Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne
Dave, I agree and that's why I've been posting on this topic. IMO, there is a lot of misleading information being spread by a few who have been posting here and in the Google webmaster blog discussion as well. IMO, Google does everyone a big favor by just saying "the W3C nofollow definition is the best guide". One sentence and then it's not about paid but whether authors' are "voting" or selling ads or both . I have mixed feelings because I can take either side of the "Google is killing competition" or trying to protect relevancy. If they took the W3C path then much of this discussion is moot. It's all pretty straight forward and the guidelines are IMO, crystal clear!
Source: Can inbound links really hurt you? |
<rant>
A majority of what's placed a "bur under my saddle" about all of it, including Google's stance, is guess what, not my job. If your business model doesn't work the way you want it to, change it. Don't expect me to change mine so it does. It's not my job to "code" anything to satisfy a business model that is not mine.
Business models need to adapt the environment. Trying to change the environment so it meets the business model is destined to fail.
Voting? Only if someone places some kind of "value" in what they consider a "vote". When they place a lot of "value" in a "vote" then perhaps they should look harder at not only that "value" but what they freely choose to place value in and/or on. If they can't do that without me telling them so, there's a problem with them, not me.
SE's are not the end user. They are the middleman. If the information they are providing to the end user is somehow "tainted" or "misleading" then they need to change how they evalute and present the data and NOT try and change the data they are evaluating so that their model works the way they want it to.
Any company that comes to me and says... "Dave, the way you are conducting your business is hampering the way way we are conducting ours. We're not going to change the way we do business so you'll have change the way you do yours or else" is not likely to get a "blue sky and sunshine" response from me.
How about if SE's place zero value on links? Then there's no concerns at all with me having to tell them. How about if I get to tell the SE's just how much value they should place? They (one in particular) need me to tell them what links to place no "value" on how about how much value to place on the rest? Should I really have to tell them that an empty shopping cart is a really shi**y page to include in a search result or index in the first place? They can't figure that out on their own?
<rant>
Dave