Ever since the bottom dropped out of the Google AdSense revenue I’ve searched and puzzled for an answer without success. Then I began getting Link-Removal requests from sites I had vetted long ago. Then one day Chuck Green, owner of the Jumpola web site asked a question on Facebook. The comments to that question inspired me to share my experiences with Amazon affiliates, Google, Panda, Penguin, SEO, searches, link removal requests, and the cybercrime industry.
As you have heard me mention many times in the past, I’m friends with Chuck Green, and his excellent “Jumpola.com” web site of links for designers. Back in 1993 I registered the domain “dtp-jumpstation.com”* and for several years offered the very exact same thing. Unfortunately someone forgot to update the domain, and it was nabbed by German cybercrooks — game over. Seven years later, Chuck launched Jumpola and the rest is history. But it’s not all good, and Chuck’s Jumpola is seriously excellent.
Chuck wrote on Facebook* that he received an email from a printing company wanting him to get rid of links in Jumpola . . .
> We're trying to contact the owner of jumpola.com. > Unfortunately, we've been notified by Google that > a link on your site pointing to our site didn't meet > Google’s guidelines and might be > getting viewed as a Link Scheme.
Chances are, if you own a web site with links to other sites, you too may have received the “Link Removal Requret” email. We’ve received hundreds of them. There are many, many, many in the world who will swear that what I’m about to write is pure fantasy. Well, maybe so. But this is the way it looks to me. What if I am right?
Having been in the online world since 1986, and linking on the web since 1992, I have amassed my share of outgoing links. In the days of the real World-Wide-Web, linking was encouraged. Linking is what made the web the web. When Madison Avenue* and organized crime* caught on, linking became a very lucrative venture. Then, an upstart named “Google” comes along to discover that people would actually pay for keywords. A lot more people than they thought. They discovered that along with the billions paid for keywords, there were as many web site owners who would do anything for a buck. Rapidly becoming the Lord of the Internet, they created AdSense*.
AdSense is Google’s “affiliate” program, inspired by Amaozn’s affiliate program, where you make a few hundredths of a cent when a user sees a Google AdSense ad in your site, and a few more hundredths of a cent if someone happens to click on the ad. Hey, it was a sure-fire way to get millions of little mom-n-pop web owners to give you free ad space on their site while believing they would get rich. Yup, me too … see that tall ad over to the right? Yup. That’s it. Many did get rich, in the very beginning. Just a few are getting rich today.
Make easy money selling books on your web site!
Make easy money selling books on your web site!
Both Amazon and Google have done very well over the years, riding on the backs of millions of web owners who wanted a piece of that pie in the sky. But the goose(s) became very posessive of that golden egg. Even though they were becoming very, very rich, the people making them rich were taking too much of the profits for themselves.
When we, the affiliates, began to make lots and lots of money off those books and “AdSense” ads, both Amazon and Google began quietly and cleverly instituting “policy” changes that would effectively throttle back the amounts we made and bring more profits into their own coffers. All the while, they maintained they were doing us a favor.
Amazon instituted the “Buy Used” button and put it right next to the “Buy Now” button. It was a devilishly delicious idea — because the ‘used’ sales did not give a commission to the Affliiate who brought that customer to buy. That day, 89% of affiliate fees went away, and the bottom dropped out of Amazon Affiliates checks. No consumer with a grain of sense will pay retail when there’s a button that lets you buy it for half, or a third. Poof. Fees gone. That left hundreds of thousands of sites still promoting Amazon books, sending ready buyers to Amazon for zip. Not a penny, zero, nill.
Sometime later, Google decides to goes public. They were no longer a ‘servant’ site. They now owed their soul to the shareholders, and had to start making real profits. The days of “doing no evil” were over.
After all, the success of Google’s AdSense also depends on the millions of sites where these ads appear — without those affiliates Google would have no ads to sell in the first place. So they really had to be a lot slicker than Amazon in finding a way to extort those existing web site owners. We don’t know what they did, but something they did cut the revenue in half. (Sometime in February, March and April of 2009) But it still wasn’t enough to fill the big shareholder pockets. Google realized they needed something a lot more powerful, and more effective. They needed something that would soften the sudden drop in revenue for all their “friends” — something everyone would rally behind. So they invented the Panda and Penguin algorithms threat. This would bring the world “quality” search results. (Picture the Grinch told little Sue Who that he was taking the tree to fix the light, and he’d bring it right back? ) Everyone cheered. Well, except me. To me, it was fairly obvious where they were headed with this.
As the planet’s only search engine of diety, Google’s Matt Cutts speaks:
It was brilliant. It was deliciously brilliant. People cheered and rallied. It not only solved the revenue problem, but it switched everybody’s attention away from Google’s revenue and pointed back it squarely back into the “service to the world” yarn. It generated a whole new smoke screen, spawning the “SEO” industry, generating a billion “experts” who would now be able to re-configure your site to be “Penguin” friendly! It was brilliant. All Google had to do was program a couple of apps that would scan your site and analyze the revenue potential of the links compared to all the other sites with similar links. Any links that are generating traffic away from Google’s profits would be tagged BAD! A little letter would be generated on the web site owner threatening penalties, and the owner would quickly come and ask YOU to remove the link. You gasped! They gasped. If the links weren’t removed, the clouds would open and both sites would be struck with “Google Death.” The plan was so brilliant and worked so well Google’s bottom line took a huge jump!
If you’re one of those web developers who follows all this, and believes in Google’s benevolence, then that’s perfectly okay. I’m sure things will work out. But, you’ll want to stop reading now. You’re okay, and you’ve got your work cut out for you. Those of you who want the rest of the story, can just hit the next page button . . . .
How do you know it’s bad when it’s not bad? Who do you believe?
As mentioned on the previous page, Chuck Green’s email is a living example. Chuck knows there’s nothing wrong with those links. The web was perfectly happy and prospering for two decades before Google. Chuck knows the organization he’s linking to is a good organization. He knows it’s a GOOD link — so far as reference links go. There’s nothing unnatural about that. But still … should he believe the Google threat? Will Google penalize him and move “Jumpola” down to page 60 in search results?
Most web designers I’ve talked to say “ignore it.” Back last year, I went and asked the designers on LinkedIN: “What do you do when you get a Google link remove demand?” Most of them said ignore it. But if you go and read the words of writers and bloggers like Jon Morrow (Now becoming filthy-rich heros because they now know how to ‘save’ you from Penguin!) you’ll be afraid and do anything to avoid “Google Death.” Of course these disciples of Penguin are happy to teach you how to comply to Google for a fee.
BUT HERE’S THE RUB . . . over on the Safenetting* side, where we’ve been spam and cybercrime fighters since 1997, I have discovered a something very strange. We’ve processed so many, we’ve started calling them: “Google Death Joe-Jobbers”! These strange emails are like phishing — but they are using a technique known as a “Joe Job” to scare web owners into removing links. The reason is unclear, but at the end of the day, it seems they want to erase the popularity of web sites they don’t like. Yes, that’s correct. As I said, the Design Center gets a lot of these requests. We routinely track down the sender’s authenticity and require them to provide us with a copy of the Google communication for security purposes. When the demand came from somewhere in Pakistan, or Romania, or both, and we require Google confirmation — suddenly they disappear. Poof. Gone.
It’s brilliant — think about it: What’s to keep competition for Chuck’s Jumpola printer from spoofing a Google demand to remove links? How about not just from Chuck’s site, but all the other popular web sites it may be linked to as well? It’s an easy spoof, and people are so afraid of “Google Death” they’ll comply immediately. 99% won’t even ask, they’ll just remove the links. Poof. In a few days, that printer’s inbound links from authority web sites are GONE. Period. And, he’s gone from Google. Joe-jobber wins. Game over.
I’m wondering, did Chuck validate the sender IP address? Did he ask them to send back the Google contact info (raw, with headers) so it could be authenticated. Do we have any way of knowing it actually come from Google? Spammers spoof Google all the time, and they’re extremely good at it — so good in fact that Google is no longer accepting spam or malware complaints from the spam reporting sites. (Google has saddled investigators with heroic measures to report a site. But that’s another whole story all together!) Is Chuck’s linked printing site running AdSense ads? Are they bleeding traffic from another printer who buys AdSense keywords? The difference in profits to Google can be alarming. Is Chuck contributing to their popularity too much? (He’s very popular!) Are there other printing companies that want that link removed from Chuck’s wildly popular web site? Nobody has the answers to any of these questions except Google. And if you ask, Matt Cuts will grin and say
If you analyze your search results over the past four years, then you’ll agree that the results quality hasn’t really gotten much better. Maybe it’s gotten worse. For instance : the other day I searched for “Cruise in Fort Lauderdale”* … I found dozens of Google AdSense sites, some of which have nothing to do with chartering a cruise in Fort Lauderdale … most aren’t even in Fort Lauderdale. (Some don’t even mention the word ‘lauderdale’ in their code! How did THEY turn up in the results?) I had to go to page 5 to find the actual “Cruise in Fort Lauderdale” site. So did Penguin really give me a better quality result? The top three sites were spam sites. While trying to find the “Lauderdale” entry on those sites I was bombarded by stalker links and blinking distraction. Do you think Matt actually believes these are “quality” results? Hmmmmmm. On the other hand, Google’s alleged Panda and Penguin have provided the PERFECT platform for the cybercrime industry to harrass or destroy web owners. (We say “alleged” here because it’s actually not clear, nor testable, that Google’s algorithms actually do what Google says they do.)
But guess what? It doesn’t matter!
None of all that matters because web site owners jump to Google’s whim no matter what it is, and would rather die any other death than “Google Death”.
Here’s what I do :
The Design Center, the User Group Network, and especially www.DTG-forums.com, have been getting these link removal requests for a while. At first I thought they were legit, until I checked IP addresses, and put the email through the Spam analysis formula.*
FIRST: I used to require the email of the inquiry be authenticated that they do indeed represent who they say they do. So I would email back with a set of criteria by which they can authenticate the complaint.
NEXT I would require them to authenticate the Google complaint by requesting a set of criteria by which we can authenticate it is a legit Google complaint — just to make sure you’re not being Joe-Jobbed by a cybercrook. . . . otherwise it’s nothing in the world but defamation.
Forget that! NEW strategy: Nobody cares about cybercrime any more — and everyone (keyword: EVERYONE) is scared to death of Google removing them from the searches. So I’ve started saying:
And that’s exactly what I do. After all, it takes time and resources to go back in and remove links — or add the nofollow tag — specially those in the DTG-Forums. Since Google is stimulating these requests, it seems fair that Google should pay for them — but that’s a little optimistic. So if the web owner wants them removed, he can help us out — since the site is non-profit.
Bottom Line
The next time you get a LINK REMOVAL REQUEST let them help you cover your cost, pick up some change, and keep the Search-Engine-Gods happy. Let Google drive some revenue your way for a change.
But don’t be surprised if only one in ten actually send the money. All the rest are Joe-Jobs!
Good day, everybody . . . and thanks for reading
Editor/Publisher : DTG Magazine
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Published online since 1988
Visit Chuck Green’s “IdeaBook” on Facebook Google’s search results for “Cruise in Fort Lauderdale” What is a “paid link”? It’s okay for Google to charge for links, but NOT YOU Matt Cutts answers two questions about nofollow Can nofollow links hurt my site’s ranking? Matt Cutts: The No Follow story Need to report someone? Use this authenticated paid link report form
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