Un-Googled

Perhaps, by now, you’ve heard of the dreaded “Google death penalty.” It’s more likely, however, that you have not. And neither had I until Monday.

It was on Monday that reports began circulating that the way-high-up muckity-mucks at the world’s most domineering search engine headquarters had imposed an e-fatwa against the German site for BMW, www.bmw.de. The decision to blackball the German automaker was made when it was discovered that BMW had designed its site to manipulate search engines like Google, increasing the “search value” of their site.

The technique that BMW used is a common one in the world of web-design. It’s called “keyword spam,” in which the webmaster fills a page with hidden terms to increase the site’s standing in engine search results. For example, the designer may use black text on a black background, making it invisible to the surfer. In the BMW case, the word “gebrauchtwagen,” German for “used car,” appeared 42 times on the site’s gateway page (the page most accessible to search engines).

We are living in a time when the difference between showing up first in the results of a web search and showing up tenth can cost a company millions of dollars in revenue. It can literally dictate whether a company flourishes or flounders. So it’s no surprise that companies have devised ways to beat the system, little tricks of the trade often referred to as “search engine optimization.”

These techniques are strictly against Google’s policies. If a page is found to be in violation, the sites PageRank is reduced to zero. As a result, German web-surfers who Google “BMW” will not be directed to the company’s official site.

A spokesman for Google told a British newspaper, “We cannot tolerate websites trying to manipulate search results as we aim to provide users with relevant and objective search results.” It’s hard to argue with that reasoning, but there is more to the story than that statement alone suggests.

Google has come under fire in the last week or so regarding the “relevance” of its searches. There are speculations of partiality circulating after Google recently purchased five percent of America Online (AOL) for $1 billion. The allegations against Google suggest that part of the transaction would also give AOL pages “preferred” status in search results.

So is the uber-searcher trying to save face by proving that it will go out of its way to seek out “relevant and objective search results?” It sure seems like a great way to undermine the AOL accusations without dignifying them with a response.

Perhaps you should also take into consideration that this isn’t the first time a company has received the “Google death penalty;” in fact, it’s not that uncommon. You may also consider that it was a blogger who claims to be a Google software engineer who has drawn international attention to the story. And finally, the “death penalty” isn’t really permanent. BMW will be re-included in search results when they are deemed to be no longer in violation.

As far as I could tell, on Monday night, they were no longer in violation.

-From Pulse
February 9, 2006