(This is a guest author article.)

I've read so much about Google lately and most of it has been emotional outbursts, arguments which don't state the facts of the issue and tend to confuse a lot more than enlightening the reader about what it really is. Here I'll try to clear the air by expressing the facts of the issue as I see it and try and offer a dispassionate analysis of the implications.

The background of PageRank

What exactly is Google PageRank and what is it not? Here's what Google themselves say about it:

From http://www.google.com/technology/ :

PageRank Explained

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages' relative importance.

Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines dozens of aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

In a nutshell, it is a proprietary technology used by Google to assign ranks to individual web pages in order to sort search results. The ranking is for individual web pages and not for entire websites and it is on a scale of 0 to 10 (10 is the highest rank). Please note the highlights in the quote above. That's the heart of this issue.

What PageRank means to webmasters

Since search results for certain terms are very competitive (meaning that they are commonly used by Internet surfers) it becomes important for web pages to be listed in the first or second page of the results which can go to hundreds of pages. Being in the top two or three means a lot. And for these competitive terms, PageRank assumes significance because of the sheer number of results. For non-competitive search terms with far fewer results (like just one or two) PR becomes almost irrelevant. However, it also means that fewer people will find your pages through Google using those rarer search terms.

The bottom line is: the higher your individual web pages are ranked the more likelihood that you will get traffic from Google through searches for common terms.

What does increased Search engine traffic do for bloggers?

The value of heavy search engine traffic as an end in itself is debatable for bloggers who don't need income from advertising. However, of late, the trend of "paid blogging" has caught on and this has allowed people to use the PageRank (for their main/home page - websites don't get ranked as a whole, remember!) to sell links to advertisers who in turn use this as a means to get greater visibility in search engines themselves. According to Google themselves, remember, the PR of any web page is partially determined by the PR of the web pages linking to it. So the higher your PR, the chances are that the sites you link to will also get a decent PR due to your link.

Advertisers are therefore likely to advertise and pay more to webmasters whose pages rank higher than those whose pages rank lower and who have less number of pages indexed on Google.

What a higher presence in Google search results does for these advertisers themselves is, again, a matter of debate, but for many businesses greater visibility on the Internet seems to be quite important and they're willing to pay for it.

What Google has said

The crux of the issue is this: Google doesn't want people to "sell" their PageRanks. Simply put, they don't want you to link out on the promise of getting the advertisers a higher presence in search engine results. Thus, they are penalizing individual bloggers who continue to sell links on their websites to advertisers on the promise of PageRank by reducing their web pages' PageRanks and in some cases even setting it to 0 (lowest).

What the options are

  1. Remove the advertising links you've sold on the promise of your PageRank from your web pages, or…
  2. add the attribute rel="nofollow" to your links (example: <a href="http://somesite.com" rel="nofollow">Some Site</a>). What the attribute rel="nofollow" tells Google's search engine crawlers (scripts that indexes your pages), is that these links should be ignored and not be "followed" (that is visited) by the search engine crawler from your page. The net effect is the same as removing these advertisements as they are rendered ineffective in that the main purpose of the advertiser putting them on your web pages is lost.

Google's rationale

Their official stance is that they don't want their search results to get "poisoned" (manipulated) by people who sell/buy links from websites with highly ranked pages. Thus they feel perfectly justified in penalizing or threatening to penalize webmasters on their search engine ranking (and hence lower visibility and traffic from Google searches) for indulging in selling links by using their PageRank.

In reality they might also be protecting their AdSense and AdWords advertising programme by forcing webmasters to remove/render ineffective all other forms of text-link advertising. In that sense, this is seen as anti-competitive and has outraged bloggers.

Bloggers' stance and rationale

PageRank is currently a publicly available statistic and can easily be found out by anybody. The actual method of determining PageRank might be proprietary but the end result is not. So there is nothing legally or morally wrong with using "PageRank" as a means to promote your website to potential advertisers and there is nothing wrong in benefiting from being linked to from higher ranked web pages if you're willing to pay for it. Suddenly, bloggers are discovering that what used to be the means (The PageRank) to an end (higher income from advertising) is now threatened.

By targeting select groups of bloggers, moreover, Google is acting in a high-handed manner by utilizing their corporate might and their strong presence as the biggest search engine on the Internet to force webmasters to accept their diktats. This is rightly perceived as double-standards (as Google is in the Text-Link advertising business) and bullying tactics by a lot of people.

That is what the whole issue is about. Hope that explains it thoroughly!

My take on the bloggers' dilemma

Many bloggers seem confused as to what to do. Google PageRank has suddenly become an end in itself. My question is, what is the use of a higher PageRank and increased traffic from search engines unless you really benefit from it in a concrete sense. Sure, getting a lot of visitors is an exciting prospect, but in the ultimate analysis what have you gained by it except a fleeting popularity and increased burden on your web server? Is the loss of income justified? Will Google compensate you for your loss of business as a result of your forced compliance to their terms and conditions which goes against your interests? And on the other hand, will advertisers continue doing business with you when they suddenly find that your search engine ranking is zilch and that your traffic from search engines has reduced to a minimum or that you can no longer sell links which really benefit them?

It's a catch-22 situation for many people and rightly a lot of webmasters feel hard done by with such terms and conditions from Google.

In my opinion, there are only a few scenarios available:

  1. Don't comply with Google's terms of service and risk losing your visibility on Google search results. This is a real option for a lot of people. The big thing here is in convincing the advertisers that you've lost nothing by way of traffic after having been penalized by Google.
  2. Comply with Google's terms, but then you are also forced to remove text-link advertising (or use the rel="nofollow" attribute to links, which might be unacceptable to the advertisers and rightly so)
  3. Find an effective online business model that doesn't rely on Google's technology or their search results. In other words, render them as an irrelevant factor in your own calculations. This is not as difficult as it sounds but it does require creativity and hard work. But in the long run, it seems the soundest option to me. Sure, it's harder and requires creativity, but ultimately it can be done. I seriously doubt that most people's main source of income is from advertising on websites.

My take on Google's own problems

My feeling is that Google have expanded so quickly on the Internet and swallowed up so many free services over the years that they simply have no way of sustaining these businesses without getting back substantially in terms of advertising. I also believe that Google AdSense/AdWords hasn't exactly been a runaway success because few people actually bother to click those ads and help in generating income for Google and AdSense publishers. Such has been the Pay-Per-Click advertising model that its effectiveness has been greatly reduced after the initial novelty wore out. In addition, they have severe competition from other text-link advertising services who actually offer better income than the stream of pennies that Google are willing to pay.

Finally, in spite of the money they must be making currently, they have huge commitments in terms of salaries to pay to their employees, infrastructure to maintain, offices to run and so on. Because of their rapid expansion on the Internet which is (in my view) unsustainable and the high popularity of their services (which remain free of cost and must be putting a huge burden on their servers) they feel that they can get away with imposing restrictions on Internet users and webmasters alike.

However, by showing such desperation to eliminate their competitors, they have now exposed themselves to severe criticism and shown their own weaknesses.

Conclusion

There is an irreconcilable clash of interest between Google on the one hand and advertisers who want to benefit by buying text-link advertising on websites on the other. There can be no compromise on this issue. Using rel="nofollow" in this form of link advertising is as good as rendering the advertising model useless and Google know this well. Advertisers are also unlikely to accept this as they are the ones who've paid for the link and morally, they have a right to ask webmasters why their money should go to them for ineffective linking. Equally webmasters have a right to ask advertisers whether they will continue advertising at the same rate even if the PageRanks drops as a result of taking the risk of exposing the links on their websites in violation of Google's ToS. All in all, a messy scenario. :?

On the whole, so long as the web is dominated by individual mega-corporations like Google, we're likely to see such scenarios increase.