You have to ask yourself the question, given the resources it has at its disposal, the seemingly limitless funds and general marketing & personnel clout that it can throw at a situation, how come Google so often seem to open their mouths to change their feet?
How can such an organization that prides itself on the quality of its staff and resources engaged employ such a bunch of idiots to actually go out and do what they do at times?
First there was last year’s little escapade over the serious emergence of their new Social Media Promotional angles when they said that certain types of Link and Referral data was being withheld for…wait for it……Data protection issues. Then they were found to be selling, yes you’ve guessed it, that same Data to Adwords Buyers if they paid the right fees. The whole exercise was then blown wide apart when most observers rightly (in my opinion) highlighted the whole incident as the opening shots in driving the free version of Webmaster Tools under and the emergence of a Premium version of Webmaster Tools.
Now they’ve gone and done it again in another “hello Mr Foot please meet Mr Mouth” incident over paid Linking Campaigns.
Now for those who have only just entered this fun packed little Industry of ours, Google have developed, over the years, quite a negative stance (understatement here) on the whole concept of paid links. They don’t like them, they don’t like the practice of it and if they catch sites doing it then they basically consign them to the “nether regions of on-line hell” (or certainly below No 500 in the index or ban entirely) or so the theory goes.
Imagine the hilarity then when the Big G themselves get caught out a few days ago, supposedly engaged in a paid Link Building Campaign for their Chrome Browser but when challenged about it, suddenly develop a sense of moral outrage that “yes the Campaign was ours but it was not what we signed up for!”.
Really?
As they say over here in Ireland, “Do they think we’re not wise?”
Anyway back to the point, this whole episode highlights a great many things.
Firstly Google are going to do what Google want, for the interests of Google and not anyone else and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise?
Secondly they are not above making waves and delivering changes that come completely out of the blue as with yesterdays “Search, plus your World” announcement.
Now this has to be as clear an indication that they have finally decided to come out of the closet and take on FaceBook head on in the Social Arena with a beefed up “Google Plus” program.
Now my opinions of Google Plus in the early stages were very undecided and were very much powered by my distrust of all things Google and I still have some of the reservations but I do think that Google Plus could be “where it’s at in 2012″ and that 2012 could be the first year that FaceBook “catches a cold” (albeit not a major one).
We need to study at greater length the Google “Search, plus your World” concept further and we’ll write about in the days and weeks ahead as this could be something that it is essential to keep on the right side of with regards to Google but let me finish this with one last warning.
If in your or your client’s Campaigns you are indulging in anything even remotely, how can I put this, slightly greyish/leading to Black Hat then steer clear of Google Plus by a country mile.
The downside of Google Plus is that because they call the shots as you can only take part if you have a Google controlled account, this means that if a Grey Squirrel as much as breaks wind in Southern Spain then the boffins at the Googleplex in California will know about it. I know this might sound as if I am an apologist for the likes of George Orwell et all but Google plus could possibly turn out to be the most potentially Orwellian of online marketing tools in that it really is a case of Google playing the role of Big Brother.
They do know what you are up to so keep it smart and stay safe.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t indulge in the odd piece of “cute” marketing as that would be boring but just don’t do it with any user logins or profiles that you use for Google Plus.
Now a newsletter / email like this wouldn’t be the same without a “shameless wee plug” for one of our ongoing promotions and Volume 3 of Back Links Heaven has just been released and in this edition we cover the Forum software punBB and how we can use sites using punBB for our needs when it comes to placing links.
As with other editions of Back Links Heaven this version is available from us here at Backlinks Heaven (http://backlinksheaven.com ) and so far we have covered the following formats in Vols 1-3:
1. Vol 1 – UseBB +10k Assorted Forums
2. Vol 2 – AEForums + 10K Assorted Forums
3. Vol 3 – punBB + 10K Assorted Forums
Basically this whole Series will encompass over 500,000 assorted Forum Domain Urls spread over nearly 50 different Platforms that will, when finally published amount to arguably the largest and most comprehensive resource on Forum Marketing there is.
Each volume is available for $ 16 but there are a few limited slots still available for the Series Subscription which is $160 and represents a saving of over $640 over the entire Series.
If anyone is interested in this then get in touch and I can get you set up on the system.
