Google Punishing Chrome Results For 60 Days

djl4570 writes "'Google is pushing its own Chrome browser down in search rankings for 60 days following reports that the company was involved in an ad campaign that paid for links to bolster search traffic. ... According to Sullivan, it appears that Google contracted its Web ads out to a firm called Essence Digital, which in turn asked a company called Unruly Media to implement the campaign.' I see this as an astute move on Google's part. Rather than circle the wagons they say 'oops' and correct the problem. Google understands that such link pimping is a cancer that undermines the integrity of their search engine. That's why it isn't allowed and now Google is saying we don't support a double standard either."

Comments

Wha?

[pinkj]

Feeling...positive...feelings...towards...billion dollar...corporation...must search for...negative...feelings...for another...corporation...!

Re:Wha?

[Canazza]

and values of First Post are <=10 posts.

Re:Wha?

[Pieroxy]

Oh please, they were caught and had to have some PR route out of it. This has been going on for months. It only became news now that big sites picked it up.

So?

Re:Wha?

[DCTech]

So evil is only evil when you're caught, I presume. On top of that they didn't even accept responsibility. They blamed someone else.

Google contracted its Web ads out to a firm called Essence Digital, which in turn asked a company called Unruly Media to implement the campaign.

Just the same way like JC Penney and others did, but back then people were outraged by the seo spam. But now that it's Google it's somehow holier than thou and Google is supposedly acting unlike any other company... by acting the same way those other companies acted!

Re:Wha?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Why would you have positive feelings over this? Google was caught doing the same SEO tactics they punished JC Penney for. JC Penney even gave the exact same excuse, which was that they had no idea their external SEO company was doing such evil things. But this is worse, because Google is supposed to be the moral authority about this stuff since they are in a monopoly position when it comes to web search.

They had to do this after the huge amount of negative press yesterday, and they only did it after that press. But even worse, it doesn't even matter because the search term still returns Chrome as the top result via the sponsored links. How convenient for Google that it can pay itself and get the top result regardless of the neutral algorithmic results beneath, and therefore, regardless of whatever punishment it doles out to itself to make Google fans feel better about being Google fans.

No, this is nothing to feel positive about at all. If Google does the same things it punishes others for, it's no better.

Re:Wha?

[cl0s]

Google loses money by placing it's ads as that could have been a paying customers ad in that position that they would have actually had outside money coming in paying for. I'm sure the same happened with JC Penny, their organic search results might have been penalized for a period of time but they were free to advertise in the paid search results.

They took the steps to correct the issue, it was only 1 day after it was even discovered. I don't see how they could of done something about it before they knew anything about it. I'm not saying Google is an angel by any means but I just don't see why they would go through the hassle and take the risk of PAYING for something like this to a third party than doing it themselves internally, for FREE. After all, they control the search engine. It is just not in their DNA, but then again things happen when you "blow-up".

Re:Wha?

[Shihar]

Somehow you have convinced yourself that you see hypocrisy. There isn't any. Google set down reasonable rules on how you can link. JC Penny, through another agency, violated those rules and got their rank hurt. Google, through another agency, violated those rules and go their rank hurt.

Google has responded consistently in both cases, even when it is responding to itself. Google isn't some monolith with perfect communication. The right hand did something stupid (hire a shady company and didn't oversee them) and the left hand smacked the right hand for it. This is a good thing.

The reason why people comment on it as being above and beyond kind of cool is that it is Google smacking themselves. It is one things for Google to smack JC Penny. Everyone expects that. It is another thing to smack themselves when one part of the company violates their own rules. This speaks of the quality of the firewall between the search folks and the rest of the company. If Google can confidently smack down its own internal divisions, it leaves you feeling confident that the results are truly as impartial as such a subjective thing can be. Can you honestly see Apple or Microsoft doing such a thing? They would just circle the wagons, justify their actions, and carry on. It is nice to see a touch of corporate integrity, even if it is for the obviously selfish reason of convincing people that Google's search is "fair".

Google considers its reputation to be an asset and guards it like one. It isn't infallible and its reasons for guarding their reputation are clearly selfish and profit motivated, but it is still a good thing. Doing good stuff for selfish reasons is better than acting like an asshole for selfish reasons.

Good for Google

[PickyH3D]

The article that I had read yesterday suggested that they were going to wash their hands of it and blame the bloggers.

I am happy to see the fair business practice here. I do not always like what you're up to Google, but sometimes, like with mostly pulling out of China, and now this, I like what I see.

Re:Good for Google

[JoeMerchant]

The article that I had read yesterday suggested that they were going to wash their hands of it and blame the bloggers.

Sorry, but with a name like "Unruly Media," wasn't someone keeping an eye on them?

Re:Good for Google

[DCTech]

It's how corporate world works. You establish new entities to do the dirty work for the "clean" parent company. For example, see this patent laundering done by Apple.

Re:Good for Google

[Pieroxy]

Happy?

I don't think we should be praising Google for doing what they should be doing.

Given how many companies do it, I'd say they're out of the pack. Shouldn't we praise companies that are out of the pack, and on the positive side of it?

Re:Good for Google

[c]

> Sorry, but with a name like "Unruly Media," wasn't someone keeping an eye on them?

Because they're an advertising company. You have to automatically assume they're lying about everything. If they'd been called "Proper Media" there'd be a Google spy-mobile permanently parked outside the office.

Re:Good for Google

[geekoid]

Of course we should, but some people are myopic morons that have an irrational hatred of organization.

Re:Good for Google

[drinkypoo]

We should thank companies for doing what they should be doing, but we should only praise companies when they go above and beyond what we should consider a minimum performance.

Re:Good for Google

[Pieroxy]

They did something wrong - intentionally or not. It leaked. They fixed it immediately and "punished" themselves to try to compensate. That's already more than what 90% of the megacorps out there are able to do.

So that's why I say they are on the positive side of the pack. The pack being where 80% of the companies are. The 10% best are on the positive side, the 10% worse are on the dark side.

Re:Good for Google

[Joikas]

They didn't "punish" themselves in any way. Whole google.com should be removed from search results since they were gaming it. They didn't even punish it for search terms like browser. It's still on top thanks to ad spots!

Marketing

[Dan East]

...and they're getting so much press in the news for doing so that the net result is much more promotion than Chrome would have seen otherwise. GENIUS!

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Just hang on for a moment. What you're saying is that if Google does something bad they should take the blame but if they try to fix what they did wrong they don't get any credit?

Re:Marketing

[fallen1]

Isn't it amazing that by actually doing THE RIGHT THING and accepting responsibility, they gain more press than if they had just said "The bloggers did it." and washed their hands of the situation.

Maybe they, and other companies, can actually learn from this? You know, a) try not to fuck up in the first place and b) when you do, take responsibility and FIX IT.

Uncommon outbreak of good sense, perhaps?

Re:Marketing

[Atzanteol]

Of course, the "RIGHT THING" costs them nothing, as the search term that Chrome is being punished for--"browser"--shows a paid-for Chrome link right at the top of the page, which cost them nothing since they pay themselves!

Really? It costs them nothing? Then they should buy out *all* the ad spaces! They'll make a fortune!

Re:Marketing

[networkBoy]

no, it's just funny that we are all so cynical and desensitized to large (or even medium) sized companies burying crap like this; then when called out, shifting the blame; that we praise the few companies that do the right thing because it is so rare.

Where I work, we had an incident. There was about a week of thrash internally about how to handle it. In the end we handled it the right way for the consumers (and by extension the right way for the shareholders in the long view, though certainly not in the short view). I am proud of my company, but can not post more of it here :(

Re:Marketing

[geekoid]

And? Unruly Media did this, not Google.
Google did not hire out to a company to have them pay bloggers for sponsorship. And the history of Google show they have always been against such a thing.

This is what happens when you contract out work that then gets contracted out. The original company has little or no control over the end results.

Even though This isn't what Google hire the company to do, and it is explicitly what they don't want anyone to do, they STILL take the hit and accept responsibility.

Did you read the article? What am I saying, of course you did. Only an Asshole would make a comment without reading the article.

Re:Marketing

[DragonWriter]

But they *didn't accept responsibility*. They transferred the blame to elsewhere. It's even in the summary.

They accepted accountability, since they are punishing Chrome results in google search the way they would punish the results of other items promoted by paid-link campaigns.

"Responsibility" can be used to mean either "accountability" or "blame" or, well, lots of other things. But I think, in this context, accountability is the important thing.

Google still is different from other companies.

[satuon]

I wouldn't have expected this level of integrity from any other company. There's been a lot of opinions floating around that Google aren't 'good guys' any more than others, but cases like this show that they really are different.

Re:Google still is different from other companies.

[Spad]

Weirdly, I think I'd take Smart Evil over the usual Dumb Evil we have to put up with, at least they probably won't cause as much collateral damage whilst blindly fumbling around trying to rule the world.

Re:Google still is different from other companies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even fucking read the story? Google hired a service to promote a video of theirs. That service went and had some bloggers promote the video. ONE of the bloggers didn't abide by the rules and therefore was violating a policy.

So not only was it just one accidental occurrence, but Google was two steps removed from it. Now they're manning up and accepting responsibility even though they by no means have to - they could very easily just say "oh, the marketing company fucked up".

Bing demoting Firefox?

[slthytove]

The article mentioned the results for Bing and Google, so I decided to do a little investigation. If you search for "browser" on Bing, the top 10 results are quite similar, with one notable absence - no Firefox or Mozilla pages appear. Does this seem fishy to anyone else?

Re:Bing demoting Firefox?

[SJHillman]

I gave this a try too, results as follows in order of first page

Bing: Generic, Opera, Generic, Safari, Generic, IE, Netscape, Opera, Generic, Generic
Google: Firefox, Generic, Opera, Safari, Generic, Generic, IE, Avant, Generic, Generic
Yahoo: Generic, Opera, Generic, Safari, Generic, IE, Netscape, Opera, Generic, Generic
Dogpile: Generic, Opera, Firefox, Safari, Generic, Generic, IE, Generic, MSN Explorer (IE?), Netscape

What surprised me:
1) Opera shows up so often, although this may be because of their huge mobile marketshare
2) IE doesn't show up more often. Maybe because it's on Windows PCs by default so less people search for it to download it?
3) Dogpile still exists. I don't think I've used it in the past decade until now.
4) Bing and Yahoo gave the same exact search results.
5) The only time Chrome showed up was on generic websites (IE: Wikipedia entries or CNet downloads) that included all of the major browsers

Re:Bing demoting Firefox?

[The Moof]

4) Bing and Yahoo gave the same exact search results.

And they have since 2009. Yahoo uses Bing for its search result.

Re:Bing demoting Firefox?

[larry bagina]

He binged the news, that's why he didn't know.

Strange praise for Google

[GodfatherofSoul]

Like cheering a guy on when he stops beating his wife.

Re:Chrome sucks anyways...

[semi-extrinsic]

For me, it was the fact that the only Chrome plugin that enables Vim-like keybindings sucked, so I went back to Firefox with Pentadactyl.

Re:When's it gonna happen?

[SJHillman]

I don't think they planned on automatically shoving Chrome on page 3 of any search so much as lowering it's weight in their search method. If you Google "Chrome" you will still get the web browser because even with a lower weight, it still vastly outweighs most other results for "chrome". However, if you search for something like "web browser" then the effect is much more apparent.

It's Called 'Plausible Deniablitiy'

[rudy_wayne]

Google has 20,000 employees and their primary business is advertising -- 98% of their revenue, many billions of dollars every year, comes from advertising. So why would Google need to hire another company to advertise their Chrome browser? And why did *THAT* company need to hire *ANOTHER* company?

When you want to do something dodgy, while pretending to "do no evil", what better way than to hire someone else to do your dirty work for you. And when they get busted, you can just blame them and say "Hey, we didn't know anything about it".

Re:It's Called 'Plausible Deniablitiy'

[SJHillman]

Their revenue comes from displaying advertisements... I don't think that's the same as marketing or creating advertisements.

Re:It's Called 'Plausible Deniablitiy'

[daniel142005]

Exactly. It's actually a well known fact that Google sucks at marketing their own stuff. A perfect example is their Nexus One phone.

The leader of marketing (and brainwashing) is (IMHO) Apple, because no matter what it is, they can spin it to get people to buy it. Apple could probably find a way to successfully market dog shit if they wanted to.

Re:It's Called 'Plausible Deniablitiy'

[DragonWriter]

Google has 20,000 employees and their primary business is advertising -- 98% of their revenue, many billions of dollars every year, comes from advertising. So why would Google need to hire another company to advertise their Chrome browser?

Google's primary business is delivering ads to users via the internet on behalf of other firms which create and manage advertising campaigns.

What Google paid another company to do was to create and manage an advertising campaign.

Both of these activities might be described as "advertising", but they are very much not the same thing, and competence at one is pretty much entirely unrelated to competence at the other.

What Google does -- and what radio stations, TV stations, billboard owners, and other "advertising delivery" companies do -- is not the same as what agencies that create and execute advertising campaigns do, although both classes of firms derive their revenue from "advertising".

Re:It's Called 'Plausible Deniablitiy'

[SJHillman]

Google doesn't want to game their own search engine. The entire point of the article is that they're "punishing" themselves because a sub-contractor did try to game Google's own search engine and Google is saying "Hey, look, we control the damned thing and we don't want to give ourselves an unfair advantage so don't come bitching to us if we catch you trying to game our system and then we punish you for it."

Google Search results are seperate from the biz

[LostCluster]

Google has always maintained that their search results are totally unbiased and not influenced by ad sponsors, the companies other businesses, and anybody trying to spam the system. This seems like an internal dispute between the search team and the Chrome team...

Re:in other news

[PPH]

Maybe.

But keep in mind that many corporations don't present a unified face to the public. Or maintain a consistent internal corporate culture. It may very well have been one rogue employee (or department) that got it in their head to bump up their own product's ranking. And someone else stepped in and corrected them. Stuff like this happens all the time. The speed with which they admit and correct their own errors is the sign of a healthy corporate culture (of course, the guilty party might have been transferred to their IE6 support group).

Try working for a company where the culture is broken, or co-opted by various internal factions. And management is powerless to fix the problems. That's when the cancer has set in. Pretty soon they aren't fighting for the company any more (ethically or not). Everybody is cutting side deals with vendors, taking their stock options, and otherwise trying to feather their own nest.

Oh Crap

[Wovel]

We got caught. Google assumed they were the only ones in a position to recognize their deception. They were wrong.

Re:Chrome sucks anyways...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Chrome intentionally doesn't allow the blocking of ad resources before they are downloaded, which cripples AdBlock Plus. This is likely so Google can still report "ad views" to its advertisers. Combined with the bundling of the closed Flash plugin after all the talk about openness when they removed H.264 support, I lost interest in Chrome.

Re:Chrome sucks anyways...

[drinkypoo]

That's OK, Chrome now has a memory footprint just like Firefox's, and if you google around you can find lots of examples of people complaining that it is now just as [un?]responsive as Firefox. I haven't confirmed this personally but people I "talk" to most days on G+ and FB have done so. So there is really no reason to give a crap about Chrome any more...

Re:First post!

[Joikas]

Yep, you remember when Steve Jobs said "Do no evil is a load of crap"? He was absolutely correct about Google.

...what about the 61st day and on?

[cap'n z00mpix]

will they go back to manipulating results after this two month face saving period? Google-san - what say ye?

Re:Chrome sucks anyways...

[Joikas]

News at 10. Google gets paid by advertisers for ad clicks, not ad views.

You're being ignorant. Google gets paid for impressions if they're image ads or video ads.

Re:First post!

[icebraining]

It's Don't be evil, not do no evil.

Re:It is still search result manipulation

[mjwalshe]

Actually for toy sites it might be but doing it right for a multi million page site built over the course of several years and using multiple CMS its actually bloody hard work!

And how brave of you to hide behind a pseudonym - I see my job as protecting all the stake holders IE including the the poor bastards who will be laid off if the company messes up a transition on a website.

BTW last year I found a single mistake that had cost one small part of the company getting on £1/2 Million in less than a week.