It seems Google have penalised themselves, publicly. Google Japan was caught buying links on a blogger review network. Oops. Kind of embarrassing because buying reviews on networks like these are well against Google terms and conditions.
PS – It’s Charles Darwin’s Birthday, as celebrated with this cool logo from Google.
Matt Cutts twittered the Japanese version of Google.co.jp was penalized for paying for blogger reviews on a bloger review network. Matt said,
Google.co.jp PageRank is now ~5 instead of ~9. I expect that to remain for a while.
And then when he was questioned if this was a paid link penalty, he said
yes
For more see Google Japan Reportedly Bought Blog Posts in Promotion Campaign, Now Issued Apology
I wonder. A PR penalty for Google Japan is er… kind of totally toothless isn’t it. It’s funnier the more you think about it. Unless of course they are selling links somewhere on there based on pagerank :)
What will be interesting is how long this PR penalty will last, if they had to resubmit the site to Webmastertools and how much cleanup they had to undertake to get their Google PR back :)
It will be even more interesting if there is full disclosure what you need to do… if you are caught.
TechCrunch comments,
it is interesting to see that Google, a company that not too long ago radically took action against PayPerPost bloggers in the US, today thinks the concept is suitable as long as it helps them advance in Japan.
This is funny… Nice that Google is showing some transparency. Not so nice that Google’s legitimacy in Japan has been damaged. Toothless as the PR penalty may be, anything stronger would damage the relevance of Google Japan’s results.
hey Shaun, This is funny! Google (Japan) gets google-slapped! But as I think you point out, I don’t think PR matters to them since no one searches for them, they just type the url into their browser, and actually, even if you do search for “google japan” they are #1. ~ Steve, purveyor of portable trade show booths
This is funny! Google (Japan) gets google-slapped!
Hilarious, even though it won’t affect them at all.
When I heard the news first, I thought google is strict in business ethics and has some moral vaules. But When I thought about it deeply, I felt They did nothing by taking aways google japan’s PR. It looks like they just don’t want to be caught in public eye, so google gave little penalty. Nobody is interested in PR value except SEO, SEM & Web Marketing People. Normal surfers don’t check google PR. So, there is no meaning to panelize Google Japan in this way by Google.
Oh the irony, guffaw, belly laugh etc. I followed you on Twitter btw, but I steer clear of Linkedin since its too full of recruitment consultants scavenging for leads.