Google Doesn’t Owe You Anything

Written by  – 05.09.12

google-doesnt-owe-you-anythingPrint this poster out and stick it on your wall.

Then print out the Google Webmaster Guidelines and stick them next to it.

Read the guidelines.

If your site(s) aren’t sticking to those rules, then look back to the first print out – “Google doesn’t own you anything”. Read the first few lines very carefully: 

“Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the “Quality Guidelines,” which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise impacted by an algorithmic or manual spam action.”

If you break the guidelines, you risk a penalty.

You may be wondering why we’ve chosen to publish such seemingly obvious advice, especially as the guidelines have been around for years and years. It’s something we teach on our SEO courses, and seems to be common sense.

The reason is articles like this and comments like this that essentially boil down to individuals and companies who are either venting their anger or seeking damages against Google.

Read through the other comments on that second post to get an idea of the anger felt towards Google by large portions of the search industry. So why is everyone so angry?

Google: “Do no evil” or “Do more evil”?

Anyone familiar with SEO will know that up until recently, Google’s guidelines were easily ignored. Those who did stick to them were getting beaten by competitors using all the tricks in the book. Google weren’t really enforcing their rules. The problem is that many seem to have forgotten this, and misguidedly believe Google updates their algorithm just to punish small businesses.

google-evil

All of Google’s updates can be put into two categories: enforcing their guidelines (punishing bad sites) and enforcing quality (rewarding good sites). Panda and Penguin fit into that first category, rich content listing and Search Plus Your World fit into the second. So, if for the last 10+ years you have been dominating SERPs with unapproved methods, you’re being hit on two fronts – your site is being punished for breaking the rules, and your competitors are rising above you because their sites are better.

Both types of updates are designed and publicised as building quality and user experience, to make search better for Google users. A lot of people are disputing this, claiming that actually they’re designed to increase Google’s profits. As if those two things are mutually exclusive.

The comment I linked to earlier imagined a Google boardroom, with Matt Cutts proposing changes to the share holders that will make them more money. Doesn’t that sound like every boardroom round the world? What companies don’t want to make more money? As a user based business, Google relies on user experience to make money. If the experience was rubbish, people would actually start using Bing (they’re nowhere near as different as some people claim!)

Search Updates – Quality or Quantity?

So are Google’s regular updates about making the search engine better for users, or about making more money for themselves?

Some SEOs claim that Knowledge Graph, Search Plus Your World, Local Search, Personalised Search, 7 Branded Results and other user focused updates are bad for user experience, but they’re looking at it from the perspective that all those changes make their lives easier. They’ve got to become authoritative, increase social and brand presence, connect with real people and that all takes hard work. Social media, content and clever marketing has become more important than doing quick fixes, getting to number 1 and watching the money roll in.

matt-cutts-moving-the-goalposts

Are Google Really Moving the Goalposts?

On the other end of the spectrum, the people moaning about Panda and Penguin updates are often the ones hit hardest, seeing their businesses lose almost all search traffic over night. They claim that Google keep moving the goalposts and are unclear about what they want webmasters to do. As I said at the beginning of this post, those guidelines have been around for a long time. If you say you don’t want somebody to do something, then later punish them for doing it, is that moving the goalposts and being unclear? I wouldn’t say so. To use a football analogy, it’s like Google are starting to use goal line and video technology to stamp out cheating.

It’s very frustrating to lose traffic and sales due to ranking drops, but unless you can read those Webmaster Guidelines and honestly say that your site obeys every single one of them and that you have never done anything to break them – or hired an agency that has broken them for you – then you can’t really moan when you take a hit.

Google has to please two groups of people – their users (searchers) and advertisers (AdWords & AdSense), as long as they keep both groups happy, they make money. Where is the benefit in keeping SEOs happy? Especially if part of that means making it easier to rank with spammy tactics, reducing the quality of results. Okay, they don’t always get it right, some SERPs still suck and the jury is out (literally) on their dominance in the market, but to me that’s unrelated to most of the whining about search quality updates.

If you’re an SEO who isn’t paying a penny to Google for your organic traffic, then you shouldn’t expect anything back. There’s no contract, there’s no agreement, Google Doesn’t Owe You Anything.

Similar posts you may like

  1. Google Penguin Algorithm Update: Recover Your Rankings
  2. Google Exact Match Domain Update – The End of EMDs?
  3. Is Google about to start showing rel=publisher in SERPs?
  4. What Does Google’s Knowledge Graph Mean for SEO?
  5. Google Monopoly Questioned By the European Commission

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10 Responses to “Google Doesn’t Owe You Anything”

David Fallon says:

Great post, Aaron. I thought it was an interesting argument about the “moving the goalpost” complaint that so many people make. Per your request, I’m copying my response to the question on LinkedIn Answers here:

I think some people get confused thinking Google is a public service like roads are. Your customers use the roads to get to the store, and if the roads are not taken care of by your municipality, you can justifiably get upset when that hurts your business.

The Internet is a very different place, and search engines are fulfilling a very different service. Of course, if someone searched specifically for your business on Google and your business absolutely did not come up, then you might be upset. However, consider that in doing this Google is also shooting itself in the foot because the searcher did not find what he was looking for and is therefore slightly less likely to use Google next time. So it is a balance.

All that being said, I know that the obvious answer is that a private company like Google doesn’t *owe* top search results to anyone. It is therefore not 100% reliable, and companies that put all of their eggs in one basket will often end up hurting, as they would in just about any other case. So good advice from SEO’s is usually not to focus on a small set of tricks to get your website to the top, but on an organic process of providing content that customers will find appealing for their searches, and then let Google find you itself as it wants to give its searchers your content.

Again, this is obvious. The less obvious thing is that SEO is NOT comprised of people looking to trick Google. There are still black hats out there, but the majority of SEOs have realized that they must work WITH Google, not fight it or try to sneak around it. And they do so, and with some great successes.

What I think is fascinating is that Google reciprocates with trying to work with the SEOs as well. Thinks like Matt Cutts series of info and the so-called “weather reports” before major algorithm changes are examples of Google reaching out because Google realizes that, underneath all the “angry people” who don’t like the short term results, the good SEOs really want to help Google, not hurt it.

6. 9. 2012 at 11:49 am

Ryan says:

I agree that Google owes SEOs nothing. However, the company goes to some effort to provide resources to the community:

- They make frequent updates to their SEO Starter Guide
- Matt Cutts, the de facto spokesperson to the SEO community, has been doing his YouTube videos and answering questions for years
- They routinely send Cutts, Maile Ohye and others to SMX, SES and other web marketing conferences (not to mention the fact they are headline sponsors of these events every year)
- They provide tools such as Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to site owners free of charge
- They host online forums where SEOs can come ask questions, and Google employees participate in discussions and respond to questions
- They operate multiple blogs to answer questions and provide information to SEOs

These and related activities I’ve overlooked are pure cost centers for Google. I can’t imagine any revenue, even indirectly, occurring from any of these endeavors. So why do it?

Because Google recognizes the value to the company in engaging the SEO community. The SEO movement is going to take place with or without them, so they have a vested interest in reaching out to the community to influence the conversation. But more importantly to Google, I think they believe that outreach to the SEO community can help produce a better search engine. One of the biggest challenges facing Google is data quality. The better the Internet is in general, the better search results Google can produce, so by engaging the wider SEO community, which is more likely (but not guaranteed, of course) to be populated with reasonably ethical SEOs, they can end up with better sites, which can result in a better search product overall.

6. 9. 2012 at 4:08 pm

Jeff Ferguson says:

No, of course not. Those that claim otherwise are the black hats and spammers that use conspiracy theories about Google favoring big business as an excuse for the fact that their form of SEO is drying up.

6. 9. 2012 at 5:58 pm

Charles Caro says:

Google doesn’t owe anything to SEOs, and any SEO voicing anything suggesting Google somehow owes anything to SEOs and/or SEO clients simply doesn’t have the right to call themselves a professional.

I have see so many businesses taken by one unscrupulous SEO or another that it becomes difficult to identify a truly reputable SEO expert.

6. 9. 2012 at 7:52 pm

Durdana says:

No, it does not owe. Google has two ways of allowing sites to promote themselves – paid and non-paid. If organic listing improvement efforts did not help bring in the desired results, then try the Adwords. There is no use in being mad at Google.

6. 9. 2012 at 10:54 pm

Ace IT Relocation says:

Fair point to be well remembered.
Google’s business model is very interesting, along with the plethora of search engines which have now pretty much been wittled down to a couple.
The amount of time spent trying to second guess Google’s current algorithm is probably better used improving one’s own website!

10. 9. 2012 at 12:59 pm

Tabitha Jean Naylor says:

I, for one, don’t think Google owes us anything.

I think that those people claiming that Google does owe us something are experiencing decline now that Google is really more serious about quality control. Of course, Google strives to give the best “search” every single time. And if black hats get to lead the person who searched to a link that he doesn’t deem relevant or right, Google will be the one to get hit. So, I don’t think Google owes anything to the SEOs. With all the “illegal” practices that allows SEOs to skirt around Google’s guidelines, I think they are the ones who owe Google since they gained from something that Google did not allow.

11. 9. 2012 at 2:30 pm

Piper Mann says:

Sure thing you’ll have to face penalties if you don’t follow the guidelines. It is always good to be responsible enough when it comes to following right procedures though. Thanks for this.

14. 9. 2012 at 7:24 am

John J.Peterson says:

Yeah its true that Google doesn’t owe anything for SEO.It frequently changes its algorithms for providing relevant search results.Google engineer comes up with an idea for a signal to introduce or adjust to improve the relevance of the search engine’s results.I also think that understanding Google as an evil is big mistake.Informative article.Thanks for sharing.

5. 10. 2012 at 2:29 pm

Does Google Hate Small Businesses? says:

[...] competitive keywords might have something to do with the fact that they are competitive. Remember, Google doesn’t owe you anything, why are they going to pick you over a well-known multinational? I’m not saying abandon all [...]

25. 3. 2013 at 6:37 pm

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