A few days ago the devil children over at SEOBlackHat.com notified me of a new kind of Google-dance. Normally the #1 search engine targets the latest exploits when it reorganizes its index, causing webmasters to sweat and wait to see if their pages will rise or fall in the new order. This time Google took a far larger step - removing explicit sexual content from listings en masse.
The arguments for doing it in cases are strong. Most people typing ‘Sex’ into Google probably don’t want porn and Google’s in the business of giving us what we want. Converesly though people typing ‘blowjob’ into Google probably do want porn and Google’s serving no-one but the people who think Mel Gibson’s a genius (and that seven Jews control world banking) by ’sanitizing’ our smutty searches.
The effects of Google’s pogrom have been dramatic. My own website - TGP.com - moved from being the #1 result for the search term ‘TGP’ to being completely absent over the weekend and is now - curiously - back atop the results. Perhaps as my domain is my search term Google are wary of leaving FUBAR.com out of a list of to-hits for FUBAR. Perhaps they’ve worked out that no-one searches for TGP who isn’t trying to find hotdog and donut shots. Whatever the reason larger TGP’s than mine are still missing from the first page and that has to hurt.
Overall search results on sex terms are all far less porn dominated than they were a week ago while Google ads remained tied to search terms as they always were. A cynic might suggest Google was trying to make pornographers pay for decent search placement rather than getting it in return for relevancy like the rest of the universe. Do I look that cynical?
Don’t be evil? Jury’s still out…
Reeling from the changes? I’ll start talk about marketing 2007 style, i.e. without reliance on Google - later this week. In the interim, read this…
I found out about the changes the hard way. Let’s just say I wasn’t looking for magazine-style columns on threesomes…
You’re not the only one who’s a little cynical about these changes as they relate to ad revenue. On the other hand I’ve heard the theory that this change has something to do with the recent DOJ porn search history request Google’d been fighting, but whether or not it was meant to help (anyone) it’s frustrating.
I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say on the subject later this week.
Gah. So, does this mean I should go back to Yahoo as my search engine of choice?