Google Says Blocking Countries Outside of the US is Against

[nullvariable]

Whitelist? Depends on the site but if you're not worried about losing any possible visitors...go for it I say...

Originally Posted by kgun

Now I invite all of you that have posted in this thread to rethink the issue. Most of us start out by:

allow from all IP regions.

Why not turn that around and

deny from all

and gradually open up IP regions.

[spiderbait]

I've read all the posts so far and haven't seen anyone referencing Google's webmaster tools, where you can specify a geographical target (unless this is what CrankyDave was referring to).

According to Google:

If your site is aimed at users in a particular location, you can associate your site with a geographic target. We'll use this information to help us determine how your site appears in location-specific search results.

Now, I realize that this tool is at the current time limited in usefulness and scope. But perhaps this should be the focus of people's opposition to Google's decree regarding IP blocking.

In my opinion, the onus should be on Google to not only respect the geo-targeting in the webmaster tools, but to even expand it and make it more country specific (just like targeting your AdWords). So, if you don't want your site to show up in the search results in certain countries (because you can't do business there or whatever your reason) you should be able to tell Google this.

Really, if their main concern is protecting the quality and relevance of their SERPs, this is the way to achieve it.

[kgun]

Great idea.

[spiderbait]

I've just read some clarification on this subject:

Danny Sullivan said:

Heard from Google. "As long as the web server always blocks IPs from (say) Africa, it's not doing anything special/different for Googlebot, and so it wouldn't be considered cloaking, but geolocation instead."

And then Matt Cutts confirmed it:

Yup, what Danny said. The downside of doing a lot more talking to webmasters and site owners is that sometimes we'll misspeak, but I'd much rather have that problem and sometimes need to clarify than not be talking to webmasters as much.
Barry, thanks for highlighting this, and JohnMu, thanks for always being willing to answer questions in the Google webmaster discussion group.

Both of these quotes have been copied from here:
Sphinn - Google Says Blocking Countries Outside of the US is Against Policies

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by spiderbait

I've read all the posts so far and haven't seen anyone referencing Google's webmaster tools, where you can specify a geographical target (unless this is what CrankyDave was referring to).

Not really. The thing to remember is that this will not prevent "visitors" (people, bots, etc.) in those regions from getting to your site. In the case of a site being the target of malicious or potentially malicious activity, not displaying the site in the results does little to nothing.

All this does is help Google. Not neccessarily a bad thing but does not address the problem.

Dave

[spiderbait]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Not really. The thing to remember is that this will not prevent "visitors" (people, bots, etc.) in those regions from getting to your site. In the case of a site being the target of malicious or potentially malicious activity, not displaying the site in the results does little to nothing.

All this does is help Google. Not neccessarily a bad thing but does not address the problem.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I hope you realize though, that I am defending the practice of IP blocking.

Therefore, my point is that Google should give us tools to tell them where NOT to show our sites and then our IP blocking won't affect the quality of their SERPs.

So, hopefully you can see that it does actually address the problem.
Thanks.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by spiderbait

Hi Dave,

I hope you realize though, that I am defending the practice of IP blocking.

Therefore, my point is that Google should give us tools to tell them where NOT to show our sites and then our IP blocking won't affect the quality of their SERPs.

So, hopefully you can see that it does actually address the problem.
Thanks.

Not sure I see that spiderbait.

If an IP or IP range demonstrates to a site owner that activity from that IP or IP range is generally or mostly
mischievous (to put it very lightly) how does simply not showing the site in the SERP's address the problem? How does it address the problem for links from other sites?

Dave

[spiderbait]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Not sure I see that spiderbait.

Hi Dave,

I'm sorry, I thought I was being clear. Here goes again:

(1) We should be free to block whatever IPs we feel necessary, without fear of penalty from Google (probably this is moot anyway, given the clarification from Matt Cutts).

(2) Google should allow us to specify the countries we intend to restrict through IP blocking.

(3) Google would then have the ability to protect their SERPs (their purported reason for disapproving of IP blocking) by not showing our sites to visitors from the countries we specified.

RESULT: Google protects its SERPs and we continue to protect our sites through IP blocking.

Did I get it this time?

[crankydave]

Okay...

So your suggestion involves telling Google when you block an IP?

In other words, say I've blocked this IP block ##.###.* because of malicious behavior. How does me telling Google this help them?

Dave

[kgun]

But I see the problems for Google if they aim to be a "global encyclopedia".

The paper version of Ecyclopedia Britannica is available everywhere.

Online version: Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Their aim is that spam shall be completely deleted from the SERP's and suspect sites (both subjective concepts) found at the bottom of the SERP's.

[spiderbait]

Originally Posted by crankydave

So your suggestion involves telling Google when you block an IP?

In other words, say I've blocked this IP block ##.###.* because of malicious behavior. How does me telling Google this help them?

Hi again Dave,

If that were what I was suggesting (it's not) AND Google decided to implement and support, I suppose it would help Google because they could restrict their SERPs based on the IPs we specified.

However, that's not what I'm suggesting and I suspect it would be wildly impractical.

What I am suggesting is focused specifically on this forum topic, which relates to geographically based IP blocking (topic title: "Google Says Blocking Countries Outside of the US is Against") we should be able to tell Google which countries we intend to block.

Not specific IPs, but country blocks of IPs.

And I'm suggesting a list of countries for either inclusion/exclusion be added to the Google Webmaster Tools.

Jade

[activeco]

Originally Posted by crankydave

In other words, say I've blocked this IP block ##.###.* because of malicious behavior. How does me telling Google this help them?

They maintain the quality of their results by not showing the (non-existent) page to that area.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by kgun

But I see the problems for Google if they aim to be a "global encyclopedia".

The paper version of Ecyclopedia Britannica is available everywhere.

Online version: Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Their aim is that spam shall be completely deleted from the SERP's and suspect sites (both subjective concepts) found at the bottom of the SERP's.

Thought you were on holiday Kgun. You must really like us!

BTW... Happy Independence Day US!

Dave <--- hopes you enjoy your holiday Kgun

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by activeco

They maintain the quality of their results by not showing the (non-existent) page to that area.

Google is able (or should be?) to restrict their SERP's by IP?

Dave

[kgun]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Thought you were on holiday Kgun. You must really like us!

I am prepearing for one. I leave tomorrow.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by spiderbait

Hi again Dave,

If that were what I was suggesting (it's not) AND Google decided to implement and support, I suppose it would help Google because they could restrict their SERPs based on the IPs we specified.

However, that's not what I'm suggesting and I suspect it would be wildly impractical.

What I am suggesting is focused specifically on this forum topic, which relates to geographically based IP blocking (topic title: "Google Says Blocking Countries Outside of the US is Against") we should be able to tell Google which countries we intend to block.

Not specific IPs, but country blocks of IPs.

And I'm suggesting a list of countries for either inclusion/exclusion be added to the Google Webmaster Tools.

Jade

Isn't geotargeting already in their webmaster tools?

I can see the argument for "requesting" that webmasters remove a particular country via geotargeting if they are blocking every single IP from that country, but I suspect that the bulk of IP's that are blocked are not entire countries.

Dave

[activeco]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Google is able (or should be?) to restrict their SERP's by IP?

Restrict? No. Many will agree that Google adjusts it's SERP's according to the user's IP. If an URL in SERP's is banned for that IP on the server side, it's kicked out from SERP's, only in that case.
At least, it is supposed to work in that way.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by kgun

I am prepearing for one. I leave tomorrow.

Have a good time!

Dave

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by activeco

Restrict? No. Many will agree that Google adjusts it's SERP's according to the user's IP. If an URL in SERP's is banned for that IP on the server side, it's kicked out from SERP's, only in that case.
At least, it is supposed to work in that way.

That's new one on me. I'm unaware of any means of Google being able to tell if a site is preventing access from a single IP and not show that site to someone searching from that IP.

Do you have info you can point to?

Dave

[kgun]

And now it is up to you to be sceptical to members coming here and generalizing from their bad experince to concluding that this is a fact.

Advice: Take a sicentific attitude.

H0: What you want control over (are sceptical to).

Then a follow up question. Can you reject that with scientific (enough data).

[kgun]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Do you have info you can point to?

Exactly. Clever (young?) man.

[spiderbait]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Isn't geotargeting already in their webmaster tools?

Hi Dave,

I'll refer you to my initial post in which I specifically referenced Google's existing geotargeting in their webmaster tools, but also mentioned that they are limited to specifying ONLY the particular location you want to target (not locations you want to restrict).

Originally Posted by spiderbait

I've read all the posts so far and haven't seen anyone referencing Google's webmaster tools, where you can specify a geographical target (unless this is what CrankyDave was referring to).

According to Google:

Now, I realize that this tool is at the current time limited in usefulness and scope. But perhaps this should be the focus of people's opposition to Google's decree regarding IP blocking.

In my opinion, the onus should be on Google to not only respect the geo-targeting in the webmaster tools, but to even expand it and make it more country specific (just like targeting your AdWords). So, if you don't want your site to show up in the search results in certain countries (because you can't do business there or whatever your reason) you should be able to tell Google this.

Really, if their main concern is protecting the quality and relevance of their SERPs, this is the way to achieve it.

And regarding your comment about the goal of blocking entire countries:

Originally Posted by crankydave

I can see the argument for "requesting" that webmasters remove a particular country via geotargeting if they are blocking every single IP from that country, but I suspect that the bulk of IP's that are blocked are not entire countries.

It's quite true that blocking an entire country can be difficult if not impossible, but that doesn't stop people from trying. As many previous posters on this topic have indicated, they either can't do business with a particular country or they have found that 99.9% of the traffic from a particular country is malicious, so they attempt to block entire countries.

They may not be 100% effective, which is why country-block lists are always being updated, but many webmaster are trying nonetheless.

Finally, a hitherto unmentioned benefit (if Google permitted this sort of geotargeting) is that some mailicious activity would be curtailed simply by removing our sites from the SERPs in the countries we choose, since Google is a useful tool and is often used by hackers to find the sites they target.

Thanks again,
Jade

[activeco]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Do you have info you can point to?

OK, let's try it from the other side.
This whole thread is about the misfortunate statement from a Google employee, which turned to be wrong.
The rectification used the logic already known to many webmasters:

The important part is that you do not treat the Googlebots any different than other users from that region. So if your site blocks users in the region where the Googlebot comes from (based on the IP address and your IP/Location lookups), you should be blocking it as well.

Why is that?
In that way they won't show the url in question to blocked users. If the bot approaches the url from other places and is able to fetch it, the url will be shown to the rest, based on that and other algo criteria.
This is easy to test and everyone is welcome to do it and post eventual contrary results.

Of course Google can't cover even the "A" classes to send their bots from those IP's, so they have a problem with determining all the blocked IP's on servers. Because of that the SERP's still show some URL's redirecting or restricting user's IP, which sometimes can be seen as cloaking and create problems to site in question.

For that reason it would be of mutual interest to have a reliable mechanism where webmasters could provide that info.
Basically it will say: "I am blocking XXX.XXX.* range. Don't show this URL to users in that range."

[kgun]

Originally Posted by activeco

For that reason it would be of mutual interest to have a reliable mechanism where webmasters could provide that info.
Basically it will say: "I am blocking XXX.XXX.* range. Don't show this URL to users in that range."

It should be easy for Google to make that software / tool. But as explained above there are backdoors.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by kgun

It should be easy for Google to make that software / tool.

IMO, the perfect place for that would be robots.txt.

But as explained above there are backdoors.

This is about Google.

[crankydave]

<bit off topic>

Please don't think I'm dodging/ignoring any of you. Since it's a holiday in the US and my family is getting together today, I'm in the middle of preparing food etc. and really need to get going... for now.

Love this discussion/debate!

</bit off topic>

Dave

[Dubbya]

Webnauts,

Just a thought here, but instead of redirecting users from a certain region to your home page, go ahead and let them submit the email form.

You could use a validation script to check the IP, tld, country code, telephone number or any other information that they submit then just return an error message telling them that their submission was not accepted for whatever reason you like.

You reduce the amount of email spam you receive and you won't have blocked or restricted anyone from accessing your site. Spiders can still index the page but can't submit it anyway. No harm, no foul.

The way I see it, I'd love nothing more than to know I've wasted a spammer's time. If they want to send unsolicited email spam, let them fill out the form. You don't have to send the email message if you don't want to.

.02

[kgun]

Originally Posted by activeco

IMO, the perfect place for that would be robots.txt.

Probably yes.

Originally Posted by activeco

This is about Google.

Economists like me are used to assumptions.

Assumption: Every known (and unknown) GoogleBOT respects robots.txt.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by kgun

Clever (young?) man.

Dave young?
He's spending his time talking tomato's, so I would estimate him being in his early twenties.

[nullvariable]

Originally Posted by Dubbya

Webnauts,

Just a thought here, but instead of redirecting users from a certain region to your home page, go ahead and let them submit the email form.

You could use a validation script to check the IP, tld, country code, telephone number or any other information that they submit then just return an error message telling them that their submission was not accepted for whatever reason you like.

You reduce the amount of email spam you receive and you won't have blocked or restricted anyone from accessing your site. Spiders can still index the page but can't submit it anyway. No harm, no foul.

The way I see it, I'd love nothing more than to know I've wasted a spammer's time. If they want to send unsolicited email spam, let them fill out the form. You don't have to send the email message if you don't want to.

.02

Actually Webnauts and I discussed this quite a bit yesterday and decided that we are going to use two addresses, one for people submitting from our range of previously blocked IPs and one for everyone else. The one for blocked IPs is an autoresponder stating that we do not accept offers of service via this email and if they need our services to send an email to a gmail account. Since most of the spammers are using gmail accounts (in this case) it works great for reporting them. I really don't think one page throwing a 403 would mess with our SERPs for that country but since we're not concerned with blocking people from that page but more reducing the amount of junk mail this solution is better.

I'm still working on a seperate project to handle bad bots which will have a whole different set of rules but we'll see where that goes.

[nullvariable]

Originally Posted by kgun

Probably yes.


Economists like me are used to assumptions.

Assumption: Every known (and unknown) GoogleBOT respects robots.txt.

Too many people forget that Google has another HUGE source of data...are you using the Google toolbar with pagerank? Lots and lots of people are! Google also has data from AdSense, Google Analytics, and of course they most certainly monitor how long you spend between searches so they can determine if you are getting results. Hit the back button or do a new search really quickly and they will mark your search up as it being likely you didn't get what you were looking for......

[activeco]

Originally Posted by nullvariable

Hit the back button or do a new search really quickly and they will mark your search up as it being likely you didn't get what you were looking for......

I certainly agree with their huge (re)sources network.
However this one above would be a wrong signal; I am surely not the only one who opens all the interesting results in new tabs and then check them.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by nullvariable

Actually Webnauts and I discussed this quite a bit yesterday and decided that we are going to use two addresses, one for people submitting from our range of previously blocked IPs and one for everyone else. The one for blocked IPs is an autoresponder stating that we do not accept offers of service via this email and if they need our services to send an email to a gmail account. Since most of the spammers are using gmail accounts (in this case) it works great for reporting them. I really don't think one page throwing a 403 would mess with our SERPs for that country but since we're not concerned with blocking people from that page but more reducing the amount of junk mail this solution is better.





I'm still working on a seperate project to handle bad bots which will have a whole different set of rules but we'll see where that goes.

1. There are databases online.
2. Some email filters are fairly good, so you can collect and rigister those adresses too, and put them in your database. The problem is that they may use softwae to generate fake email adresses, so your database may soon increase exponentially and be unmanageable.
3. I stand by my proposal of blocking all IP regions and allowing n by n and register what happens.
4. But it is about Google and not proven bad bots and email harvesters etc.
5. Here Michael Schrenk Ltd. (webbots) is another link that may interest you if you stand by your aim at using a script.

[nullvariable]

Originally Posted by activeco

I certainly agree with their huge (re)sources network.
However this one above would be a wrong signal; I am surely not the only one who opens all the interesting results in new tabs and then check them.

agreed but their algos are crazy and I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of javascript on certain things that adds a tiny bit of weight...I do the same

[nullvariable]

Originally Posted by kgun

1. There are databases online.
2. Some email filters are fairly good, so you can collect and rigister those adresses too, and put them in your database. The problem is that they may use softwae to generate fake email adresses, so your database may soon increase exponentially and be unmanageable.
3. I stand by my proposal of blocking all IP regions and allowing n by n and register what happens.
4. But it is about Google and not proven bad bots and email harvesters etc.
5. Here Michael Schrenk Ltd. (webbots) is another link that may interest you if you stand by your aim at using a script.

the eventual plan will be to assign a risk factor much like many spam programs do. Certain behaviors will add weight and at a certain point the script will simply return 403s or 302 off to a honeypot. For example a hit to robots.txt would indicate high chance of a good bot while a hit to favicon.ico would imply a typical user. Track spider like access without robots.txt and add a few 404 hits or accessing a page blocked by robots.txt and then you ban the IP...I will probably work with a few APIs to check IPs aswell. I may just instead of actually blocking add a few seconds delay for probable bad bots....

but back to the topic at hand...There won't be any blocking of whole regions while allowing the Googlebot from said region to be able to see the site, doesn't make any sense to do that. I wouldn't want to show in the SERPs for a region if I am blocking it....

[malice95]

At my day job I instituted a policy were we block the entire
Asia Pacific region from our company network. We don't do business
over there so why should we communicate with them. It has cut spam by
90% and attacks are down 70%. We aren't going back... google is over
stretching, it doesnt own the internet.

Mike

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by activeco

Dave young?
He's spending his time talking tomato's, so I would estimate him being in his early twenties.

hehehehehe... Thank you.

I remember my twenties. Does that count?

Part of the problem is that blocking a specific IP may not block googlebot. Additionally, blocking an IP or range may indeed be blocking the bot and thus preventing the entire country from seeing the site in the results when that is not the intent. Granted, if you are blocking entire countries by IP you are going to be blocking the bot from that country. But let us remember, this is a Google problem not a webmaster problem. Although making such things a webmaster problem is what Google seems to like to do. There's where I take issue.

Making it so granular as to expect/request/require webasters to "notfy" a search engine, any SE, of such granularity is very slipperly slope. Building sites for SE's. Again, it is their business model. Additionally, do you really think that Google is going to be interested, or inclined, to deliver results based upon every single IP on the planet? In IPv6 for example there could be 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6 IP's.

@spiderbait

Granted, some folks intent on "mischief" do use Google and other SE's as well, to find sites they wish to target. However, simply removing a site from the SERP's would be just as effective as trying to drain a lake with a teaspoon. In many/most instances, they've already found you which is why webmasters are trying to block them. Secondly, if you're showing up well in the SERP's to begin with, especially in Googles case, it's a relatively safe assumption that you have a whole lot of links from elsewhere. Plus it's also at least a good guess, that very large directories would serve the same purpose just as well if not better, than a SE.

Point taken on the geotargeting.

Dave

[activeco]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Making it so granular as to expect/request/require webasters to "notfy" a search engine, any SE, of such granularity is very slipperly slope. Building sites for SE's. Again, it is their business model.

True, but if you are interested in their SERP's some flexibility helps both sites.
Besides, the concept of e.g. robots.txt is older than Google and it was always a free will of a webmaster whether to use it or not.

Additionally, do you really think that Google is going to be interested, or inclined, to deliver results based upon every single IP on the planet?

Sure I do. User's IP is just one minor factor in delivering right, customized results. It is enough to change some small parameter in browser settings to get completely different outcome.
For example one may try this simple search: seo - Google Search

then open a new tab/window, clear cache&cookies and change default language in browser configuration (in FF: Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General tab > Choose (Languages) ) to some language (move it to the top) you usually don't use, e.g. French or Spanish (just to stay in the same character set).
Do exactly the same search.

With different combinations of IP and languages one can hardly find more than three identical URL's in SERP's.

[AVC]

Originally Posted by malice95

At my day job I instituted a policy were we block the entire
Asia Pacific region from our company network. We don't do business
over there so why should we communicate with them. It has cut spam by
90% and attacks are down 70%. We aren't going back... google is over
stretching, it doesnt own the internet.

Mike

No, but they don't have to include your site in the search results for users in those IP ranges and they should not by sound logic do so.

Some of you are making a big deal out of a common sense issue here.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by activeco

True, but if you are interested in their SERP's some flexibility helps both sites.
Besides, the concept of e.g. robots.txt is older than Google and it was always a free will of a webmaster whether to use it or not.

I think it's safe to say that Google is far more interested in "their" overall SERP's than I am. Delivering SERP's is indeed "their" business model and not mine. Helping them with "their" quality is simply not part of my business model. If Google needs my help in delivering "their" SERP's then IMO they've got problems they really need to address.

Originally Posted by activeco

Sure I do. User's IP is just one minor factor in delivering right, customized results. It is enough to change some small parameter in browser settings to get completely different outcome.
For example one may try this simple search: seo - Google Search

then open a new tab/window, clear cache&cookies and change default language in browser configuration (in FF: Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General tab > Choose (Languages) ) to some language (move it to the top) you usually don't use, e.g. French or Spanish (just to stay in the same character set).
Do exactly the same search.

With different combinations of IP and languages one can hardly find more than three identical URL's in SERP's.

Not sure what your point is other than Google uses a variety of factors when ordering results.

If a users IP is such a minor factor then a site owner blocking them would also be minor or have a minor impact. Geotargetting helps the site owner, Google, and the end user. That's flexibility. Telling Google what IP's I block helps them and their customers not me or mine. If I'm blocking an IP I really don't care what the SERP's look like to people on that IP and I certainly am not interested in making their SERP's "better" or I wouldn't have blocked the IP in the first place.

How about going after the "bad guys"? The ones responsible for creating the need to block IP's in the first place. Perhaps because that does not help them? Don't kid yourself. Google is interested in Google and their business not yours or mine. To the only extent they care about my business is whether or not it's of direct benefit to theirs.

I'm a firm believer in that the key to being successful is helping someone else do the same. But when that gets twisted into "help me be successful or I'll "punish" you" I take issue.

Dave

[AVC]

Well Dave, when someone scrapes your content and starts ranking for it with 30 different domains as happens on some search engines not as sophisticated as Google, you will then be interested in "Google SERP quality" and would be the first one to start a thread on it here.

So Google SERP's and their quality are your business, so please jump on the train and report bad results, spam and content scrapers, this is for you Dave, and other users, in addition to Google.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by crankydave

I think it's safe to say that Google is far more interested in "their" overall SERP's than I am.

Of course, many are not interested in Google at all.
For them, there is no reason to praise or scold Google for any decision it makes regarding it's search results.
But for many others just a small slip in SERP's means changing their lives. They care.

If a users IP is such a minor factor then a site owner blocking them would also be minor or have a minor impact. Geotargetting helps the site owner, Google, and the end user. That's flexibility. Telling Google what IP's I block helps them and their customers not me or mine. If I'm blocking an IP I really don't care what the SERP's look like to people on that IP and I certainly am not interested in making their SERP's "better" or I wouldn't have blocked the IP in the first place.

OK but if you depend on it, you can't expect Google's algo's to be absolutely perfect and then complain when they kick you out of SERP's because of some technicality they couldn't satisfactory solve due to lack of some reliable data.
I see no reason for those interested not to provide such data which would be of mutual interest.

I'm a firm believer in that the key to being successful is helping someone else do the same. But when that gets twisted into "help me be successful or I'll "punish" you" I take issue.

Absolutely.
In this particular case it was a misinterpretation of Google's practices by a Google employee which made things look like that.
However his later rectification proved it was not the case.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by activeco

Of course, many are not interested in Google at all.
For them, there is no reason to praise or scold Google for any decision it makes regarding it's search results.
But for many others just a small slip in SERP's means changing their lives. They care.

If a small slip in the Google SERP's is life changing, my suggestion would be to diversfy.

OK but if you depend on it, you can't expect Google's algo's to be absolutely perfect and then complain when they kick you out of SERP's because of some technicality they couldn't satisfactory solve due to lack of some reliable data.
I see no reason for those interested not to provide such data which would be of mutual interest.

Technicality? Ummmm... that's their business model. They depend far more upon websites. People are welcome to voluntarily provide what they wish of their own accord but not through fear of "punishment" AFAIC no matter how little or how great that dependency.

Absolutely.
In this particular case it was a misinterpretation of Google's practices by a Google employee which made things look like that.
However his later rectification proved it was not the case.

Yes, cudos, and rightly so. Not the case when it came to paid links though. Code for us or else. What's next?

Dave