Is Google Evil?

I’m Getting Discouraged

Writing is a pleasure for me and a need. I have to write to get some things out. There are things I want to say that I believe are important.  I’ve been doing blogging on regular basis for about five years, more on some sites than others.

It is now pretty obvious that Google has penalized me repeatedly and thoroughly. With the changes Google made in 2012 and 2013, I have been reduced from more than a hundred hits a day to my current average (and falling) of 34 hits a day.

So, I’ve been looking at Google and “Search Engine Optimization.” To say the rules are Byzantine would be a dramatic understatement. What’s more Google changes the rules whenever it feels like and in anyway it feels like.

I want to write. I don’t want to spend hours doing SEO. I like to think I have a life, and the implication of having a life is that you are experiencing it and don’t have time for nonsense. I envision the great authors of history trying to navigate through Google and spending hours on SEO. It was only funny the first time.

What’s getting me in trouble? One thing is my lengthy quotes. I like to talk up my friends’ Blogs, Dan Bodine, Steven Mintz and my colleague, Chris MacDonald and many others. I love telling people about new blogs. I write a paragraph introduction, include two or three paragraphs of one of their articles followed by a direct link (usually I link to both the individual post and their full web site). Google considers this duplicate material and penalizes me heavily for it. So, I’m going through my posts, 2,210 of them, trying to get the quotes reduced to “snippets,” which I’m not sure exactly what is, but am assuming it is a sentence or two with a “…” at the end. I’m told a snippet will not draw unfavorable attention.

There appears to be a bunch of other things I do that were okay in 2012, that are Google penalized now. I am trying to learn the rules. I’m pretty upset. After all, you might think that my 2,210 posts would get me some kind of credit in the first place but no, sometimes I don’t stay on topic, my “brand.” When I talk about a favorite movie or mention something that happened or talk about criminal justice (which I teach), their diabolical rating system says “NOT BUSINESS ETHICS.” And I get penalized. So, I’ve been killing posts that aren’t directly on subject.

I can’t help but believe that I want to write about the important issues of the day and instead I’m playing a maniacal time-eating,role-playing game in which the rules make little sense and change while you are trying to play the game.

Is Google Evil?

I hope not. Maybe all this horrible, horrible things they have done is just an aberration and once I work through it, I will get some search results for all my work. I don’t expect to be treated fairly because Google isn’t going to do that, but a little, tiny bit of fairness is not too much to hope for.

James Pilant

From Around the Web.

From Evil Google to WordPress

Google recently revealed the pitch-black nature of its evil heart …

http://vanshardware.com/2010/02/from-evil-google-to-wordpress/