A week after Google’s Matt Cutts set the SEO world ablaze by asking webmasters to report cases of link-buying, his area of the Googleplex is decidedly silent – and so is the media relations department regarding a double-dipping Google executive’s association with a questionable made-for-AdSense company.
Editor’s Note: That a senior-level executive at Google co-founded a content network (seemingly) designed to game Google traffic is raising eyebrows in Searchtown. That Google (or a representation of Google) would penalize webmasters for doing what its own employee seems to be doing is cause for a cyber riot. You weren’t shy about the link-buying topic, so keep the conversation going in the comments section.
Is there are connection between Cutts’ standoffishness and Google’s unwillingness to return comment from vice president of advertising sales Tim Armstrong, and co-founder of Associated Content? Who knows? Nobody’s talking.
Equally hard to know is how spamming the company you work for fits in with that company’s Don’t Be Evil corporate philosophy (well, as of recently, it’s more of an evolving, refinable concept).
Let’s review. Cutts opened up a can slithering with worms, more worms than he could have possibly anticipated (and the can may be getting bigger), by doing what a few webmasters had asked of him: make it easier to report cases of link-buying.
That link-buying was a (potentially) punishable offense came as news to the entire SEO world, sparking heated comments on Cutts blog, which kept him glued to his home computer chair responding all weekend, as well as a neat little squall in our comments section.
Initial contact with Cutts after this was promising, as he seemed quite willing to address the numerous concerns with this apparent change in policy, and though “swamped,” he would take the time to chat.
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And then, silence – the textual kind of silence that comes in the form of automated email responses just when we need answers most. A month’s vacation is on the horizon, it said, and “swamped” transformed into “unavailable” to prepare for the coming absence.
While that could be just what it is (Occam’s Razor would demand we assume so – career before the press, a responsible employee prioritizing his commitments), the timing of Cutts’ silence is either unfortunate and coincidental, or just enigmatic enough to be interesting.
His silence matches corporate’s silence in the face of questions regarding Armstrong, who has made a fair bit of cash through “content recycling” and whose other company, Associated Content, until recently, regularly bought (rented) text link ads.
Armstrong’s affiliation with the company was spotlighted by ClickZ weeks ago, and not many paid attention. Then, it was more about the dubious quality of Associated Content’s “content,” which seemed keyword dense for search engine (Google) gaming. That article should have gotten more attention.
But recently, it has gotten more attention, especially as Google’s (new) distaste for link buying comes to light via Matt Cutts. Suddenly, the silence from within the Googleplex is deafening.
At ThreadWatch, Aaron Wall posts an indignant pair of questions:
This is how Google’s ad executives are moonlighting? In a market that corrupt (where Googlers own many brands, pay third world rates, and do not follow their own advice), what chance is left for the average webmaster or freelance copywriter, especially if they mistakenly trust Googlers?
Online marketer Preston Wily wonders, too, what response Cutts got from Armstrong:
I wondered when Matt Cutts flamed the whole SEO community for link renting what AC would do - I mean, here you have a senior Google exec practicing the very thing that an outspoken engineer rails on.
There are many, many questions to be answered. Unless Google opens up, the world may never know, but the world will be free to speculate, or worse, theorize.
