> Ookay, here we go again: blog for $$:
> 
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070509.wg
> tblogvertise0510/
> BNStory/GlobeTQ/home
> 
> Google says to that: "Look, if you want to buy links for 
> traffic, fine. Just don't make it so they affect search engines".
> 
> Peter P.


Ok, but that's not "Give Google money to be number #1, OMG it's a
conspiracy!!!", that's just advertorials.  Big deal.  Move along, nothing to
see.

Toss in normal advertising, astroturfing and viral marketing for more fun &
games.

Newspapers and magazines have done this for years.  Whether they say as much
varies, for one Australian reviewer the joke was the review depended on the
bottle of wine you sent him.

Theoretically, the situation is self-correcting.  If a popular site starts
adding a lot of paid reviews, it loses its reputation (people stop linking)
and it slides down the scale.  Google shouldn't do anything special with
these sites.

Look at something like www.tomshardware.com, which I haven't bothered to
look at for years.  I stopped when they'd break a story over 50 pages to
increase the ad hits.  I'd never link to it, (presumably neither would
others), and I can't recall the last time it showed up in a hardware search.
Funny that.

Besides, you can give Google money now to show up on the first page, so why
do this?

Tony

PS: (anyone bothered to ask IEEE how Google indexes their PDFs yet?)

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