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It looks like Google could have a fight on its hands as sponsored blogging and tweeting are becoming increasingly popular. The search giant has always taken a very strong stand against the controversial topic of paid links and although the debate has quieted in recent years, Michael Gray believes it is about to get revived and expanded upon.
The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly drafting guidelines for bloggers who promote products specifically when conflicts of interest are not disclosed to readers. In spite of that pending regulation, Google is raising concerns since its search engine cannot fully discern all paid and sponsored blog posts. The company recently frowned upon the practice at a recent blogger event.
Although paid sponsorships are commonplace in traditional media, Gray says people have the ability to distinguish when it is happening and when it is not. The Internet however is a whole new space in which the sponsorships are not as obvious.
As a result, Google is struggling to figure out how to handle the issue. The company would like to see more user data and multiple sources that verify the post and links. As Matt Cutts of Google said on his blog: “We [Google] take the subject of paid posts seriously and take action on them.”
What are your thoughts regarding sponsored posts? Do you believe it’s wrong?
(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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I am not fond of the paid blogging process, but I think it will sort itself out as paid bloggers, those specifically being paid to promote products will suffer from a loss of credibility that will eventually lead to their demise as bloggers. On the other hand, if you do promote products through your blog, but are careful to advise your readers, and therefore they are not left feeling mislead or lied to, there is a place for paid sponsorships in blogging as their is in all media.
I don’t know if you noticed but blogging is new marketing tool for the major retailers.The most recent bloggers convention was sponsored by the likes of bloomingdale,target & neiman marcus.These corporations are the ones using the sponsored links now so google stands to make out big if they can figure out how to control it.
A paid post is not someone’s opinion but a simple advertisement. When mixed with real opinions or worse, product reviews, it is false advertisement and there should be steps to protect unsuspecting consumers. A paid product review is not a product review period and that should be made clear. As a consumer I no longer trust any product reviews I see online. They are mostly affiliates who never bought the product but claim it is the best.
Ugh… grow up Google! I love ya… but comon, you have an aspect they you can’t control and now you’re shaking in your boots? Give me a break. And the FTC? Screw them.
There is nothing wrong with sponsorship, it keeps bloggers alive, it gives relevant links, gives products exposure and can provide Google with relevant content to index. The need to shut it and accept it. Just because a person clicked on a link doesn’t mean they will buy… let the end product’s marketing and quality take care of that.
End..
I often wonder if Google is just going to blacklist “blogs” all together. People spend hours commenting on blogs so they get a “link” and Google is annoyed at this. The problem is Google’s own search algorithm may end up being the knife that kills Google
Why dont you have a free to join social network and where is this location if any
The whole linking thing that Google has touted for so long is practically worthless. There are hundreds of websites and companies that manipulate PageRank in order to get their clients a bunch of links.
Google and Bing/Yahoo really do need to find a better way to rank websites. I think things like time on page, bounce rate, and other criteria are more relevant indicators of a webpages value.
Its pretty simple as said in this interview, backlinks is popularity, the more the better and the more traffic, so how does Google get around the monster they have created, not a good time to try to reinvent the wheel especially with competition. But this whole thing is pretty frustrating with rankings for many people all over the map.
Good video, I like all the extra work you are putting in to the b-roll. Dave