Sunday Reading 28 October 2007

Note: I’m not an expert on what follows. The words that follow are just some thoughts I’ve had over the past couple of weeks. Take them for what they’re worth.

The big news this week has been the decrease in toolbar page rank experienced by many blogs and mainstream sites. In Google Changing the PageRank Algorithm? Daniel Scocco at Daily Blog Tips give a list of some of the larger blogs and more mainstream sites that have lost page rank in the past couple of weeks. Many of lost either one or two points. Shards, for instance, went from a PR5 to a PR3.

The consensus seems to be that the decrease in page rank is due to the hosting of paid links such as you see in the sponsored section of the sidebar here. In The Google Page Rank Pendulum Swings�. Again Darren Rowse at Problogger.net says he has confirmation of this.

According to Google, page rank is a rating devised to determine the importance of a web page based on the number and source of links to the page. Theoretically, the more links, and the higher quality page giving the link, the higher quality the page being linked to . Thus, it receives a higher page rank.

Where page rank comes in to play is in search results. Google combines page rank with text matching to determine search results and the order of search results. Much of the furor around the web appears to be because people are afraid of two things

• Their sites will lose placement in search results as a result of the decrease in the site’s page rank
• Advertising revenue will fall because the site will be perceived as worth less due to a lower page rank

Paid links have two main purposes

• To drive readers to a site directly. In other words, they are a form of fairly traditional marketing
• To increase the page rank of a site. With an increase in page rank, there is an increased likelihood of showing up higher in search results, and so an increased likelihood of readers visiting the advertised site. In other words, it is a form of marketing that is an artifact of the mechanisms that Google uses to determine search results.

In Page Rank Madness Dave Peralty at eXtra For Every Publisher makes the point that advertising valuation systems that make page rank an important variable are too simplistic. He’s right.

Google has a huge conflict of interest. This conflict comes in to play when they purposely degrade the page rank of sites that host paid links. They are the major search engine on the internet. They rely on advertising to make money. Every ad you see on the internet is a paid link. How does Google differentiate between ‘normal’ ads and paid links? Do they look for placement? Do they look for specific company names? Are they targeting specific advertising agencies? Do they look for words like sponsor? I don’t know. I don’t claim to know or even have a guess.

I can understand penalizing sites that host paid links that are not differentiated to the reader in some way visually or verbally. For example, I’ve been approached to place ads in my posts that look just like normal links. I said no. If they are double-underlined or visually different, I can’t see any real problem with them. The reader knows it isn’t a normal link. On the other hand, sometimes you see links that look like normal links, but are really affiliate links. By rights, these should be either labelled as such or you can see in the toolbar that they go to known stores like Amazon, so they are self-labeling.

I can also understand refusing to serve ads through Adsense to sites that are obvious splogs, scrapers, and spam sites. Google doesn’t do this. How curious.

It would make more sense to me to discount known advertising in determining the page rank of the advertised site rather than penalizing the host of the advertising. After all, the incoming links to the site, if unpaid, are just as valid and just as much a vote for the importance and relevance of the site as they would be if the site didn’t contain paid links.

In the meantime, why sweat the change? As I just alluded, your site’s importance or quality hasn’t changed in the past two weeks, only Google’s public announcement of their opinion. If you’re relying solely on Google and you’re trying to build an income with your blog, you really need to pull your head out of the sand. As Tony Clark said, in that case you’re working for them.

Do you really want to do that?

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Thank you for taking the time to visit Shards and listen to the podcast. I hope you find something that speaks to you, that helps you build the you that you really are. Special thanks to those of you who have found something that speaks strongly enough to be work linking to. Over the past couple of weeks these have included

Web 2.0 Update: Internet Happenings. In mentioning Shards, Stephen said “I’m a subscriber, and you should be too”. How can you not appreciate that?

This is my regular call for help with Share a Square. Shelly mentioned Shards in Post Office Madness. Share A Square Update. Take a look. Make a square. They’re coming in from all over the world.

Meditating on Meditation, Part 2: Concentrative Meditation. Susan details  some of results after meditating for a week.

Gleb posted the next batch of posts on definitions of personal development by writers on the subject in What Is Personal Development: part 3.

Liz Strauss had a birthday party this week for her blog, Successful Blog. She celebrated with an all day open comments party, an extended version of the open mic nights she hosts every Tuesday. There’s only one rule. Be nice. Liz kindly allowed several others to guest post in the week leading up to the party. My contribution was Your Mother�s Daughter.

In Are you Connected? Dave Schoof at Engaging the Disquiet joined in a meme focused around a beautiful image of man in space, to which he invited me. I’m looking forward to the post I do.

In The peace of movement… Michael Weir give a model of the placebo effect that he uses in his work as a hypnotherapist.

In Notable Blogging Links - 10/21/07, Deb Call links to several blogs, including Shards. The links are all worth visiting.

Have a great week.

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