where people post articles showing how bad search is, then folks come out and rant, then Google makes an announcement. Repeat and rinse. It's as if we went down to the local newstand and asked the grocer for a magazine on trucks. He gives us a bunch of magazines on boats, so -- we blame the magazine publishers! It's simply not logical. A little perspective, please. Google is the provider here and those of us who like them should try to help out. But we shouldn't cross the line into thinking that anybody that annoys Google or searcher is somehow evil or criminal. That's crazy. Much better to understand people as rational actors than to demonize anybody who tricks some random American internet company.
</rant>