Google created the problem called “paid links” by making public that incoming links to a website are a significant part of how that website ranks. Once the secret was out the door marketers took the knowledge and applied it to their websites. The result was paid links to increase page rank and almost an entire industry built around it. It seems like the Page Rank bus has come to a screeching halt this month. Two weeks ago a first round of Page Rank updates knocked down some of the most visible websites involved in paid linking schemes or linking schemes in general to take advantage of link juice. Yesterday and today more websites joined the ‘club’ of losing Page Rank + websites who lost PR 2 weeks ago fell even further.

I don’t want to go too much into the issue itself, but rather look what the outcome of this page rank war might be. First of all - the broad masses on the Internet will not even notice anything of what is going on. It’s the webmaster and SEO community that takes notice and has to think about how to respond. Many will bow down to Google due to the fear of losing traffic as well (and not just PR) and with traffic the income they have build up. For others traffic from Google is less important as search engine referrals only make for a small portion of their overall traffic. Overall the situation could backfire onto Google quite a bit and the Internet Darling could soon realize that the honeymoon is over. Google is trying to form an Internet after their own idea. In that ‘peaceful’ world links flow naturally from one side to another. You write great content and people will link to you naturally and Google love in form of lots of traffic will follow. There are just a few problems with this idea. First of all - once webmasters realized that an outgoing link could mean money for them, they started charging money for it. Why link to somebody who will then make money of your link juice while you are left behind? The second problem is that the Internet as we know it is commercialized like crazy. Yes, some hobbyists will write free content because they love the topic. However, much of the Internet content was created because it paid off financially to do so. That content was either sold in form of paid subscriptions or it was monetized by selling advertising. but advertisers want to see an ROI of their investment as well and that can only be done by having a large group of people coming to those sites. It’s a catch 22, but Google seems to leave out some pieces and dreams on of their own version of how these things should work.

Somewhere along the way of the Internet development things between Google and the webmasters/SEOs started drifting into different directions. And that’s where we are now. Google enjoyed the support of many webmasters. “I scratch your back and you scratch mine” worked for many years and Google was living well off this solution and enjoyed huge growth and huge profits. But now Google pretty much seems to expect that the webmasters continue to scratch Google’s back, but does not have the obligation to ‘help’ the webmasters (please note:  there is no obligation of course either way). Anyway - piss of a large group of people and they might complain. Now threaten the existance of a large group of people by cutting off their income (and I do not mean SPAMMERS or Blackhat SEOs). What could happen? Either these people comply to Google’s rules and start playing differently OR they might fire back at Google. Enough voices suddenly raising concerns about Google could carry the word (of mouth) into an audience far away from the Webmaster world. It might start with Mom & Pop and then move up the chain with friends and their friends. What if Webmasters suddenly start promoting Live.com and Ask.com as the better search engines and give those guys a push? It could work the same way Google grew big. They received a lot of support from webmasters and the media when they were small. Yes, it took them a while to grow and to become the powerhouse they are today, but it can also work the other way. Google has a lot of money to substain a loss in popularity, but even a 5% or 10% loss in traffic can lower Google’s revenue dramatically. Give those 10% to Microsoft and Redmond might see the light and starts being more aggressive to take away even more share from Google. These guys love to see Google fail. And some folks would certainly love to see the Google stock tank. There is a long way of going down if you are worth $650+ per stock.

But hold off the horses - we’re not there just yet. I think it will take more than just what we have seen this month. History has shown that the big market players can lose and fall from grace if they do not pay attention to their user base. Look at Wal-Mart lately. They are struggling because of Target and other players in that field developing strategies that suddenly make it difficult for Wal-Mart to grow or to even stay at the current level. Losing 5% or 10% market share hurts. So, let’s assume there will be more that Google pushes out against the webmaster community. Example: People who critize Google suddenly lose their rankings or Google Adsense income. Those people will talk about it. Put enough of those people together - especially if it would be experienced webmasters - and suddenly there could be a movement with quite some momentum. Include some journalists or commercial news websites into the mix and you might get things rolling quickly. Anyway - I am not here to bash Google. The rules change and you either adapt or find other ways to do business online. On the other side - the war is on. Now it depends on who can grab this opportunity and make something out of it (hello Yahoo!, Hi Ask.com, Howdy Live.com).