Google Spanked Non-Erotically.

Way back in the days of yore, I had a Google page-rank of five, based on posts, links and traffic that I'd damn well earned. Then I tried to monetize that traffic using PayPerPost.

Now, I'd tried using Google AdWords, but after a few tries and a few unexplained account cancellations that seemed to revolve around newsworthy nippleage and/or the odd f-bomb I drop to gain attention, I decided that Google AdWords were incompatible with the blog you see here. You see, I don't write in order to optimize for money and traffic. I write what I write, based on my sources. And PayPerPost is one of my better sources for ideas.

I've found that generally if people are willing to pay you to blog about something - and willing to accept an honest response (the little +/- icon) - then generally if my site qualifies given the keywords I've set up, it might just be the idea I don't have for the day.

That's why my PPP assignments tend to be sporadic. It's this blogger's way of dealing with writer's block.

Well, I was one of many people who's blogs were "spanked" by Google with a drastic, arbitrary and of course economically devastating drop in page-rank, for the sin, apparently of taking money to write particular posts. You know, as opposed for taking a salary or a sponsorship to write entire blogs.

Somehow, apparently, that's more ethical? Or perhaps it's due to the fact that such blogs tend to be entirely acceptable to Google Adwords, since they are already hewing to some form of company line or theme that makes it easy for them to assign keywords. Well, whatever - but while my content may not be all that predictable, it did earn that PR5 honestly.

And of course, Google Pagerank has been a critical number when seeking out sponsorships and putting a value on your display advertising space.

Well, Izea.com has struck back with Izea Page Rank. Here's mine.




The idea, of course, is to compete with Google and Alexa, neither of which are seemingly all that friendly to the individual, entrepreneurial blogger.

It doesn't particularly bother me about Alexa not being all that great for me. It has always favored really high-traffic sites. Google, though, is supposed to go by the ethos of "first, do no evil."

Now having said that, I have not said anything before this because it was absolutely clear why some action of this sort was probably required. Google's search engine was getting cluttered by crappy pages from crappy blogs that exist only to exploit engine traffic.

Of course, the same could be said of AdWords blogs. And it should be. You see, there's little point in buying AdWords if it's going to give you crap traffic. Well, it's hard to know what criteria went into the "spanking," other than the obvious - those of us who were spanked know that we aren't considered suitable for Google.

But just as obviously, there were definitely "civilian casualties," people who take occasional posts, for whatever reason.

And personally, I think that a well-written, contextually appropriate paid post of mine stacks up against an unpaid piece of crap by someone wanting to churn out keyword-filled entries for their AdWords blog.

Yes, Google, Yes; I KNOW there has to be a way to filter out the Make Money Fast people. I also know that it's likely to be imperfect. I'm even willing to take something of a personal hit in order to improve search results. I use the damn things too. But in point of fact, people use Google to find stuff to buy all the freaking time - and posts like mine really do add value to that end of the business.

You, Google, need to get on board, and take a look at the ethical and practical rethinking that Izea is doing over at SocialSpark. The idea kicks ass. Maybe you should, I dunno, share data or something?