“Read the Google guidelines and follow them. Do not let any advertising deal or scheme rope you, fellow webmasters, into something that smells fishy. When in doubt, make a blog post and ask what others think about the deal and if it would be kosher. Heck, I got taken a little bit to task over just making a freaking checkbox default checked (which is still under consideration for change, BTW), so you can bet people out there will offer opinions proactively — instead of reactively — to any questions one might have about the ethics of a given activity.”

That is what you said… OK, here is what I have to say.

In my opinion I do not believe Jeff Barr of syndic8.com had any intenion of “gaming the search engines”.

I believe he made a business decision he thought would make him more money from advetising and that decision turned out NOT to be a good one. I’m confident that Jeff had no idea that this decision could get him banned from Google.

Please read Jeff’s post in his blog entitled:

I Was Really Stupid, and Greedy Too
URL: http://www.syndic8.com/~jeff/blog/index.php?p=214

I haven’t studied what he did specifically, so I can’t comment as to whether what he did was right or wrong. I would like to respond to the avalanche of negative feelings sent his way and the varying opinions stated that seem to feel that any kind of search engine optimiztion, or the selling of advertising are evil practices and that offenders should be hung out to dry.

Google’s “guidelines” “TOS” “Rules”, whatever you call them, are vague and next to impossible to follow except in a very broad sense.

My interpretation is: you better not do bad evil things or you’ll regret it.

It’s not specific in any sense… not black or white - right or wrong. It’s intentionally vague and authoritative.

Google likes it this way because it makes everyone walk on their tip toes carefully and leaves their terms of service wide open to interpretation ( OR MISINTERPRETATION !!! )

“Better safe than sorry” many cautious and fearful webmasters say… better not put ANY links on a page, because some links are bad… better not try to make money on my site because making money and greed is bad…

Since when is showing ads and hoping they get clicked an evil thing??? Google does it – on every page of their site!

If you think about it – Google goes out to the net and borrows content – words, images, news stories, whatever – puts them on it’s web pages without permission and then slaps a bunch of advertisements on their pages so they can make billions of dollars.

Don’t get the wrong idea here – I am being sarcastic. I believe Google has every right to do that.

Now, don’t we have the right to do that as well, or only allow the right to Google.

Whatever happened to the original spirit of the net? People exploring, expressing, creating and interacting with others in a whole new way.

Suddenly the web is overpopulated with sour grapes, jealous losers, tattle tales and complaining whiners.

Am I complaining :’> Er, sorry!

For some twisted reason it has become fun for some bottom dwellers to be the evil lurker in a forum and make people feel bad. Fun for some people to write blogs criticizing others and calling out for a lynching without even a trial. Negativce vibes emmanate all over the net.

I have learned to stay away from discussions in forums and such, because it never fails, there is always someone quick to jump in and spread the negativity. Serve up hostility. They enjoy it.

Why does it make people feel so good to make other people feel so bad?

That should be in the “guidelines” someone. BE NICE TO OTHERS.

Back to what is good conduct in the eyes of almighty Google…

Google does not make public their “rules and regulations” other than to paint a broad picture that anything bad isn’t good so don’t do it.

If you at all think about WHY you are doing something, it probably is evil.

That’s what I get from the TOS at Google.

I’m not saying that what syndic8 did was good, right or proper. I didn’t see it with my own eyes and from my point of view the DNS redirection part with subdomains was obviously not smart.

They could have made more ad money in a more legitimate way I am sure, BUT since when do webmasters have to ask their visiting public what is OK and what is not OK to do on the websites???

Do we have to ask permission if it is OK before we make decisions like what kind of ads to place on our sites, or whether we should do so at all?

Just because someone makes money or as people put it “they took the money”, doesn’t make it bad… Google takes the moeny like crazy… are they bad?

If great web sites like syndic8 are to remain valuable resources, it is reasonable to expect that they will be a “business” and do things to “make a profit”. Not underhanded unethical things, but hey – occasionally they may run an ad that offends us or doesn’t seem like it belongs… so what?

Is placing an ad for HOT CHOCOLATE when it is not a hot chocolate themed web site acceptable???

Other times it may be making “business decisions” for things like ad placement… placing ads where they make more money from people clicking more often. That isn’t gaming is it…

Running a popular web site is a business and somebody has to pay the bills - unless they make the site suck so bad it isn’t fun to visit - why complain about how they make money???

It’s OK to make money on the web, right???

I can hear a few of you saying… “it’s not OK to make money IF…” IF is subjective. As long as it is legal, let’s not be so quick to judge. If you don’t like what a site is doing – don’t visit that site.

Please don’t think I condone spam or evil practices in any manner - I do NOT! But instead of starting a web backlash and running off tattling to Google, why not reach out to the web site and let them know you’re disappointed in something before you go and crucify them.

I just don’t get it when people are so eager and HAPPY to stomp on other people and point the finger at them and say things like they are EVIL for wanting to make money.

I say – worry more about what you are doing and pay less attention to the way you want other people to live their lives and run their businesses.

OK. Did I piss anyone off out there??? NO??? GOOD!!!

Maybe you can help me as I’m not sure by your comments whether you are trying to defend your actions, trying to be cavalier about it, doing the hurt puppy thing, or are honestly misunderstanding the obvious comparison? Please re-read the first sentence again. -9000 hidden text browser fakeouts aren’t any kind of legitimate “experiment” for two minutes, much less two months and even if you didn’t know better when you did that (which I find hard to swallow) then you must know better now (I hope so, anyway); I agree the situations are pretty different and yours was worse IMO, not better.

You have been forgiven by many, but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten and won’t be fodder for comparison and scrutiny for many days to come by not just Andy or myself but many, many folks. If you do something good (Wordpress) and are in the spotlight people praise you for it but do the opposite and … well, you know what happens there. Just like being ‘dooced’ will be relevant to anybody being fired from their job for blogging, your -9000 text magic and SE whoring will rightly be held up as “do not ever do this” examples. How to separate your name from that activity? I don’t have an answer there, sorry. Time will help, I suppose, as people tend to put a more positive spin on their memories of ugly incidents over time. Don’t know you personally but I’ve heard good things. I was 21 once too and remember making some really bad decisions back then. We’re all human, mon. Suck it up.

I’m sorry I missed when you came out to Seattle a little while back. Was the Dafodil parade out here which is a pretty big local thing. This advertising “experiment” stuff completely aside, I wanted to thank you in person for the work you’ve done with Wordpress. People can and do appreciate that and can/do separate that from the other stuff. In fact, if you ever want some good, free positive press I’d be happy to put you on the radio show the we’ve been doing this weekly for five years now. And no, it will not be a “let’s bash Matt” session, we could talk in detail about Wordpress. Drop me a line via Skype or phone if you are interested (see about section on the home page). The show broadcasts every Friday at 2pm PST / 5pm EST and today is going to be our 238th live broadcast.

Oh, and that RSS bug for version 1.5.1 blows. Any chance you guys can spit out 1.5.2 in a hurry so more people don’t get bitten by that? (Yes, of course it can be patched, but that change should be made before too many people download, don’t you think?) I mean, well, the RSS feeds are pretty important, don’t you think?

Thanks again for taking time to comment and stopping by.