The Chatterbox

Google & AutoLink

So Google has this "new" thing in conjunction with their Toolbar that they're testing called AutoLink. You can read one of many, many stories about it on the BBC site.

Basically, it's pretty similar to the premise of the old MS Smart Tags or even TopText, with the exception that, as a webmaster, with SmartTags you were automatically Opted Out of their program unless you added some specific code to each of your pages.

What they're wanting to do is to dynamically make certain phrases of text on your web site clickable so that they lead off to other sites. In other words, people surfing your site with the Google Toolbar installed and AutoLink active will have no clue whether the link they're clicking on will keep them on your site or send them off on some wild goose chase. And every page of your site is going to end up looking like link spam, so we might as well all link every word of text on our site to somewhere.

I have major issues with this sort of thing, especially when it's being pushed by someone with as large as Google or Microsoft. Microsoft, in fact, was forced to put the halts to SmartTags because of the concerns raised by several people. And that required you to be an active participant in order for the additional links to show up!

My understanding of Google's AutoLink is that it's going to be active all the time, no matter whether the webmaster wants it to be or not. That, I have maaaaaaaaaaaaaaajjjjjjooooooorrrrr problems with.

Here's the deal from my perspective...

Google, across the board, supplies well less than 1/4 of the folks visiting my various sites these days. That includes traffic that comes from natural listings and Adwords traffic sent from Google or one of their partner sites. Yet they want to be able to take any and all of the people visiting my site away to somewhere else.

Now, as a business person, I have issues with this. First, Google has no concept of what my Cost of Acquisition is for every visitor to any of my sites. Second, Google does not pay any of the domain registration/renewal costs, or hosting costs or any of the other costs associated with running any of my sites.

I pay those bills, not Google. Therefore only I, not Google nor anybody else, has any say in what is to be done with my traffic once it hits my site. If I suck as a designer and my site is so ugly that nobody can stand to stay for more than 2 minutes, that's for me to decide to change so that I can keep those visitors. If my navigation structure is so bad that people get frustrated by not being able to find what they want, again that's my problem to deal with.

But by the same token, if Google wants to siphon off and divert My traffic to somewhere else, they should be prepared to pay me for that traffic at whatever rate I want set. I don't care if they're making money by diverting the traffic or not. I'm paying for acquisition and losing potential customers, so they need to be prepared to pay for the traffic. Just like I pay them for click-thru's via their Adwords program. They have the traffic there that I want, so I'm willing to pay for it. The same should be true when it's I who has the traffic.

I don't know what's gotten into the boys and girls at Google since their IPO, but they really need to take a step back. Their "Do no evil" policy has definitely flown (or been thrown?) out the window over the last several months! You know it's bad when a corporation, especially a media darling like Google, can't even follow its own principles anymore. Sooner or later the press is going to turn on them. Hopefully sooner rather than later if they keep up stuff like this.

To quote Google themselves

At Google, we put a lot of thought into improving your online experience. We're alarmed by what we believe is a growing disregard for your rights as computer users.
...
As a provider of services and monetization for users, advertisers and publishers on the Internet, we feel a responsibility to be proactive about these issues. So, we have decided to take action. As a first step, we have outlined a set of principles we believe our industry should adopt and we're sharing them to foster discussion and help solve the problem. We intend to follow these guidelines ourselves with the applications we distribute (such as the Google Toolbar and Google Deskbar).
...
Applications that affect or change your user experience should make clear they are the reason for those changes. For example, if an application opens a window, that window should identify the application responsible for it.

Now I would really like to hear from anyone at Google how the principles put forth by them on the above referenced page and on several other Do No Evil diatribes (lies?) can possibly jive with they've already stated is going to be in AutoLink.

Bad idea Google. Very, very bad idea. Sounds to me like you're trying really hard to become as hotly hated as Microsoft is in many people's eyes.

If you wanted to destroy your corporate image, you're certainly on the right track.

btw, if you decide force this through and not to make the default action of AutoLink to be disabled unless the webmaster expressly and explicitly enables it for his/her, expect to get sued. I'll be at the front of the line waving to you most likely.

Unless you want to pay me for my traffic, at the price I set for it that is. ;-)