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on May 24 2012 12 comments7 DISCUSSING
How stupid. Negative SEO rules. Even if they really did buy links why not just discount those links? Removing iAcquire from the index completely is nonsense, they have lots of great content. Also the paid links were bought for clients as far as I understand. Some clients demand that you buy links on their behalf. Not everybody has the guts to say no. So ban the client site not the SEO company.
Tad, I totally agree with you. As service providers, we educate our clients to the risks involved with specific tactics, but I have had clients ask to bend rules, and it is my job to execute there requests. If a lawyer please innocent for a client found guilty, the lawyer is not removed from the bar.
No one has full details on why they were de-indexed. We are not privy to what Google may have found out when they went digging or what the client say. If you broker links and get thrown out of the index, there can really be no complaints. It's like someone telling you that fire is hot, jumping in and then complaining when you come out a grilled mess. It's odd SEO's complain about Google ranking crap and then when Google try enforce their laws (pretty badly), they complain Google is too powerful. I am not saying Google isn't making a horrible job of implementing TOS so we know what the heck the playing field is, but paid links has always been a no no, this is not a big surprise and the petition below is pathetic.
I should note, my use of the English language in the above comment is pretty awful. I wish there was an edit feature here.
Paid links are a nono since 2005/2007 as I have noted above, not "always". Also text link brokers don't get banned by definition, just search for "textlinkads" on Google.
Well there we go did not see this one coming, hectic...
Can't wait for more info about this
This is really out of control. Google is too big and too vital to businesses for one entity to essentially decide the fate of a company, not a website. Outing is not the issue, the unregulated power of Google is. I get it - "you don't have to use Google" and other online marketing avenues are available. But the truth is, Google has made itself into something that is almost required to be a part of in order for some businesses to survive. iAcquire - the business - was deindexed. Jon is 100% right that the sites that violate Google's policies should be subject to removal, not corporate entities. Feel free to blast me, but my opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions or policies of my employer.
I can see both sides, here - removing iAcquire from the picture and just looking at the events. The counter to your point is... why should/would Google play whack-a-mole with the sites buying links, and not just go to directly the source that's enabling the violations on a large scale? Deindexing any site that's selling links would, in theory, deter people from doing business with them. Which means less people buying links from that particular source. Maybe they go somewhere else, maybe they don't. Now, granted - even going after service providers is still whack-a-mole once you get down to smaller players. You can easily toss up a small link broker practice on a forum - but not as a full on business with 50+ employees. (All that said, I'm still in the "remove the value" camp, if only to curb negative SEO.)
Google itself is "the source that's enabling the violations on a large scale" by employing an outdated algorithm made a dozen years ago. Matt Cutts has written in 2005 about paid links being bad. 2007 it has become official. Now, 5 or 7 years later they still haven't fixed the gaping hole in their algo.
I agree with you Ian, I just think that with so many businesses relying so heavily on Google and them essentially having a monopoly on web traffic, it just sucks that they can just drop a company's visibility at a whim. It would be different if Google didn't have 6.4% of all internet traffic (as of 2010).
Not sure it will matter, but please sign the petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/google-re-index-http-www-iacquire-com