As Zennie pointed out earlier in his post, "Google News Meta Tags Program Killing Blog Listings" Google News has done a lot to "clean out" their database of small publishers. Basically, the decision was made without warning, without explanation, and without any input from Google Staff to publishers.
There are a couple of things at play, here and many unanswered questions. First, many blog owners have been sent out generic emails which state that their blogs don't meet "quality guidelines."
Really? What are the quality guidelines? I'd link to a list of them...but guess what? There are none! A review of some of the publishers who have reported their blogs to be de-listed leaves one scratching their head. Why are publishers who have been listed for several years, who give credit to their sources via links, and who engage readers in meaningful conversations de-listed while some content mills get to stay listed?
Scott Rosenberg at Salon.com called out one Associated Content writer for his overuse of the popular search key "Dr. Laura n-word" back in August. A cursory glance at the link to the piece
leads you to the
author's page... and guess what? The same author is still using practices, which Rosenberg describes as "vein, cobbled together with no care beyond an effortful -- and, I guess, successful -- determination to catch Google's eye by repeating the phrase...as many times as possible."
A quick look at Google's small amount of guidelines that are available in the Webmaster tools claims that you are supposed to make your content "primarily for users, not search engines" and that a Webmaster should ask him/herself before posting anything "does this help my users, would I do this if search engines didn't exist?" It's important to note that these are quality guidelines in general - not just for Google News. There are no such guidelines, to this blogger's knowledge, of any special quality guidelines for Google News alone.
The whole "content farm" and small publisher backlash has been a long time coming. Last year, Belinda Luscombe at Time Magazine wrote an article titled "Why Does Google Search Love Examiner.com?" The article goes on to say that articles on the site are a compendium of tidbits culled from other websites, neither advancing the story nor bringing any insight (a description, it should be noted, that can be just as fairly applied to many offerings of more mainstream media). Most Examiners are not journalists, and their prose is not edited."
This all goes against the premise of Google News which is "original" content - which you will find on sites like Zennie62.com and also ours and several other recently banned publishers.
There are a couple of questions that I, along with thousands of other small business bloggers, want answered. 1) What determined who got erased from the Google News database 2) Why isn't everyone treated the same? Why are there still small publishers in News? And most importantly...why aren't Google employees responding to the many publisher pleas in their "help" forum?
The Effects of Google's Blog 'Massacre' On Me
How has this affected this small business blogger? Our traffic has declined about 90%, and our ad revenue about the same. Therefore, it's not only our small business that has been affected - it's also the small business ad networks that we used in addition to Google Adsense. In addition, we had to tell our writers to 'hold off' on hyper posting until we can either get re-listed with Google News or figure out how to build our traffic up to a base where we can afford to pay writers.
We, too, contacted Google News explaining that we had installed a plugin to solve the "meta tag" compliance issues Zennie has discussed earlier. We explained that we hired an editor (who we will try to retain, but may not be able to), and outlined all we have done to "comply" with the implied quality guidelines.
The response we got was the same response Zennie got which read:We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our
Upon reviewing your site, we found that we can no longer include it in Google News at this time. We have certain guidelines in place regarding the quality of sites which are included in the Google News index
If your site is in violation of these guidelines, it will not be added to Google News. Please feel free to review these guidelines at the following link:]Please note that you'll still be able to find your site in Google Web Search and other Google services.
Thanks for your interest in Google News.
The Google News Team
Back to the drawing board.
This isn't right. There are too many weird factors at play. Is Google trying to suppress the voice of the independent blogger? Is Google giving in to "big media", paving the way to the day where we will have to pay publications for their online information?
All I know is that the actions are blatantly un-American, infringe on our rights, and borderline on violating first Amendment rights....but Why? Who's behind this recent action by Google? The same action which has added quite possibly 10-20 more people to the ranks of the unemployed - just on my publication (which has no relation to Zennie62.com) alone? Why was this move made over the holiday, and why won't Google reply to any inquiries from frantic publishers willing to bend over backwards and do whatever is necessary to keep Google happy?
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