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Google punishes Itself in Chrome Browser PageRank Controversy

05 Jan 2012

Google is giving itself the digital equivalent of 100 lashes by downgrading the search result ranking of the company’s own Web browser, Google Chrome, for 60 days. The decision came after recent reports that a marketing company working for Google encouragedbloggers to write about Google Chrome for compensation. The practice of creating sponsored posts with the primary intent of gaming search results runs afoul of Google’s website quality guidelines.

So, just as Google would do with any other company that broke its rules, the search giant punished Chrome’s site ranking in Google search results–known as a site’s PageRank. Punishing its own Web browser may make up for Google’s faux pas in the eyes of the media and may even make Google employees feel that their company is doing the right thing. But for the average user, Google’s self-flagellation makes it harder to find and download Chrome, even if you’re specifically searching for the popular Web browser.

Google doesn’t specifically state it will punish a site’s PageRank for creating sponsored posts. The problems start when paid posts start linking back to the sponsored website–in this casewww.google.com/chrome.

Links pointing to a specific site are one of the primary ways that Google judges a site’s PageRank. The more links a site has pointing at it, the thinking goes, the higher quality it must be. Let’s say Acme company is paying for bloggers to link to acmecompany.com. Google could see those paid links and determine that acmecompany.com was a popular site on the Web and thus increase its PageRank.

In reality, however, the fictitious company I made up to illustrate a point, Acme, was artificially boosting its Google ranking to attract more customers. To fight against this type of abuse, Google’s own watchdog team says it will penalize a site’s PageRank if it is caught participating in a paid link scheme. Last February, for example, Google downgraded department store retailer, JC Penney afterThe New York Times uncovered an apparent paid link scheme. JC Penney denied any direct knowledge of the PageRank efforts claiming a third-party was involved.

Google Puts Itself in the Crosshairs

In Chrome’s case, the decision to downgrade the browser’s PageRank appears to be more about the principle of paid links than actual misdeeds. Matt Cutts, Google’s chief webspam fighter, said his team found only one paid link pointing back to Chrome’s landing page, hardly enough to affect Google’s search results.