Google to WC: Drop dead
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
Google’s most recent edict to blog owners is another example of how it — and not the blog owner — controls blog content, and how the search giant punishes those of us even when we do the right thing. The new system says a wine writer who uses samples, but is transparent about where the samples come from, is no better than a sleaze bag who loads a post with paid links and pretends they aren’t.
At first, Google’s March 11 blog post, “Best practices for bloggers reviewing free products they receive from companies,” seems to make perfect sense, distinguishing between what Google calls “organic links” and links that are only there because the blogger is getting something — money, product, or more links — to put them in the post. Links matter to Google, because that’s one of the criteria used to give pages a better search ranking, and a better search ranking means more visitors to the blog.
So how could something like that affect me, or anyone else who uses only organic links? Because the blog post says that links that refer to an on-line merchant selling the product or to the company that makes the product aren’t organic. That means, I think, that every time I review a wine, whether a sample or not, and link to the winery, I will be punished by Google unless I use a specific “no follow” command in the link. To make matters worse, using “no follow” means I don’t get credit for the link, even though I’m not doing anything wrong. Talk about the worst of both worlds.
Ignoring for a moment that adding “no follow” makes writing posts that much more complicated (if anyone understands “no follow” after reading the link, you can explain it me), it also lumps me with the sleaze bags by assuming that I benefit from the link. In fact, I don’t. No one asks me to put them in, and most wine producers — notorious for their inability to understand how this stuff works — don’t even know the links are there. I add the links to help readers get more information about the wine, which used to be a best practice.
This is just another example of Google’s one-size-fits-all approach, in which it assumes all blogs are exactly alike because it’s easier for Google to think that way. Hence, any blog that contains product references must be trying to sell the product — which certainly isn’t the case for me or for anyone who offers honest reviews, whether wine or not. In Google’s world, though, there doesn’t seem to be such a thing as an honest review.
The headline on this post refers to the infamous 1975 New York Daily News headline during New York City’s bankruptcy crisis.
More about Google and wine blogging::
• Google AdSense, wine blogs, and Joe Camel
• Google as the WC’s editor
• Wine and sex
Jeff,
You may be needlessly concerned. As someone who makes his living designing web sites, let me offer a little more insight. What Google is particularly concerned with is selling page rank, which is when you get something for free (or money) for putting a link on your site __because your site is highly ranked by google. You are not going to have this problem because a) your site’s page rank isn’t high enough to merit concern by google and b) you wouldn’t do this anyway.
Their second concern is this idea of organic vs. inorganic links. My suspicion is that this won’t be an issue for you at all. When you’re reviewing a sample and educating consumers about the product, linking to the producer’s web site is arguably an organic link. But, you would be right to be concerned about that word “arguably.” It is technically possible that Google may decide that those links are a problem.
How would you know if they did? Your site analytics would show a huge drop in traffic. If that were to come to pass, you would be able to correct the problem by making your links Nofollow links, which you would have to do manually using the code editor view in WordPress. There’s probably even an extension you can get for WordPress that would allow you to have the option of inserting nofollow when you create the link in your editor view.
Here’s what a normal link looks like (minus the angle brackets)
a href=”http://www.vinography.com”
here’s what a link looks like with nofollow
a href=”http://www.vinography.com” rel=”nofollow”
But before you get too concerned, the important thing to pay attention to is that Google cares about good, quality, original content, and if you can believe it, their robotic algorithms are REALLY good at identifying it. And the good news is that your site IS original, quality content. The stuff google is interested in avoiding is pretty blatant shilling.
In short, I think you have nothing to worry about. Also, by the way, you don’t get much “credit” in any way that’s really meaningful to you from outbound links off your site, so if you had to make those nofollow, it wouldn’t materially affect your site’s rank or visibility.
Feel free to follow up with questions if you have them.
Thanks for the note, Alder, and the reassuring words. I hope you are correct, though the arguably bit bothers me, too.
Jeff,
While I may not be a recognizable name like Mr Yarrow, I’ve been blogging for a decade and seen more than my fair share of the inside of WordPress.
I’m not familiar with your work habits, but you may be able to leverage some tools to make the mechanics of linking easier. I’m a Windows user and I prefer to write offline. As such I use Windows Live Writer, which is a free tool from Microsoft.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8621
It’s specifically for blogging. Its linking tool lets you add the “no follow” property in the process of adding a link, if that should become important.
One of it’s nicer features is the ability to create a list of terms that automatically generate links when used in copy. I initially used this to automatically link to definitions for terminology that could stand some clarification.
In my tech blog I eventually used it to add Amazon affiliate links. In my case that generates just enough revenue to allow me splurge on a nicer bottle now and then.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Michael Graves
Ah, Windows Live Writer. Those were the days. I actually met one of the guys who built it all those years ago before they sold it Microsoft (and Microsoft did what Microsoft alway does).
I run Linux these days, so I can’t use Live Writer, even in its depreciated state. And I suppose I could cut and paste the correct no follow tag into the link, but it’s the principle of the thing.
And thank you for the kind words.
Since you are familiar – WLW was open-sourced late last year and is now available as Open Live Writer. The initial release is a step back from WLW, as certain code had to be removed. There’s a small but dedicated user-base that’s pressing on with making improvements.
No Linux version I’m afraid.
I just published a blog post this very morning that Google will consider inappropriate: I got samples of wine, reviewed them and linked to Wine Searcher so readers can buy them if they choose.
So how is this evil? Isn’t it JOURNALISM?
Google’s power needs to be limited, as it is beginning to stifle the press. We need to start a groundswell about this. This is what government is for. If anyone is starting a petition or movement, let me know, I’m in.
I don’t disagree, Blake. Google comes at this from an e-commerce perspective, where everything is about selling. It doesn’t seem to understand that not all of us want to sell something.
Blake,
Google only considers that evil if you’ve got something clearly to gain by doing so and have done so in collusion with the person who provided the free goods. Since you don’t and haven’t, they almost assuredly don’t care.
Alder