Get Off Your High Horse – We Aren’t Stupid
by DazzlinDonna
Ok, all of you out there (and you know who you are) who have been sitting up on your high horses proclaiming that everyone else is stupid for getting upset about the PR changes – STOP IT! You are the ones who aren’t getting it. When it comes right down to it, people, it’s not about the little green bar. It’s all about CONTROL. That’s what has everyone upset, whether or not they really know it.
No one likes to feel like a puppet on a string. Google is the puppeteer (or Googateer) and webmasters are the puppets. At any given moment, the Googateer can yank on any string, controlling the movements of the puppets. One minute the Googateer is telling the puppets to simply label sponsored links with the words “Sponsored Ads” or something similar. The next minute that’s not enough for the old Googateer, so he yanks on another string to punish the bad puppets for not using nofollows, despite the fact that the Googateer himself changed the rules midstream.
It’s not about what the Toolbar shows for PR. We know TBPR is a bunch of hooey. But we also know that this is probably just a warning shot, and if webmasters fail to do exactly as told, the next shot may very well be deadly – despite the fact that some of those caught up in this first volley did nothing wrong.
Again, it’s not about what the Toolbar shows for PR. It IS about CONTROL. It wouldn’t matter if we never saw PR again. The Googateer would find some other way to yank the strings of the puppets. Lowering the PR is merely a SIGN, people. It’s a sign that Google can punish the puppets at any given time, for any reason, on any whim; even those in compliance with Google’s current rules aren’t safe.
So get off your high horse and quit bellyaching that SEOs shouldn’t be worried about PR. Think for a moment, would you? It’s not the actual PR that anyone is really worried about. It’s the loss of control. It’s the random punishment. It’s the FEAR that at any time, anyone, and I do mean ANYONE (YES EVEN YOU!) could fall victim to the Googateer’s latest whim. So the next time you feel like acting superior because you know better than to worry about little green pixels, stop for a moment to wonder what that tugging feeling at the back of your neck is. That’s the pesky, controlling, Googateer pulling your strings.
The question we should all keep asking is…HOW DO WE CUT THE STRINGS?
Great post..
Footprints = strings..
Now if the footprints went somewhere else ????
This is exactly right Donna. Google thinks it’s the new god of the net. At the moment people believe it. If people actually grow a spine and stop getting high on all the spew coming out of Google, only then will Google understand its place in the world: it’s a service for users, not an excuse to harass webmasters.
Pierre
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Great post, Donna!
I am one of those people ’sitting up on my high horse’.
1. The tbPR has always been Google kool-aid disconnected from SERP reality. It’s twitches fixate people on Google.
2. The tbPR has become the defacto valuation system for backlinks. It’s created a business model fixated upon Google.
3. Telling people to stop drinking the kool-aid and revert to actual site and pages performance metrics is NOT about ‘not getting it’ or missing some point about ‘control’. I have ‘gotten it’ for years. Google FUD and Google control freak behaviour is not new. This little green bar tempest is simply the latest Google knows best abuse.
4. You, me, we cannot control Google. It is their site, their index, their ball and if you want to play their game you either have to play by their rules or at least appear to do so. None of this is new.
5. What you, me, we, can do is diversify our traffic and revenue streams so that Google – or any other single entity – is not necessary to your, mine, our business success. What you, me, we, can do is play one game in the open with the SEs and another closed to them. And once again, none of this is new.
6. ‘How do we cut the strings?” I really really hope that was a rhetorical question because you, me, we, only have the strings you, me, we, create ourselves.
iamlost, you are missing my point completely. my point is that what pagerank is or is not, what its value is or is not, how it relates to anything else or not, is not what we should be discussing. i don’t need you to tell me any of that. do you think we haven’t been around long enough to already know all of that? that’s my point. everyone needs to stop assuming that we are blinded by pr. i don’t give a flying hoohockey about pr. i do, however, care about what google is saying when it does such a thing. if you want to discuss that, great. but i, for one, would just appreciate it if people would stop assuming that we care about pr. we care about the actions google takes. this particular case involved pr. but its not the pr that matters. its the action. just stop assuming that you have to “educate” us about pr. for pete’s sake, we aren’t idiots.
While a surprisingly large number of people do still need to be educated about PR (and meta keywords et al) I certainly do not put you in that category.
‘i do, however, care about what google is saying when it does such a thing.’
‘we care about the actions google takes’
My question and apparently missed point is WHY?
Google has, are, and will say and do whatever they want. We have absolutely no control over their words or their actions. All we can do is follow a business model that minimises the effects of change, any change.
When you have no control, beit Google or the weather, you build to survive a worst case scenario. If you build on a flood plain and get flooded whose fault is it? If you build for Google supplied traffic and Google supplied revenue and they dry up whose fault is it?
You are quite right that this is not about PR but you do miss the point about control – the control we should be talking about is our control of our business decisions. That so many unthinkingly cede that control to Google and then complain that Google is doing what is best for Google and not for ‘them’ is simply foolish.
Yes we need to pay attention to Google’s words and actions just as we pay attention to the weather forecast. But the rain is not going to stop just because we have a leaky roof.
There seems to be an assumption that Google is impervious to criticism and will continue to grow and prosper. The view is that the masses do not know what’s going on and will continue to Google away. I do not believe any company, however large, can alienate so many movers and shakers in the industry, without there being some long term repercussions. I trust that the Google strategists have thought this through.
Bottom line, for me, is that Google did something. It was done in a sensitive spot (their PR tool) and the way it was implemented (covertly, no reasoning offered) makes it suspect. Makes some of us wonder what we did wrong, when it could be likely we did nothing wrong at all. It’s like the High School Principal coming into your classroom and you know it’s going to be something big.
We can control what we understand. Google hasn’t offered us the way to understand.
Kim…right on.
Great Post Donna. I think its the Monopoly that Google wants to create. And they are so giant that we need great support to fight someone like Google. I really doubt anyone or any group can do that.
I’m one of the one’s that said it doesn’t matter. I gotta look at this more. Last time I read stuff you wrote about the “outing of websites” I specifically came around to what you were saying then.
Dave
Dave, I really think people are misunderstanding my point. Let me try to clarify again.
Regardless of whether or not toolbar PR means ANYTHING at all, doesn’t matter. In this instance, we don’t need an education about what it is, how it differs from real PR, or anything else. What we need to realize is that Google took an action – in this case it involved PR, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been something else or not. They took an action designed to WARN US. If you aren’t paying attention to those green pixels, or aren’t watching them, and your site got hit, you won’t even know you’ve been warned! In that respect, it is important.
I’ve been taking offense at people who’ve been telling me to ignore PR, and then deciding they needed to explain PR to me. Trust me. I understand it. I’ve been around a long time. I don’t need an explanation, thank you very much. I also don’t need anyone telling me I shouldn’t even be concerned. Of course I should! Everyone should be concerned. Let me explain why.
Let’s say Google emailed you personally. Let’s say Google said, “Dave, we don’t like the color of your site. Change it from blue to red, or be banned”. Now, let’s consider some things.
1. What if you never received the email because you never looked at Google email? At some point in the past, you decided it wasn’t important for some reason, so you never see email from Google. You would have missed the warning – you wouldn’t have changed the site color – and you would have wondered why you got banned. (That example is equivalent to never even looking at the toolbar PR or noting changes to it).
2. Now, let’s say you did get the email and you thought to yourself…well, Google has the right to do anything it wants, and it’s our own fault if we rely on Google traffic. (Let’s quote iamlost for a minute…If you build on a flood plain and get flooded whose fault is it? If you build for Google supplied traffic and Google supplied revenue and they dry up whose fault is it?). So, you think, well, I’ll just continue on with my blue site, and not worry about loss of traffic. After all, I’ve built my site to not depend on Google traffic.
That’s all well and good. If you don’t care about being banned from Google, and your business model wont’ notice the difference in traffic – more power to you. But I’d like everyone here to raise their hands who DOESN’T CARE about being banned from Google. C’mon…who wouldn’t miss the traffic?
If you don’t care, then what the heck are you doing in the field of SEO in the first place?
If you do care, then what Google did MATTERS. I don’t care whether or not TBPR is important or not. The change that was made MATTERS nevertheless, because it was a warning. If you never pay attention to TBPR you will miss the warning…and that could spell disaster for you.
Those are my points and I hope that clarifies things a bit.
Donna:
I see those pts. For every webmaster that is knowledgeable about TBPR there are 100’s who aren’t.
A warning was issued…..and not everyone is paying attention. There could be further actions by G which will affect those that understand TBPR and the greater number who don’t
What do you suggest?
What I’m trying to suggest is a change in the conversation. Stop arguing back and forth about PR. Frankly, whether or not someone understands the difference is a moot point at the moment. The conversation should be focusing on actions/reactions Google/webmasters have made, what can and should be controlled from each side, what actions/reactions should be undertaken in the future, etc.
Yep. If they have made some manual tweaks to the PR of influential sites, I think Google have crossed the boundary. They should be more transparent with their activities if they want webmasters to tow the line. How can we tow the line if we can’t see the line??
Not to be a jerk BUT I am in fact not bothered by this stuff in the slightest, sorry – pagerank now makes perfect sense and I know exactly where to get it!
It has nothing to do with ego and looking down on you fools from the saddle or cockpit depending on what vehicle you currently drive. I have complete control and enough fuel to travel far.
The reality is we are on a string… Google had spoken and people didn’t want to pay attention about links… Now, many of those who didn’t want to change are faced with a choice… If you want and need Google traffic then you must play by their rules… Google is no longer about ‘Do no evil”…No, they are morphing into Big Brother…. And it has become don’t do as I do , do as I say…
Again I ask… Isn’t Google the biggest paid link seller on this blue planet?