Something very rotten in the Googleplex
Something really rotten has been going on in the Googleplex of late that should be of great concern to all bloggers, blogging companies, legitimate SEO’s and other corporate entities that rely on Google for traffic alike. The head people at Google are not only friendly with content thieves and blog spammers, they are even meeting, and its all on public record.
The players in this affair: Google software engineer Matt Cutts, whose role with in Google is described by Search Engine Watch as being “on the front lines of Google indexing and quality control issues”, of which I can only presume he’d be dealing with attempts by people to manipulate Google’s search results. Throw in self-admitted content thief, blog spammer and all round “black-hat” SEO David Naylor, somebody who basically makes a living out of manipulating Google and using tactics that the vast majority of people would find highly immoral and in the case of content theft, illegal as well. It turns out, according to a post at Naylor’s blog, that the two are mates. Interesting in itself, but the plot thinkens, because you see not only are they great mates, but Cutts lined up a meeting with Naylor (and 2 others, who as far as I know are good guys, and I’m a big JenSense fan) with none other than the founders of Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
That’s right folks: while we are slogging it out, trying to do the right thing, creating real content, and earning a few dollars with Adsense that just happens to help Google’s bottom line, the two head guys from Google are having drinks with a comment spammer and content thief, somebody who has probably used Google’s Blogger for the creation of fake blogs in an attempt to manipulate Google’s search results, and one of the high up software engineers who is suppose to be working on making sure the bad guys aren’t rewarded in the Google search index is arranging it all.
Something rotten? who am I to suggest such a thing. I’d be interested in getting Google’s side on this one. So here’s the question:
Dear Google PR Department
Can you advise whether the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are in the regular habit of holding private meetings within the GooglePlex with self confessed comment spammers and content thieves, and if so, will Google be taking on a new direction and dropping the “Do no evil” motto?
Speaking with the enemy at a conference is one thing, giving them free drinks and a private chat inside the worlds largest search company is another.
I’m calling the google police. heck. I’ll even get the Yahoo Police in..
I did a piece recently on a 16-y-o boy who hacked through Microsoft’s latest stuff and boasted about it. Microsoft rang the boy’s mother and hired him for the summer to fix the very holes he’d exploited. Poacher turned gamekeeper is a well-worn career path these days. Could this be what’s happening at the ‘Plex?
Ooooo, an internet conspiracy. I like it.
Thanks for all the nice comments, I’m new to all this blog stuff… colbert I was at Yahoo for 3 hours too.. sorry you have too call the MSN police
content thief .. nope i haven’t done that one yet..
blog spamming .. yep guilty well 8 months
scraper sites .. actually they are rss feeds rewritten
content driven sites .. yep I employ quite a few content writers
just plain old clean SEO sites.. I have quite a few Corp Clients as well..
Anyway have fun .. I always do .. funny no one asked why the Bandit changed to a Banker ;)
DaveN
READ IT HERE FIRST: GOOGLE SCANDAL: PAGE, BRIN MEET WITH COMMENT SPAMMER, CONTENT THIEF
hahaha hope you have good legal team for the CONTENT THIEF..
Hmm…very interesting…I wonder if “Dave” is Bill Gates nephew? Dave–don’t be evil. ;)
Sue me all you want Dave, but repeating whats on the public record normally isn’t grounds for a sucessful legal action
Google bought Blogger. Blogger is the best blog software to spam Google with, everyone knows that. The fact that there are large numbers of blogger blogs is also beneficial to Google, as is the spam factor. Ad Naylor to the mix and you have a wonderful formula for creating more AdSense dollars for Google. Oh no! Not more spam blogs in Google! I put a ‘do not index, do not follow tag’ in on eo fmy old blog, but Google still indexes it, with a nice ad at the top. It isn’t rocket science. Blog spamming with Blogger blogs helps Google increase ad revenues, plain and simple.
Hehe maybe a bit jealous are ya… wana met the founders too, bo ho
Laz,
jealous maybe, but I’m not willing to sell my soul to meet the head guys at Google, although talk dollars and we might be able to negotiate something :-)
Where is it public record that DN is a content theif? I see “content-driven” which would describe this blog, content *theif* is stealing content which I think DN denies?
But who do you think Google have more respect for, the white-hat pussies who follow all the rules, or the black-hats, who are always one step ahead, forcing Google/Y! to become better, faster, more efficient on a daily basis? No-one was ever famous for thinking inside the box.
Chris
what else do you do with scrapped content? To quote Dave
“We tend to run 2 or 3 different programs at a time and live by the sword, whether it be blog spamming, scraper sites, content driven sites or just plain old clean SEO sites.”
Uh oh, another of the “holier than thou” brigade speaks forth.
I am a self confessed black hatter and proud of it! I use all the techniques above and more to do what I can to get past the overly restrictive “moral high ground” rules imposed by a company that comes by my site and rips whatever content it wants to without my permission just because my site(s) are so popular. And they are popular because I say they are, and make them so.
I think all you white hatters (mad hatters?) blame us, the real good guys, for the fact that you just aren’t good enough to actually get yours or your clients sites even indexed, let alone ranked.
I’ve gone in after many an unsuccesful white hat SEO campaign and ACTUALLY gotten the client the traffic they deserve. And by deserve I mean they paid for it, same as any business that pays for advertising, so they deserve the traffic.
By the way, having a drink with someone certainly isn’t wrong. I quite often invite my opposition out for drinks to pick their brains.
Why would Dave need to steal content? To be frank, most content isn’t worth stealing – auto-generation has been, and increasingly will be, the way to go IMO.
>> and 2 others who as far as I know are good guys,
LOL, shows what you know then
>> Speaking with the enemy at a conference is one thing, giving >> them free drinks and a private chat inside the worlds largest
>> search company is another.
You’re missing the point a bit. As in most businesses, you keep your friends close, and your enemies closer….
Also, whether you like some of his methods or not, Dave is one of a handful of guys who really understand the “big picture” in search. Why shouldn’t Google, or any of the big SE’s, want to talk to him? For all the stuff he has inserted into various indexes over the years, if he can provide a good insight on how to handle this, that or the other issue eevry now and again, his influence on the quality of results is going to be positive overall
>>LOL, shows what you know then
haha
Ok – as one who was THERE with Dave, Jen, Matt, Larry, and Sergey:
I am a black hat – and I would love to be a white hat, but after seeing that 80 sites and 150 content writers makes not even a million a year – I don’t think I could switch sides.
I have gotten free drinks at a Adult convention from Google. I have gotten dinner from them in other places. I actually don’t think I got a free drink this time.
I don’t break any rules. I never submit my sites to google – they choose to visit and add my pages.
You have links at the top that are designed to make it look like navigation on your site to get a higher click through rate – does that make you an evil blackhat scumbag?
I guess that the Google boys know the rule to keep your friends close and your enemies even closes.
Congrats DaveN on your trip round google.
The Black Hat Seo`s Will conquer the web and the White Hat Wimps are concerned that they will no longer have a job when things get more competetive.
Hey bitching at the system very rarely works… working with it in every possible setting gets you a long way as this night proved out.
I am annoyed I left the engineer’s makeshift count early and then when I came back Matt was gone… now I know where.
If there was any info passed that could be for public consumption blog or post it where some of us will benefit!!!
“I have gotten free drinks at a Adult convention from Google. I have gotten dinner from them in other places. I actually don’t think I got a free drink this time.” Chris R
Have to love the comps – Google is definitely leading the way in smart customer/public relations.
I find this all so interesting. Matt makes a very good point at his blog. The people at Google are not dumb, I know Matt and he is a very bright person. There is a reason for everything he does. There is no one I know that cares more for the quality of the Google search results then Matt Cutts.
Bottom line, he is doing what he can, to gain information from those that spam the engines. And the spammers do the same, they do what they can to gain information to spam the engines.
Why is there a “good cop – bad cop” tactic to interrogate criminals?
IMO – Google is smart.
Implying that there is an unholy alliance between Google and black hat spammers is, well, ludicrous.
Whenever Matt’s talking with SEOs, he’s taking notes. Sure, he’s writing down the URL you haven’t been able to get into Google for six months, but he’s taking notes on what he’s hearing, too. Matt’s blog points out that Google’s latest initiative against scraper sites came about from conversations at WebmasterWorld’s New Orleans conference.
Keep feeding of those crumbs black hatters
I can understand that they want to meet the “enemy” and maybe hammer out a peace treaty. Still, if they allow it, then they will see more of it.
We need to have people register b4 their site can be indexed. That is a good way of stopping content crooks. Also, why not charge a fee to have your site included in google?
Charge?! Never! I dont’t pay!
I notice how many spammy websites conatin Google adsense and then use Black Hat SEO to gain top rankings in Google organic SERP’s. Do you think the conflict between revenue generation on Adsense side and relevant non spam SERP’s is driving the black SEO success. In other words google has a built in intersest to not enforceing their suggested webmaster guidleines for Back Hat sites that drive revenue to Google Adwords.